Final ReportSummary - ELEVATE (Integrating Pedagogically-Documented, Value-Added E-Training Add-Ons in Commercial Software Products of European Software SMEs)
The ELEVATE project aims to leverage the quality of the existing application software products of the European software SMEs and their respective application software training services, by acquiring e-learning, interoperability and pedagogical know-how and innovative technologies from R&D performers, so as to provide their clients, their business partners and individuals (i.e. professionals and application software end-users) with a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment adjustable to each application software for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
ELEVATE proposes a hybrid training and certification environment, which integrates the application software to be taught in the pedagogical-documented educational process, allowing the software development SMEs to deliver innovative e-training services and to address the needs of their business partners and customers. Finally, the ELEVATE system supports the continuous monitoring of trainee, so as to follow-up his day-by-day progress and identify potential competencies and learning gaps, enabling training whenever it is needed.
The project has a three-fold focus that has been achieved throughout the research and innovation related activities:
Objective I: To interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Objective II: To validate and evaluate the research results by developing proof-of-concept SMEs-specific prototypes, demonstrating the innovative ELEVATE pedagogic approach and educational and certification environment in the training procedure of the application software products of the participating software SMEs.
Objective III: To facilitate the take-up of the ELEVATE research results by the software development SMEs.
Project context and objectives:
Training in application software tools and systems has gained from the outset a central position in e-learning activities, particularly in the corporate world, as the software development SMEs who developed these innovative technology applications were the first to realise the use of e-learning and e-training for covering educational needs in their field. Nevertheless, this rather long history in application software training and e-learning has not been fruitful enough, as it has not been accompanied by a corresponding lead at the level of pedagogic quality of this training. What is essentially absent - as the software development SMEs are not capable of providing - from current application software training and e-learning, is the explicit selection of educational approaches which treat the application-to-be-learned as a tool for everyday use, for the learning of which, as has always been the case with human tools, the trainee should sit at the feet of an experienced user of the tool, having the opportunity as an apprentice not just to observe, but mainly to try, interact and participate.
The ELEVATE project aims to leverage the quality of the existing application software products of the European software SMEs and their respective application software training services, by acquiring e-learning, interoperability and pedagogical know-how and innovative technologies from R&D performers, so as to provide their clients, their business partners and individuals (i.e. professionals and application software end-users) with a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment adjustable to each application software for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
In order for the consortium to come up with the above mentioned vision, the ELEVATE project has a three-fold focus that has been achieved throughout the research and innovation related activities:
Objective I: To interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Objective II: To validate and evaluate the research results by developing proof-of-concept SMEs-specific prototypes, demonstrating the innovative ELEVATE pedagogic approach and educational and certification environment in the training procedure of the application software products of the participating software SMEs.
Objective III: To facilitate the take-up of the ELEVATE research results by the software development SMEs.
The ELEVATE project proposes a hybrid training and certification environment, which integrates the application software to be taught in the pedagogical-documented educational process, allowing the software development SMEs to deliver innovative e-training services and to address the needs of their business partners and customers. Finally, the ELEVATE system supports the continuous monitoring of trainee, so as to follow-up his day-by-day progress and identify potential competencies and learning gaps, enabling training whenever it is needed.
The research and technological objectives that have been accomplished during the lifecycle of the 24-month ELEVATE project are summarised in the following list:
- collection, review, comparative analysis and evaluation of the state-of-the-art technologies and best practices in the area of educational methodologies and pedagogic models, synchronous and asynchronous e-learning tools and technologies, and systems interoperability;
- identification, capturing, analysis and homogenisation of the end-user's requirements derived from the current training needs in the application software products, through a set of well- organised and structured interviews with the participating software SMEs' personnel;
- definition and documentation of an innovative pedagogic approach that will utilise synchronous and asynchronous assisting and training tools aiming to provide effective, personalised training and educational services in application software products;
- in-detail design and specification test of the three main software components comprising the ELEVATE educational environment, i.e. the interactive interoperability layer, the intelligent personalisation trainer and the training, evaluation and certification subsystem, which allows the capturing and the on-demand regeneration of the end-user's interaction and behaviour with a web-based application software product;
- organisation and delivery of an academic workshop targeted at presenting the project's technologies and intermediate results outside the scope of the ELEVATE consortium and project reviewers;
- organisation and provision of internal training during the early stages of project towards the consortium's SME participants;
- creation and development of e-learning content and material for each one of the pre-selected application software products of the SMEs-specific prototypes, based on the pedagogic models developed and adopted in the project;
- integration of the innovative ELEVATE educational and training environment with pre-selected application software products of the participating SMEs in order to create SMEs-specific prototypes;
- evaluation of the performance of the developed SMEs prototypes with regard to the training in the pre-selected application software products of the participating software SMEs, and identification and documentation the lessons learnt by this preparatory, pre-productive deployment of the ELEVATE research results;
- specification of the formal adoption guidelines for the successful integration and effective deployment of the ELEVATE educational environment in application software products addressing real-life scenarios;
- definition of a viable exploitation model taking into account the end-users' requirements and the relative intellectual property rights that are compliant with the collective interest of the participating software SMEs and the individual contribution of each partner to the project resources;
- organisation and delivery of a business workshop targeted at presenting the project's technologies and intermediate results outside the scope of the ELEVATE consortium and project reviewers;
- organisation and provision of internal training during the early stages of project towards the consortium's SME participants.
Within the scope of the ELEVATE project the following results have been achieved:
1. an innovative ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment that integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee;
2. the ELEVATE pedagogical approach that utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic methodology in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills within a unique learning environment;
3. three sets of e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) that are materialising the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach;
4. three ELEVATE SMEs prototypes that have successfully validated the concepts and tools of the ELEVATE solution, regarding the integration and the effectiveness of the ELEVATE educational environment with three pre-selected application software products.
In addition, the project has delivered non-technical results, including the ELEVATE adoption methodology, based on lessons learnt during the validation phase and the ELEVATE special interest group (SIG) including enterprises from the European software industry and their business partner networks.
From the technical perspective, the ELEVATE RTD performers have specified, developed and tested:
- the interactive interoperability layer (IIL) that allows the capturing and the on-demand regeneration of the end-user's interaction and behaviour graphs, which models the user's interaction with a web-based software application;
- the training evaluation and certification (TEC) subsystem that constitutes a design-time authoring tool, for the manual creation and update of a) the competencies and declarative knowledge graph of each main release of the selected software products, b) the learning and practice objects documentation, and c) the trainee profile; and
- the intelligent personalisation trainer (IPT) constituting a back-end component that includes: a) assessing of the performance of the trainee in a given exercise, b) evaluation of the overall performance of the trainee, c) personalised competences gap analysis (based on the student profile, the training goal and the competence graph of the application software), d) creation and update the training activities plan (providing the sequence of the passive and active learning object that the trainee should go through), and e) update the trainee profile.
Finally, the ELEVATE consortium has integrated the above mentioned software components, i.e. the interactive interoperability layer, the intelligent personalisation trainer and the training, evaluation and certification subsystem, into the holistic ELEVATE educational environment.
With regard to the development of the SME-specific prototypes, the ELEVATE RTD performers have proceeded with:
- the design and the documentation of the competences and declarative knowledge graphs representing the preselected application software products of the participating SMEs;
- the creation of a set of e-training material and e-learning objects for each one of the software products to be piloted, based on the pedagogic model defined by the consortium;
- the identification of a significant number of feasible and realistic training sessions to be executed in the frame of the pilot operation of the SME-specific prototypes, focusing in the applicability of the project results in pragmatic software training scenarios;
- the definition, development and operation of the SMEs-specific prototypes that constitute the integration of the ELEVATE educational environment and the pre-selected application software to be taught;
- the support of the execution of the predefined pilot training sessions, as well as the testing and monitoring the performance of the SMEs-specific prototypes;
- the definition of the SMEs prototypes' performance evaluation strategy;
- the collection of feedback from the trainees while experiencing the ELEVATE environment;
- the assessment of the prototypes' performance, through the analysis of trainees' feedback, and the generation of the lessons learnt and the methodological adoption guidelines.
Project results:
The purpose of the ELEVATE project was the design and development of a pedagogically-documented educational environment that will interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure. This environment provides real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning synchronous and asynchronous capabilities in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. The combination of synchronous and asynchronous e-learning and hands-on training in application software products in conjunction with sophisticated educational approaches and pedagogic models have the potentials to introduce a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment. This environment will be adjustable to each software product for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
The ELEVATE system contributes at a pedagogical level in the following ways:
- It improves the quality of the provided e-learning services.
- It enables the trainee to become a real user of the application software product taught in realistic usage scenarios.
- It enables the simple application user to turn instantly into a trainee.
- It offers mature conditions of apprenticeship development, even with the natural and electronic absence of an experienced application user.
- It offers new and innovative potentials for e-learning content creation and maintenance.
- It adopts a widely known and accepted framework concerning the monitoring and the evaluation of the e-learning procedure, supporting an automated process regarding the certification of competencies on specific application software products.
The ELEVATE system constitutes an innovative bridge that represents the critical, added-value module that develops an integrated virtual asynchronous e-learning environment prototype, specialised in the training and acquisition of application software competencies. In particular, the ELEVATE environment comprises of three components:
1. the interactive interoperability layer (IIL)
2. the intelligent personalisation trainer (IPT)
3. the training, evaluation and certification (TEC).
A brief description of each component follows in the next paragraphs.
The IIL develops the technical preconditions required in order the trainee to be able to use and interact, for training purposes, with the application software to be taught instead of using an inflexible and inadequate simulation environment. The IIL facilitates the context-sensitive access of the trainee to the components and the functionality of the application software being taught, regarding the learning and training level of the trainee.
The IPT, constituting one of the most innovative modules of the overall proposed solution, defines each end-user's access rights to several training areas of the e-learning environment depending on his/her competencies level. This IPT module combined with the IIL ensures intelligent access to the digital learning content, to the appropriate step of the training process and to the suitable components of the application software to be taught. This functionality is provided by bi-directional links and interfaces among the e-learning training and evaluation modules of the e-learning platform and the structural components of the application software.
Finally, the primary objective of the TEC subsystem is the support of pedagogic activities regarding the knowledge and competencies evaluation. The TEC subsystem is a typical system for automatic evaluation including tools for creating queries of several types (e.g. multiple choice exercises), tools for composing tests, an organised exercises repository, test and exercises interfaces, and mechanisms for automated performance assessment.
IIL
As already described in the previous chapter, one of the key concepts of the ELEVATE system is to interactively integrate arbitrary application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure. For this reason, the ELEVATE environment utilises Internet technologies to provide end-users with efficient access using a common web browser and comprises the characteristics of a typical learning management which is familiar to him/her. It is the responsibility of the IIL to develop the technical preconditions required in order the trainee to be able to use and interact with the application software to be taught, taking into account the requirements mentioned above.
It is clear that the IIL has a very significant role in the ELEVATE architecture for the following reasons:
- It provides the appropriate interfaces in order the end-user to be able to interact with the application software to be taught. In the case of the trainer that means that he has the appropriate tools in order to create e-learning scenarios by interacting directly with the application software and not by creating a simulation. For the case of the trainee is able to be trained on the actual software.
- The IIL can be also conceived as a middleware between the various other subsystems of the ELEVATE system. This means that all the sub-components interact with it, either to request information from another sub-module or to execute certain tasks defined in the workflow of the ELEVATE system. This reason will become clearer when we will describe the various interfaces between the IIL and the rest of the system.
The IIL provides the appropriate tools for the creation and reproduction of e-training scenarios for the software to be taught. It communicates with the Intelligent IPT sub-module, with the training and certification subsystem and finally with the Elevate database and repositories layer of the system, providing various interfaces for executing tasks defined in the ELEVATE workflow.
The IIL provides functionality for recording e-training scenarios by capturing the interactions between the end-user and the actual application to be taught. This functionality is triggered by the training and certification subsystem through an appropriate interface provided by the IIL. This interface exposes to the TEC subsystem the necessary functionality in order for an end-user (in this case the trainer) to effective capture a sequence of interaction between him and an arbitrary web application. This functionality includes actions like starting the process of capturing, pausing and finishing the capturing. Another crucial responsibility of the IIL is the reproduction of the e-training scenarios. This functionality is triggered by TEC sub-module of the ELEVATE system. The TEC sub-system requests from the IIL the reproduction of a specific e-training scenario by using the interfaces provided by the later. Another important functionality that the IIL implements for the Elevate system is the annotation of the e-training scenarios. As we will describe in more detail in later chapters, an important part of the design process of the IIL is the definition of the set of extensibility elements regarding the e-training scenarios. These extensibility elements will enrich the already capturing e-training scenarios with valuable metadata information that will provide the necessary pedagogical value to them. Although the annotation sub-module of the IIL implements a very important functionality of the system, it is separate from the rest of the sub-modules mainly because it operates independently from them. Finally, the IIL communicates with the storage layer of the ELEVATE system. In most cases when another sub-module require the retrieval of data (e.g. an e-training scenario), this happens through the IIL sub-module and by using the interfaces the ELEVATE repositories and databases layer provides to it.
Another important part of the IIL's design process is the definition of the language used for representing the e-training scenarios in a machine understandable way. The ELEVATE system will support any application software that will be implemented as web application. For this reason part of the IIL's design process is the definition of a language with the appropriate expressivity, both syntactic and semantic, that will support the modelling of the interactions between the end-user and an arbitrary web application. This sequence of interactions together with the annotations made by a trainer constitutes the e-learning scenario object that the ELEVATE system will have to store and manipulate through the various sub-systems. For this reason, the design process of this language is very important.
The internal architecture of the IIL consists of various sub-modules that implement the functionalities briefly described in the previous chapter. Another part of the IIL's architectural design is the definition of the language that will describe and represent the e-learning scenario objects. The sub-modules that constitute the IIL are the following:
- the graph creation sub-module;
- the demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module;
- the graph annotation sub-module.
The graph creation sub-module is responsible for creating the e-training scenario graph objects. This sub-module, when triggered by the TEC sub-system, it will start capturing the sequence of interactions between the end-user and the web application. It supports a set of functionalities for making the whole capturing process more efficient, like pausing and resuming of the capturing. It will also provide a visual and interactive representation of the work done so far to the end-user. From this visual representation, the trainer will be able to edit the sequence of interactions; also functionalities like the deletion of a step in the recording process will be supported. Internally, the graph creation sub-module will store temporally the sequence of interactions using the language defined for the e-learning scenario objects. Finally, through an appropriate interface with the ELEVATE graph repository it will be able to store and retrieve any e-learning scenario objects requested by the TEC sub-system.
The demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module is responsible for retrieving an e-training scenario serialised in the language defined by the ELEVATE system, from the ELEVATE graph repository and reproduce the behaviour described by that graph object on the corresponsive web application. The IPT sub-system triggers the demonstration of an e-training scenario by calling the appropriate method from the interface provided by the IIL. The demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module retrieves the graph object from the graph repository, parses the serialised form of the e-training scenario and reproduces the interactions depicted by it on the web application. The reproduction must happen in a physical way for the user to be able to understand the procedure modelled by the e-training scenario. For this reason, the sub-module must support functionalities like the realistic animation of the mouse pointer and the triggering of the appropriate events on the actual web-application.
The graph annotation sub-module is responsible for the annotation of the e-training scenarios represented as graph objects with various metadata. Although the language defined by the ELEVATE system is sufficient for modelling the sequence of interactions between a user and a web application, the actual pedagogical value is added by annotating the graph with information in the form of metadata that will help the trainee in the training process. The sub-module is triggered by the TEC sub-system through an interface provided by the IIL. The user is presented with a graphical user interface where he can choose to browse the ELEVATE graph repository and retrieve a specific graph object for annotation. The graph annotation sub-module uses a graphical and interactive representation of the graph object in order for the user to interact with it and add any metadata he wishes. Finally, the sub-module is responsible for validating the metadata created by the end-user and creates appropriate messages to inform him for any errors that might have been detected so far.
IPT
The IPT is an intelligent module that provides a closed-loop process in order to fill trainee performance and development gaps with targeted learning activities. It ensures personalised access to:
- the most suitable e-learning content; and
- the most appropriate educational process
according to:
- each trainee's preferences and competencies level;
- each trainee's continuous assessment.
The IPT will be implemented as a knowledge-based expert system able to emulate the behaviour of one or more human experts. It will be based on an inference engine that uses input data and facts, and implements the reasoning of the system according to its knowledge base (production rules). For a given training goal (competency) on the knowledge domain of an application and a given trainee, the IPT provides the following:
1. Training plan creation. The system examines competency pre-requisites and the trainee profile, and identifies possible missing competencies (subgoals). For a given competency (goal / subgoal), it then selects a set of appropriate learning objects (passive and interactive) in order to assist the trainee in acquiring the competency.
2. Performance assessment. The system evaluates the learning results, and updates the trainee status in case of success, or modifies its training strategy in case of failure.
The IPT will conveniently expose its functionalities through a web service based on the XML, SOAP and WSDL standards. The IPT web service will support the following operations:
1. CreateTrainingPlan, creates a personalised training plan for a specific ELEVATE trainee;
2. UpdateTrainingPlan, evaluates the performance of a specific ELEVATE trainee and updates accordingly his profile.
Training, evaluation and certification subsystem (TEC)
The TEC subsystem component is a graphical authoring tool, intended to be used by the domain experts and/or trainers and allows the construction and maintenance of the artifacts, which the training procedure is based upon.
It is essential to mention that the TEC subsystem's functionalities derive from the ELEVATE pedagogical approach. Therefore, it serves as the main tool for authoring the training-specific material and artifacts necessary to facilitate the implementation of this pedagogy. The TEC functionality consists of the following elements:
- Competency graph management: Domain knowledge in the ELEVATE project is represented as a graph of dependencies between knowledge topics. This functionality of the TEC component allows the domain expert to build the knowledge structure of the application to be taught by defining knowledge topics and dependencies between them.
- Learning objects snnotation: This functionality of the TEC component allows the domain expert to relate each of the learning object to a specific knowledge topic or competency and define the learning approach it adopts.
- Trainee profiles initialisation: By modifying the trainee profile, the trainer can manually define the topics already covered by the trainees and store their domain knowledge state.
- Certification examinations generation: This functionality allows the expert (i.e. the trainer) to specify and manage the certifications of the trainee's knowledge domain of the software being taught.
In the following, we will elaborate on each of the aforementioned functionality categories.
Competency graph management
The competency graph is the main artifact of the ELEVATE pedagogic approach. It is a network of interdependent knowledge topics of the knowledge domain to be taught. This graph enables the effective implementation of the competency based training approach. It depicts the structure of dependencies among the competencies involved in the training of the taught software. This structure of dependencies is what is referred to as a competency graph.
The competency graph includes the following knowledge types:
- Competency is defined as a set of personal characteristics (e.g. skills, knowledge, attitudes) that an individual possesses or needs to acquire in order to perform an activity within a specific context. It can be considered a superset which encompasses and combines conceptual and procedural knowledge. For example, within the context of mathematics the ability to solve differential equations is considered a competency.
- Conceptual knowledge: This type of knowledge refers to the theoretical aspects of a knowledge domain. For example, within the context CRM software sales the conceptual knowledge of utilisation of CRM systems for marketing purposes suggests the knowledge of the functionalities it could offer.
- Procedural knowledge: This type of knowledge refers to the practical aspects of a knowledge domain. For example, within the context of CRM software sales the ability to present a certain functionality of the product to the customer.
The competency graph is constructed by the domain expert (i.e. the trainer) each time a new major version of the software to be taught is released or its functionality has been greatly altered. The nodes of the competency graph represent steps in the knowledge acquisition training process. Each of these nodes can represent either procedural or conceptual knowledge, or both. Depending on the represented knowledge type, each of the nodes has a set of learning objects associated with it.
The selection and associations of the learning objects are performed by a domain expert (i.e. the trainer). The accurate specification of the dependencies among the nodes is of significant importance, since the graph is the main component involved in the competence gap identification. For this reason, the training, evaluation and certification subsystem provides a user friendly environment for management of the competency graphs, the contained competencies and the dependencies between them.
However, the different knowledge types in the domain are processed homogeneously by the ELEVATE system. At the lowest level, the runtime processing and traversal of the graph ignores the type of knowledge represented in each of the nodes and takes into account only the prerequisites of the target node set as a training goal.
The purpose of distinguishing knowledge types is served at a higher level. In order to define a more efficient competency graph and organise the educational material for the trainees in a cohesive manner, the trainer utilises this categorisation of knowledge. Furthermore, the process of associating learning objects with knowledge types is simplified and accommodated through this distinction. For the purpose of abstraction and generality, in the remaining of this deliverable we will refer to the nodes of the graph as competencies.
Learning object annotation
The ELEVATE project makes extensive use of learning objects as training material presented to the trainee throughout the learning procedure. A learning object can contain information about various competencies of the knowledge domain and can be associated with more than one competency in the competency graph.
Therefore, each learning object is accompanied by meta-information containing its associations with the nodes in the competency graph. This annotation is used during the execution of the system when the most suitable learning object for teaching a certain knowledge topic to a specific individual is to be selected based on the reasoning techniques implemented by the IPT component.
The learning objects, as used by the ELEVATE project are distinguished into certain categories based on the offered degree of interaction:
- Passive: The learning objects are presented to the trainee in the form of a lecture, without any kind of interaction between the trainee and the system (e.g. text manuals, video tutorials etc.).
- Interactive: These learning objects are constructed for the purpose of interaction of the training system with the trainee, usually in order to diagnose the knowledge state of the trainee.
Moreover, the category of interactive learning objects is separated further, into two categories:
- Traditional: The traditional interactive learning objects include quiz-like exercises. There are several types of such exercises such as: multiple choice, true-false, short answer, matching, essay etc.
- Hands-On: The hands-on exercises are of a more practical nature. The trainee is requested to complete problem-solving tasks, scenarios and functionality presentations.
The passive learning objects are used for the provision of knowledge to the trainee of the system and may use various approaches. These approaches could, for example, be:
- implicitly through an analogy;
- implicitly through an example;
- explicit through a definition.
The TEC subsystem provides the functionality, which is necessary to enrich the overall ELEVATE system with the various types of learning objects. This enrichment includes the annotation of the material provided with the above mentioned properties and enabling the high level personalisation of the training procedure.
Trainee profile initialisation
In order to achieve a high level of personalisation, the ELEVATE system stores the history of past activities for each of the trainees. In this way, the ELEVATE approach to personalising the training, aspires to deduce the most appropriate pedagogic approach for each of the individuals and achieve the construction of the optimum training procedure for them. Therefore, the trainee profile contains specific information on the training procedure (i.e. covered competencies, test scores, learning objects viewed or executed etc.).
The trainee profile is considered an integral part of the personalised pedagogic approach of the ELEVATE e-training system. By storing, maintaining and utilising trainee profiles, the learning path can be adapted automatically (i.e. by the IPT) or manually (i.e. by the trainer) to specific individualised needs.
The information contained in a trainee profile can be divided into two categories. The first category contains the competencies the competency graph registered in the system, which are considered to be acquired by the specific trainee. The second category can be considered as an activity log, recording the training activities' historic data of the trainee.
Both these information types are used by the IPT component in order to achieve a high level of personalisation. The TEC subsystem is involved only with the fist type (i.e. the trainee's competency profile). It enables the initialisation of the trainee profile, by specifying the competencies already acquired by the trainee before his/her training session in the ELEVATE e-training environment begins. This way the system is aware of the trainee's knowledge state right from the beginning of each training session.
Certification examinations generation
After considering the consequences of the lack of certification assessment in most of the vocational e-learning systems, the ELEVATE project introduces an infrastructure that enables the certification of the trainee's knowledge. The system allows the specification of a variety of certification types in the system, contextualised to the role of the trainee regarding the knowledge domain. For example, in the context of a CRM software knowledge we could have three types of certifications based on the roles of the certified person: sales expert, certified consultant and certified developer. Moreover, in order to promote the portability of the knowledge obtained through the pedagogic methodology adopted by the ELEVATE project, the system allows the specification of the competency name for each of the certification types. Upon the successful completion of the certification, a trainee's e-portfolio is updated and the competency gained is added.
The TEC subsystem offers the authoring environment that allows the management of the above mentioned certification artifacts. The domain expert can specify the certification types for the training knowledge domain, correlate these certifications with e-portfolio competencies and assign the tests that comprise them.
Potential impact:
The ELEVATE project supports the integration of advanced, value-added e-training capabilities, which are based on widely-accepted pedagogic models, into commercial off-the-shelf software products and solutions, embedding the software to be taught into the pedagogical-documented educational procedure. Thus, the ELEVATE environment facilitates the acquisition of technological skills and competencies in the application software taught, transferring innovative know-how to the e-training process. In particular,
- At the technological level, the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment enables the complete, interactive integration of the e-learning platforms and tools, utilised for both synchronous and asynchronous e-learning services, with pre-selected software applications products, which constitutes the educational subject, and is supplemented by innovative assisting and training tools, aiming to provide personalised training and educational services.
- At the pedagogical level, the pedagogical-documented ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment improves the quality of the provided professional e-training services, enables the trainee to become a real end-user of the application software product taught in pragmatic usage scenarios, facilitates the simple application end-user to turn instantly into a trainee, offers mature conditions of apprenticeship development, even with the natural and electronic absence of an experienced application user (or trainer), offers new potentials for interactive e-learning content aggregation, dynamic creation and maintenance, and adopts a widely known and accepted frameworks concerning the monitoring and the evaluation of the e-learning procedure, supporting an automated process regarding the certification of competencies on specific application software products.
- At the socio-economic level, the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment supports the penetration and the predominance of the lifelong learning model in the modern globalised and knowledge-based e-economy, being facilitated by e-learning innovative solutions and platforms; and the continuous acquisition of updated competencies and skills regarding the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), having a significant impact to the individual (e.g. the end-user, the professional and the business consultant), the working environment (e.g. the enterprise and/or the organisation), and to the society as a whole. The pedagogically documented ELEVATE approach utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic models in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills a unique learning environment.
The ELEVATE Environment proposes the 'learning by doing' approach in the training in application software, as it facilitates the integration of the software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. Thus, the trainee uses and interacts with application software to be taught under real life conditions, instead of practicing in a simple simulation environment.
Training in application software tools and systems has gained from the outset a central position in e-learning activities, particularly in the corporate world, as the software development SMEs who developed these innovative technology applications were the first to realise the use of e-learning and e-training for covering educational needs in their field. Nevertheless, this rather long history in application software training and e-learning has not been fruitful enough, as it has not been accompanied by a corresponding lead at the level of pedagogic quality of this training. What is essentially absent - as the software development SMEs are not capable of providing - from current application software training and e-learning, is the explicit selection of educational approaches which treat the application-to-be-learned as a tool for everyday use, for the learning of which, as has always been the case with human tools, the trainee should sit at the feet of an experienced user of the tool, having the opportunity as an apprentice not just to observe, but mainly to try, interact and participate.
More specifically, the implementation of the application software training is currently based on the simple demonstration of the application to be taught, and on the descriptive analytical presentation of the functionalities of the software application, or on the interaction with a simulation application of the application software to be taught giving the end-user a limited feeling of how the application is used in real life conditions. Besides this weakness, another result is that the learning content integrated with current e-learning systems is costly and static, and, in case of IT software upgrade should be redesigned and recreated.
E-learning and e-training in application software in conjunction with sophisticated educational approaches and pedagogic models have the potentials to become the locomotives in driving growth and creating more and better jobs in Europe. Towards this direction, the ELEVATE project aspires to introduce a highly innovative combination of services aiming to enable enterprises and organisations to drive productivity through learning content management, knowledge sharing, assessment, rapid authoring, and performance support. The vision of the ELEVATE project is to leverage the quality of the existing application software products of the software SMEs and their respective application software training services, by acquiring e-learning, interoperability and pedagogical know-how from R&D performers, and by providing their clients, their business partners and individuals (i.e. professionals and application software users) with a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment adjustable to each application software for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
The ELEVATE exploitable assets
This section undertakes the identification of the ELEVATE exploitable assets, i.e. 'the project results'. The aim of this section is to make an updated decomposition of the overall ELEVATE system / solution in an attempt to analyze what are the individual exploitable assets (results) of the project so as to be able to assess their exploitability. The rationale behind this decomposition is to cover for the possibility that a specific component or part of the overall ELEVATE solution becomes the most exploitable ELEVATE asset depending on the market needs and the product quality. Starting from the big picture and the overall solution, we have defined each of the main products or parts that compose the solution, outlining their key features and showing the benefits gained by the use of the system as a whole.
This chapter is closely related to the technical deliverables and functioned as the bridge between the technological field and the business field. In the course of the project, it received feedback from the technical WPs as the work progressed, while, on the other hand, it provided input from the market about the business needs and perspectives into the technical development helping to define what the exact technological goals of the system and the components should be.
Asset #1 - ELEVATE holistic environment
The first ELEVATE exploitable asset is the innovative ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment that integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. Thus, the trainee uses and interacts with application software to be taught under real life conditions, while apprenticeship is being developed even with the absence of an experienced instructor.
Why this is an asset?
- This is the overall holistic environment which integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure and comprises of all the sub-components of the project. It encompasses all the intelligence aspired and is the main asset of the project.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure.
- It provides real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement.
- It facilitates efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Not applicable, since the ELEVATE integrated environment constitutes by itself a holistic exploitable solution.
Asset #2 - ELEVATE pedagogical approach
The ELEVATE pedagogical approach utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic methodology in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills within a unique learning environment.
Why this is an asset?
- The ELEVATE pedagogical approach may provide a valuable theoretical background which will constitute the basis for the ever-aspired personalisation of e-learning and e-training, tailoring the pedagogical content and procedure according to the needs and potential of the individual trainee.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It facilitates the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills.
- It facilitates personalisation of e-learning and e-training, tailoring the pedagogical content and procedure according to the needs and potential of the individual trainee.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, the ELEVATE pedagogical approach can be exploited independently for the conceptualisation, design and/or provision of personalised training services.
Asset #3 - ELEVATE e-learning and e-training material
For the demonstration of the SME-specific prototypes that were developed in the project, three sets of e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) were designed and developed, so as to materialise the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach.
Why this is an asset?
- The e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) materialise the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- Along with the SME-specific demonstrators, it constitutes a holistic solution for the participating SMEs. Namely, each of the SME partners involved in the project have both the environment with which their employees / business partners / other end users will interact, as well as the concrete content and procedure through which they will be trained on the use of the specific software.
- It forms the basis for the creation of e-learning and e-training material for other application software products.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- The sets of e-learning and e-training material are 'binded' with the corresponding application software products of the SMEs. In this sense, they cannot be exploited independently. However, they can form the basis for the creation of e-learning and e-training material for other application software products.
Asset #4 - ELEVATE SME-specific prototypes
Asset #4 4 comprises of the three ELEVATE SMEs prototypes that prove and validate the concepts and tools of the ELEVATE solution, regarding the integration and the effectiveness of the ELEVATE educational environment with three different application software products manufactured by the participating software development SMEs.
Why this is an asset?
- It constitutes the materialisation of the ELEVATE aspirations, the transformation of the theoretical approaches into tangible results.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- Along with the SME-specific e-learning and e-training material, it constitutes a holistic solution for the participating SMEs. Namely, each of the SME partners involved in the project will attain the holistic environment of the specific software with which their employees / business partners / other end users will interact and be trained on.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, each of the prototypes will be exploited individually by the corresponding SME participants.
Asset #5 - ELEVATE environment adoption methodology
The ELEVATE environment adoption methodology includes and documents the preparatory steps required for the integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products and the final productive deployment in real-world cases, based on the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development and the performance of the SMEs-specific prototypes and the pilot training sessions.
Why this is an asset?
- The adoption methodology documents the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development, and thus it facilitates the smooth integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system, either with other application software products of the participating SMEs, or with application software products of external end-users and interested parties.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It documents the preparatory steps required for the integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products.
- It documents the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development for the avoidance of similar errors and thus result in the consumption of less time and less engineering effort for the debugging of the integration process.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, the ELEVATE environment adoption methodology can be exploited independently for the smooth integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products other than the SME-specific prototypes that were developed and show-cased within the project lifecycle.
The homogenised ELEVATE exploitation plan
The next bulleted list presents the homogenised view of the ELEVATE consortium partners' individual exploitation plans, illustrating how the five exploitation assets that have been identified above aim to be exploited by the partners.
More specifically:
1. The three participating SMEs (CAS, E2S, ITL) aim to exploit the SME-specific demonstrators towards the commercial axis.
2. As regards the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment:
a. The three participating SMEs (CAS, E2S, ITL) aim to both commercially exploit it, as well as capitalise on the knowledge gained to exploit it towards the technological and the know-how axes.
b. The three participating RTD performers (Enocta, NV, SingularLogic), since they do not have the IPR required for commercial exploitation of the result, aim to capitalise on the knowledge gained to exploit it towards the technological and the know-how axes. Even more specifically, each RTD performer will try to capitalise on the knowledge gained from the deployment of the specific modules they are assigned, as well as from the integration activities.
3. As regards the pedagogically documented ELEVATE approach:
a. CAS, ITL and OKAN aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
b. ENOCTA and SEERC aspire to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axis.
4. As regards the ELEVATE e-learning and e-training material developed:
a. CAS aspires to exploit it towards both the commercial and the technological axes.
b. E2S aspires to exploit it towards the technological axis.
c. ITL and OKAN aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
d. ENOCTA aspires to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axes.
5. As regards the ELEVATE adoption methodology:
a. CAS and ITL aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
b. Enocta and SEERC aspire to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axes.
Dissemination measures
ELEVATE project consortium has conducted various activities in dissemination field as this has been one of the key areas for recognition and absorption of the project results and innovations. The project has various innovative facets to be disseminated. These include the conceptual paradigm that ELEVATE provides, namely that:
- in the highly competitive industry of software products a modest company with limited resources can generate its own e-learning training content and materials using the IIL tools and IPT environment with little help or by itself;
- systems analysis of the software product that is to be the object of the learning content is to be conducted through certain steps including a knowledge quantification technique based on a network representation of competences;
- various different methodologies of e-learning content or training material can be integrated within a general environment based on personalisation.
The above ELEVATE innovations and the general project developments have been disseminated, as explained in the Annex, through different channels. The dissemination channels so far been exploited until December 2009 or under planning include: face-to-face expert meetings and academic workshops, academic publications, general interest media presence, web presence, e-mail delivery and non-academic meetings targeted at potential customers or European SMEs.
We can categorise the dissemination activities in this project according to the communication or the channel characteristics:
- Meetings: conferences, workshops, special groups, symposia, etc. Workshops section of this category will be further detailed in D6.4_b.
- Publications: papers in academic peer reviewed journals, papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, articles in professional periodicals or magazines, articles in general purpose print press.
- Web presence: articles published online over general Web sites or the web sites managed by the consortium partners.
- Mail distribution: e-mail distribution, mass mailing, leaflets posted to partners, etc.
- Community management: special interest groups, online groups.
1. Meetings
European Commission FP7 ICT area projects have been during the last decade assembled and met in the eChallenges conferences. These conferences are held by the European Commission and take three days of meetings bringing together academics and experts from various universities and research institutes. During eChallenges 2009 held in Istanbul at the Marmara Hotel Convention Centre, ELEVATE project consortium held a separate workshop on 22 October 2009 afternoon with participation from European experts in e-learning and ICT under the title 'ELEVATE: A universal technology-enhanced learning platform for software industry'. In the workshop, many external experts contributed in ideas and discussed various matters regarding the project and its innovations. This meeting is further detailed in content and effects in the following sections of this report.
The ELEVATE project consortium also agreed upon in the Istanbul project meeting held on 19 October 2009 that there will be a large scale conference inviting potential adopters of the ELEVATE innovations and output. Because CAS is the largest of the partners with many value-added partners and customers Germany market was chosen as the central target and Karlsruhe as the venue. The Germany meeting was organised jointly by CAS and OKAN, and a special effort has been made to coincide it at the annual meeting of CAS with its partners and customers which attract several hundred participants so that the dissemination effect would be maximised. The details are discussed in the report D6.4_b.
In addition, the two workshops organised in 2009 and 2010 to two different communities, there have been participations by partners in other workshops, conferences and symposia where the developments in the ELEVATE project has been publicised.
CAS and SEERC have participated in the workshop 'Research supporting service innovation: A workshop for European SMEs', organised by the European Commission on 20 May 2010 in Brussels. A presentation on the project has been made to an estimated 40 participants.
The two partners took part in the PRO-VE 2009, 10th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, Thessaloniki, Greece, 7 to 9 October 2009, and presented the ELEVATE methodology.
SEERC also attended and presented the ELEVATE developments at the conferences:
- 4th Balkan Conference in Informatics (BCI2009)
- 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT2010) and
- Professional Training Facts 2010.
2. Publications
A list of papers published in peer reviewed media is included in the table later in this chapter. In addition, ELEVATE generated non-academic print-media coverage. In one of the Turkish innovations and technology management journals circulated by the prestigious Turkish Informatics Foundation that has approximately 20 thousand readership in the ICT and innovative technologies sector, 'Bilgi Çagi' (The Age of Information), one consortium partner, Enocta, was interviewed on ELEVATE project developments and expectations for the January issue of the magazine. CAS also issued an article in the German language periodic publication CAS@work, which is published by CAS and circulated 40 thousand copies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and regularly read by at least 100 000 readers. The article details are 'E-learning erkennt Lücken und serviert Wissen', CAS@work, No. 49, February 2010.
3. E-mail distribution
CAS, the project's coordinating partner distributed ELEVATE paradigm and ideas and developments to its large customer base in Germany and abroad twice in the past year. Each of these mass distributions reached 5000 partners and customers. Similarly, Enocta has circulated in Turkish language ELEVATE developments to its approximately 18 000 recipients of government and private sector companies. In addition, E2S also distributed the ELEVATE developments per e-mail to it's customer base.
4. Community management
ELEVATE project has prepared a general special interest group (SIG) action plan based on establishing a network of experts in the area of software product e-learning content discipline. Although initially this was conceived as an open platform implemented on an open free community management tool, in the project meeting in October 2009 it has been agreed that the community should be closed during the project's duration and be managed under the community management facilities offered under the existing ELEVATE website, only accessed by partners or selected outsiders. The outside third party members of the SIG community are to be offered by consortium partners with each partner offering a minimum five experts or participants. It was decided that the SIG community can later be made open when products and systems are completed and upon the common decision of the consortium membership.
As a result 30 experts from all partner countries were selected for an online forum that allowed sending of project documents and developments. The experts in the special interest group were informed and occasionally send back feedback. As the participants in the SIG are all experts with connections in various platforms, it is expected that the function of the SIG is not only deriving ideas but also a medium of dissemination as well. It is of course is not possible how precisely the dissemination effect of this medium as opposed to publications with known effects. The documents posted to the SIG were of non-restricted and non-confidential nature.
There has been other online community initiatives such as on the social networking platform Facebook with a specific ELEVATE project external community with 60 members that share views, public documents and publicity materials.
Project website:
http://www.elevate-project.eu
Spiros Alexakis
CAS Software AG
Wilhelm-Schickard-Str. 10-12
D-76131 Karlsruhe
http://www.cas.de
spiros.alexakis@cas.de
ELEVATE proposes a hybrid training and certification environment, which integrates the application software to be taught in the pedagogical-documented educational process, allowing the software development SMEs to deliver innovative e-training services and to address the needs of their business partners and customers. Finally, the ELEVATE system supports the continuous monitoring of trainee, so as to follow-up his day-by-day progress and identify potential competencies and learning gaps, enabling training whenever it is needed.
The project has a three-fold focus that has been achieved throughout the research and innovation related activities:
Objective I: To interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Objective II: To validate and evaluate the research results by developing proof-of-concept SMEs-specific prototypes, demonstrating the innovative ELEVATE pedagogic approach and educational and certification environment in the training procedure of the application software products of the participating software SMEs.
Objective III: To facilitate the take-up of the ELEVATE research results by the software development SMEs.
Project context and objectives:
Training in application software tools and systems has gained from the outset a central position in e-learning activities, particularly in the corporate world, as the software development SMEs who developed these innovative technology applications were the first to realise the use of e-learning and e-training for covering educational needs in their field. Nevertheless, this rather long history in application software training and e-learning has not been fruitful enough, as it has not been accompanied by a corresponding lead at the level of pedagogic quality of this training. What is essentially absent - as the software development SMEs are not capable of providing - from current application software training and e-learning, is the explicit selection of educational approaches which treat the application-to-be-learned as a tool for everyday use, for the learning of which, as has always been the case with human tools, the trainee should sit at the feet of an experienced user of the tool, having the opportunity as an apprentice not just to observe, but mainly to try, interact and participate.
The ELEVATE project aims to leverage the quality of the existing application software products of the European software SMEs and their respective application software training services, by acquiring e-learning, interoperability and pedagogical know-how and innovative technologies from R&D performers, so as to provide their clients, their business partners and individuals (i.e. professionals and application software end-users) with a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment adjustable to each application software for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
In order for the consortium to come up with the above mentioned vision, the ELEVATE project has a three-fold focus that has been achieved throughout the research and innovation related activities:
Objective I: To interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Objective II: To validate and evaluate the research results by developing proof-of-concept SMEs-specific prototypes, demonstrating the innovative ELEVATE pedagogic approach and educational and certification environment in the training procedure of the application software products of the participating software SMEs.
Objective III: To facilitate the take-up of the ELEVATE research results by the software development SMEs.
The ELEVATE project proposes a hybrid training and certification environment, which integrates the application software to be taught in the pedagogical-documented educational process, allowing the software development SMEs to deliver innovative e-training services and to address the needs of their business partners and customers. Finally, the ELEVATE system supports the continuous monitoring of trainee, so as to follow-up his day-by-day progress and identify potential competencies and learning gaps, enabling training whenever it is needed.
The research and technological objectives that have been accomplished during the lifecycle of the 24-month ELEVATE project are summarised in the following list:
- collection, review, comparative analysis and evaluation of the state-of-the-art technologies and best practices in the area of educational methodologies and pedagogic models, synchronous and asynchronous e-learning tools and technologies, and systems interoperability;
- identification, capturing, analysis and homogenisation of the end-user's requirements derived from the current training needs in the application software products, through a set of well- organised and structured interviews with the participating software SMEs' personnel;
- definition and documentation of an innovative pedagogic approach that will utilise synchronous and asynchronous assisting and training tools aiming to provide effective, personalised training and educational services in application software products;
- in-detail design and specification test of the three main software components comprising the ELEVATE educational environment, i.e. the interactive interoperability layer, the intelligent personalisation trainer and the training, evaluation and certification subsystem, which allows the capturing and the on-demand regeneration of the end-user's interaction and behaviour with a web-based application software product;
- organisation and delivery of an academic workshop targeted at presenting the project's technologies and intermediate results outside the scope of the ELEVATE consortium and project reviewers;
- organisation and provision of internal training during the early stages of project towards the consortium's SME participants;
- creation and development of e-learning content and material for each one of the pre-selected application software products of the SMEs-specific prototypes, based on the pedagogic models developed and adopted in the project;
- integration of the innovative ELEVATE educational and training environment with pre-selected application software products of the participating SMEs in order to create SMEs-specific prototypes;
- evaluation of the performance of the developed SMEs prototypes with regard to the training in the pre-selected application software products of the participating software SMEs, and identification and documentation the lessons learnt by this preparatory, pre-productive deployment of the ELEVATE research results;
- specification of the formal adoption guidelines for the successful integration and effective deployment of the ELEVATE educational environment in application software products addressing real-life scenarios;
- definition of a viable exploitation model taking into account the end-users' requirements and the relative intellectual property rights that are compliant with the collective interest of the participating software SMEs and the individual contribution of each partner to the project resources;
- organisation and delivery of a business workshop targeted at presenting the project's technologies and intermediate results outside the scope of the ELEVATE consortium and project reviewers;
- organisation and provision of internal training during the early stages of project towards the consortium's SME participants.
Within the scope of the ELEVATE project the following results have been achieved:
1. an innovative ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment that integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee;
2. the ELEVATE pedagogical approach that utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic methodology in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills within a unique learning environment;
3. three sets of e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) that are materialising the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach;
4. three ELEVATE SMEs prototypes that have successfully validated the concepts and tools of the ELEVATE solution, regarding the integration and the effectiveness of the ELEVATE educational environment with three pre-selected application software products.
In addition, the project has delivered non-technical results, including the ELEVATE adoption methodology, based on lessons learnt during the validation phase and the ELEVATE special interest group (SIG) including enterprises from the European software industry and their business partner networks.
From the technical perspective, the ELEVATE RTD performers have specified, developed and tested:
- the interactive interoperability layer (IIL) that allows the capturing and the on-demand regeneration of the end-user's interaction and behaviour graphs, which models the user's interaction with a web-based software application;
- the training evaluation and certification (TEC) subsystem that constitutes a design-time authoring tool, for the manual creation and update of a) the competencies and declarative knowledge graph of each main release of the selected software products, b) the learning and practice objects documentation, and c) the trainee profile; and
- the intelligent personalisation trainer (IPT) constituting a back-end component that includes: a) assessing of the performance of the trainee in a given exercise, b) evaluation of the overall performance of the trainee, c) personalised competences gap analysis (based on the student profile, the training goal and the competence graph of the application software), d) creation and update the training activities plan (providing the sequence of the passive and active learning object that the trainee should go through), and e) update the trainee profile.
Finally, the ELEVATE consortium has integrated the above mentioned software components, i.e. the interactive interoperability layer, the intelligent personalisation trainer and the training, evaluation and certification subsystem, into the holistic ELEVATE educational environment.
With regard to the development of the SME-specific prototypes, the ELEVATE RTD performers have proceeded with:
- the design and the documentation of the competences and declarative knowledge graphs representing the preselected application software products of the participating SMEs;
- the creation of a set of e-training material and e-learning objects for each one of the software products to be piloted, based on the pedagogic model defined by the consortium;
- the identification of a significant number of feasible and realistic training sessions to be executed in the frame of the pilot operation of the SME-specific prototypes, focusing in the applicability of the project results in pragmatic software training scenarios;
- the definition, development and operation of the SMEs-specific prototypes that constitute the integration of the ELEVATE educational environment and the pre-selected application software to be taught;
- the support of the execution of the predefined pilot training sessions, as well as the testing and monitoring the performance of the SMEs-specific prototypes;
- the definition of the SMEs prototypes' performance evaluation strategy;
- the collection of feedback from the trainees while experiencing the ELEVATE environment;
- the assessment of the prototypes' performance, through the analysis of trainees' feedback, and the generation of the lessons learnt and the methodological adoption guidelines.
Project results:
The purpose of the ELEVATE project was the design and development of a pedagogically-documented educational environment that will interactively integrate and fruitfully combine the application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure. This environment provides real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning synchronous and asynchronous capabilities in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. The combination of synchronous and asynchronous e-learning and hands-on training in application software products in conjunction with sophisticated educational approaches and pedagogic models have the potentials to introduce a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment. This environment will be adjustable to each software product for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
The ELEVATE system contributes at a pedagogical level in the following ways:
- It improves the quality of the provided e-learning services.
- It enables the trainee to become a real user of the application software product taught in realistic usage scenarios.
- It enables the simple application user to turn instantly into a trainee.
- It offers mature conditions of apprenticeship development, even with the natural and electronic absence of an experienced application user.
- It offers new and innovative potentials for e-learning content creation and maintenance.
- It adopts a widely known and accepted framework concerning the monitoring and the evaluation of the e-learning procedure, supporting an automated process regarding the certification of competencies on specific application software products.
The ELEVATE system constitutes an innovative bridge that represents the critical, added-value module that develops an integrated virtual asynchronous e-learning environment prototype, specialised in the training and acquisition of application software competencies. In particular, the ELEVATE environment comprises of three components:
1. the interactive interoperability layer (IIL)
2. the intelligent personalisation trainer (IPT)
3. the training, evaluation and certification (TEC).
A brief description of each component follows in the next paragraphs.
The IIL develops the technical preconditions required in order the trainee to be able to use and interact, for training purposes, with the application software to be taught instead of using an inflexible and inadequate simulation environment. The IIL facilitates the context-sensitive access of the trainee to the components and the functionality of the application software being taught, regarding the learning and training level of the trainee.
The IPT, constituting one of the most innovative modules of the overall proposed solution, defines each end-user's access rights to several training areas of the e-learning environment depending on his/her competencies level. This IPT module combined with the IIL ensures intelligent access to the digital learning content, to the appropriate step of the training process and to the suitable components of the application software to be taught. This functionality is provided by bi-directional links and interfaces among the e-learning training and evaluation modules of the e-learning platform and the structural components of the application software.
Finally, the primary objective of the TEC subsystem is the support of pedagogic activities regarding the knowledge and competencies evaluation. The TEC subsystem is a typical system for automatic evaluation including tools for creating queries of several types (e.g. multiple choice exercises), tools for composing tests, an organised exercises repository, test and exercises interfaces, and mechanisms for automated performance assessment.
IIL
As already described in the previous chapter, one of the key concepts of the ELEVATE system is to interactively integrate arbitrary application software to be taught with the personalised training and educational procedure. For this reason, the ELEVATE environment utilises Internet technologies to provide end-users with efficient access using a common web browser and comprises the characteristics of a typical learning management which is familiar to him/her. It is the responsibility of the IIL to develop the technical preconditions required in order the trainee to be able to use and interact with the application software to be taught, taking into account the requirements mentioned above.
It is clear that the IIL has a very significant role in the ELEVATE architecture for the following reasons:
- It provides the appropriate interfaces in order the end-user to be able to interact with the application software to be taught. In the case of the trainer that means that he has the appropriate tools in order to create e-learning scenarios by interacting directly with the application software and not by creating a simulation. For the case of the trainee is able to be trained on the actual software.
- The IIL can be also conceived as a middleware between the various other subsystems of the ELEVATE system. This means that all the sub-components interact with it, either to request information from another sub-module or to execute certain tasks defined in the workflow of the ELEVATE system. This reason will become clearer when we will describe the various interfaces between the IIL and the rest of the system.
The IIL provides the appropriate tools for the creation and reproduction of e-training scenarios for the software to be taught. It communicates with the Intelligent IPT sub-module, with the training and certification subsystem and finally with the Elevate database and repositories layer of the system, providing various interfaces for executing tasks defined in the ELEVATE workflow.
The IIL provides functionality for recording e-training scenarios by capturing the interactions between the end-user and the actual application to be taught. This functionality is triggered by the training and certification subsystem through an appropriate interface provided by the IIL. This interface exposes to the TEC subsystem the necessary functionality in order for an end-user (in this case the trainer) to effective capture a sequence of interaction between him and an arbitrary web application. This functionality includes actions like starting the process of capturing, pausing and finishing the capturing. Another crucial responsibility of the IIL is the reproduction of the e-training scenarios. This functionality is triggered by TEC sub-module of the ELEVATE system. The TEC sub-system requests from the IIL the reproduction of a specific e-training scenario by using the interfaces provided by the later. Another important functionality that the IIL implements for the Elevate system is the annotation of the e-training scenarios. As we will describe in more detail in later chapters, an important part of the design process of the IIL is the definition of the set of extensibility elements regarding the e-training scenarios. These extensibility elements will enrich the already capturing e-training scenarios with valuable metadata information that will provide the necessary pedagogical value to them. Although the annotation sub-module of the IIL implements a very important functionality of the system, it is separate from the rest of the sub-modules mainly because it operates independently from them. Finally, the IIL communicates with the storage layer of the ELEVATE system. In most cases when another sub-module require the retrieval of data (e.g. an e-training scenario), this happens through the IIL sub-module and by using the interfaces the ELEVATE repositories and databases layer provides to it.
Another important part of the IIL's design process is the definition of the language used for representing the e-training scenarios in a machine understandable way. The ELEVATE system will support any application software that will be implemented as web application. For this reason part of the IIL's design process is the definition of a language with the appropriate expressivity, both syntactic and semantic, that will support the modelling of the interactions between the end-user and an arbitrary web application. This sequence of interactions together with the annotations made by a trainer constitutes the e-learning scenario object that the ELEVATE system will have to store and manipulate through the various sub-systems. For this reason, the design process of this language is very important.
The internal architecture of the IIL consists of various sub-modules that implement the functionalities briefly described in the previous chapter. Another part of the IIL's architectural design is the definition of the language that will describe and represent the e-learning scenario objects. The sub-modules that constitute the IIL are the following:
- the graph creation sub-module;
- the demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module;
- the graph annotation sub-module.
The graph creation sub-module is responsible for creating the e-training scenario graph objects. This sub-module, when triggered by the TEC sub-system, it will start capturing the sequence of interactions between the end-user and the web application. It supports a set of functionalities for making the whole capturing process more efficient, like pausing and resuming of the capturing. It will also provide a visual and interactive representation of the work done so far to the end-user. From this visual representation, the trainer will be able to edit the sequence of interactions; also functionalities like the deletion of a step in the recording process will be supported. Internally, the graph creation sub-module will store temporally the sequence of interactions using the language defined for the e-learning scenario objects. Finally, through an appropriate interface with the ELEVATE graph repository it will be able to store and retrieve any e-learning scenario objects requested by the TEC sub-system.
The demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module is responsible for retrieving an e-training scenario serialised in the language defined by the ELEVATE system, from the ELEVATE graph repository and reproduce the behaviour described by that graph object on the corresponsive web application. The IPT sub-system triggers the demonstration of an e-training scenario by calling the appropriate method from the interface provided by the IIL. The demonstration of e-training scenarios sub-module retrieves the graph object from the graph repository, parses the serialised form of the e-training scenario and reproduces the interactions depicted by it on the web application. The reproduction must happen in a physical way for the user to be able to understand the procedure modelled by the e-training scenario. For this reason, the sub-module must support functionalities like the realistic animation of the mouse pointer and the triggering of the appropriate events on the actual web-application.
The graph annotation sub-module is responsible for the annotation of the e-training scenarios represented as graph objects with various metadata. Although the language defined by the ELEVATE system is sufficient for modelling the sequence of interactions between a user and a web application, the actual pedagogical value is added by annotating the graph with information in the form of metadata that will help the trainee in the training process. The sub-module is triggered by the TEC sub-system through an interface provided by the IIL. The user is presented with a graphical user interface where he can choose to browse the ELEVATE graph repository and retrieve a specific graph object for annotation. The graph annotation sub-module uses a graphical and interactive representation of the graph object in order for the user to interact with it and add any metadata he wishes. Finally, the sub-module is responsible for validating the metadata created by the end-user and creates appropriate messages to inform him for any errors that might have been detected so far.
IPT
The IPT is an intelligent module that provides a closed-loop process in order to fill trainee performance and development gaps with targeted learning activities. It ensures personalised access to:
- the most suitable e-learning content; and
- the most appropriate educational process
according to:
- each trainee's preferences and competencies level;
- each trainee's continuous assessment.
The IPT will be implemented as a knowledge-based expert system able to emulate the behaviour of one or more human experts. It will be based on an inference engine that uses input data and facts, and implements the reasoning of the system according to its knowledge base (production rules). For a given training goal (competency) on the knowledge domain of an application and a given trainee, the IPT provides the following:
1. Training plan creation. The system examines competency pre-requisites and the trainee profile, and identifies possible missing competencies (subgoals). For a given competency (goal / subgoal), it then selects a set of appropriate learning objects (passive and interactive) in order to assist the trainee in acquiring the competency.
2. Performance assessment. The system evaluates the learning results, and updates the trainee status in case of success, or modifies its training strategy in case of failure.
The IPT will conveniently expose its functionalities through a web service based on the XML, SOAP and WSDL standards. The IPT web service will support the following operations:
1. CreateTrainingPlan, creates a personalised training plan for a specific ELEVATE trainee;
2. UpdateTrainingPlan, evaluates the performance of a specific ELEVATE trainee and updates accordingly his profile.
Training, evaluation and certification subsystem (TEC)
The TEC subsystem component is a graphical authoring tool, intended to be used by the domain experts and/or trainers and allows the construction and maintenance of the artifacts, which the training procedure is based upon.
It is essential to mention that the TEC subsystem's functionalities derive from the ELEVATE pedagogical approach. Therefore, it serves as the main tool for authoring the training-specific material and artifacts necessary to facilitate the implementation of this pedagogy. The TEC functionality consists of the following elements:
- Competency graph management: Domain knowledge in the ELEVATE project is represented as a graph of dependencies between knowledge topics. This functionality of the TEC component allows the domain expert to build the knowledge structure of the application to be taught by defining knowledge topics and dependencies between them.
- Learning objects snnotation: This functionality of the TEC component allows the domain expert to relate each of the learning object to a specific knowledge topic or competency and define the learning approach it adopts.
- Trainee profiles initialisation: By modifying the trainee profile, the trainer can manually define the topics already covered by the trainees and store their domain knowledge state.
- Certification examinations generation: This functionality allows the expert (i.e. the trainer) to specify and manage the certifications of the trainee's knowledge domain of the software being taught.
In the following, we will elaborate on each of the aforementioned functionality categories.
Competency graph management
The competency graph is the main artifact of the ELEVATE pedagogic approach. It is a network of interdependent knowledge topics of the knowledge domain to be taught. This graph enables the effective implementation of the competency based training approach. It depicts the structure of dependencies among the competencies involved in the training of the taught software. This structure of dependencies is what is referred to as a competency graph.
The competency graph includes the following knowledge types:
- Competency is defined as a set of personal characteristics (e.g. skills, knowledge, attitudes) that an individual possesses or needs to acquire in order to perform an activity within a specific context. It can be considered a superset which encompasses and combines conceptual and procedural knowledge. For example, within the context of mathematics the ability to solve differential equations is considered a competency.
- Conceptual knowledge: This type of knowledge refers to the theoretical aspects of a knowledge domain. For example, within the context CRM software sales the conceptual knowledge of utilisation of CRM systems for marketing purposes suggests the knowledge of the functionalities it could offer.
- Procedural knowledge: This type of knowledge refers to the practical aspects of a knowledge domain. For example, within the context of CRM software sales the ability to present a certain functionality of the product to the customer.
The competency graph is constructed by the domain expert (i.e. the trainer) each time a new major version of the software to be taught is released or its functionality has been greatly altered. The nodes of the competency graph represent steps in the knowledge acquisition training process. Each of these nodes can represent either procedural or conceptual knowledge, or both. Depending on the represented knowledge type, each of the nodes has a set of learning objects associated with it.
The selection and associations of the learning objects are performed by a domain expert (i.e. the trainer). The accurate specification of the dependencies among the nodes is of significant importance, since the graph is the main component involved in the competence gap identification. For this reason, the training, evaluation and certification subsystem provides a user friendly environment for management of the competency graphs, the contained competencies and the dependencies between them.
However, the different knowledge types in the domain are processed homogeneously by the ELEVATE system. At the lowest level, the runtime processing and traversal of the graph ignores the type of knowledge represented in each of the nodes and takes into account only the prerequisites of the target node set as a training goal.
The purpose of distinguishing knowledge types is served at a higher level. In order to define a more efficient competency graph and organise the educational material for the trainees in a cohesive manner, the trainer utilises this categorisation of knowledge. Furthermore, the process of associating learning objects with knowledge types is simplified and accommodated through this distinction. For the purpose of abstraction and generality, in the remaining of this deliverable we will refer to the nodes of the graph as competencies.
Learning object annotation
The ELEVATE project makes extensive use of learning objects as training material presented to the trainee throughout the learning procedure. A learning object can contain information about various competencies of the knowledge domain and can be associated with more than one competency in the competency graph.
Therefore, each learning object is accompanied by meta-information containing its associations with the nodes in the competency graph. This annotation is used during the execution of the system when the most suitable learning object for teaching a certain knowledge topic to a specific individual is to be selected based on the reasoning techniques implemented by the IPT component.
The learning objects, as used by the ELEVATE project are distinguished into certain categories based on the offered degree of interaction:
- Passive: The learning objects are presented to the trainee in the form of a lecture, without any kind of interaction between the trainee and the system (e.g. text manuals, video tutorials etc.).
- Interactive: These learning objects are constructed for the purpose of interaction of the training system with the trainee, usually in order to diagnose the knowledge state of the trainee.
Moreover, the category of interactive learning objects is separated further, into two categories:
- Traditional: The traditional interactive learning objects include quiz-like exercises. There are several types of such exercises such as: multiple choice, true-false, short answer, matching, essay etc.
- Hands-On: The hands-on exercises are of a more practical nature. The trainee is requested to complete problem-solving tasks, scenarios and functionality presentations.
The passive learning objects are used for the provision of knowledge to the trainee of the system and may use various approaches. These approaches could, for example, be:
- implicitly through an analogy;
- implicitly through an example;
- explicit through a definition.
The TEC subsystem provides the functionality, which is necessary to enrich the overall ELEVATE system with the various types of learning objects. This enrichment includes the annotation of the material provided with the above mentioned properties and enabling the high level personalisation of the training procedure.
Trainee profile initialisation
In order to achieve a high level of personalisation, the ELEVATE system stores the history of past activities for each of the trainees. In this way, the ELEVATE approach to personalising the training, aspires to deduce the most appropriate pedagogic approach for each of the individuals and achieve the construction of the optimum training procedure for them. Therefore, the trainee profile contains specific information on the training procedure (i.e. covered competencies, test scores, learning objects viewed or executed etc.).
The trainee profile is considered an integral part of the personalised pedagogic approach of the ELEVATE e-training system. By storing, maintaining and utilising trainee profiles, the learning path can be adapted automatically (i.e. by the IPT) or manually (i.e. by the trainer) to specific individualised needs.
The information contained in a trainee profile can be divided into two categories. The first category contains the competencies the competency graph registered in the system, which are considered to be acquired by the specific trainee. The second category can be considered as an activity log, recording the training activities' historic data of the trainee.
Both these information types are used by the IPT component in order to achieve a high level of personalisation. The TEC subsystem is involved only with the fist type (i.e. the trainee's competency profile). It enables the initialisation of the trainee profile, by specifying the competencies already acquired by the trainee before his/her training session in the ELEVATE e-training environment begins. This way the system is aware of the trainee's knowledge state right from the beginning of each training session.
Certification examinations generation
After considering the consequences of the lack of certification assessment in most of the vocational e-learning systems, the ELEVATE project introduces an infrastructure that enables the certification of the trainee's knowledge. The system allows the specification of a variety of certification types in the system, contextualised to the role of the trainee regarding the knowledge domain. For example, in the context of a CRM software knowledge we could have three types of certifications based on the roles of the certified person: sales expert, certified consultant and certified developer. Moreover, in order to promote the portability of the knowledge obtained through the pedagogic methodology adopted by the ELEVATE project, the system allows the specification of the competency name for each of the certification types. Upon the successful completion of the certification, a trainee's e-portfolio is updated and the competency gained is added.
The TEC subsystem offers the authoring environment that allows the management of the above mentioned certification artifacts. The domain expert can specify the certification types for the training knowledge domain, correlate these certifications with e-portfolio competencies and assign the tests that comprise them.
Potential impact:
The ELEVATE project supports the integration of advanced, value-added e-training capabilities, which are based on widely-accepted pedagogic models, into commercial off-the-shelf software products and solutions, embedding the software to be taught into the pedagogical-documented educational procedure. Thus, the ELEVATE environment facilitates the acquisition of technological skills and competencies in the application software taught, transferring innovative know-how to the e-training process. In particular,
- At the technological level, the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment enables the complete, interactive integration of the e-learning platforms and tools, utilised for both synchronous and asynchronous e-learning services, with pre-selected software applications products, which constitutes the educational subject, and is supplemented by innovative assisting and training tools, aiming to provide personalised training and educational services.
- At the pedagogical level, the pedagogical-documented ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment improves the quality of the provided professional e-training services, enables the trainee to become a real end-user of the application software product taught in pragmatic usage scenarios, facilitates the simple application end-user to turn instantly into a trainee, offers mature conditions of apprenticeship development, even with the natural and electronic absence of an experienced application user (or trainer), offers new potentials for interactive e-learning content aggregation, dynamic creation and maintenance, and adopts a widely known and accepted frameworks concerning the monitoring and the evaluation of the e-learning procedure, supporting an automated process regarding the certification of competencies on specific application software products.
- At the socio-economic level, the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment supports the penetration and the predominance of the lifelong learning model in the modern globalised and knowledge-based e-economy, being facilitated by e-learning innovative solutions and platforms; and the continuous acquisition of updated competencies and skills regarding the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), having a significant impact to the individual (e.g. the end-user, the professional and the business consultant), the working environment (e.g. the enterprise and/or the organisation), and to the society as a whole. The pedagogically documented ELEVATE approach utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic models in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills a unique learning environment.
The ELEVATE Environment proposes the 'learning by doing' approach in the training in application software, as it facilitates the integration of the software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. Thus, the trainee uses and interacts with application software to be taught under real life conditions, instead of practicing in a simple simulation environment.
Training in application software tools and systems has gained from the outset a central position in e-learning activities, particularly in the corporate world, as the software development SMEs who developed these innovative technology applications were the first to realise the use of e-learning and e-training for covering educational needs in their field. Nevertheless, this rather long history in application software training and e-learning has not been fruitful enough, as it has not been accompanied by a corresponding lead at the level of pedagogic quality of this training. What is essentially absent - as the software development SMEs are not capable of providing - from current application software training and e-learning, is the explicit selection of educational approaches which treat the application-to-be-learned as a tool for everyday use, for the learning of which, as has always been the case with human tools, the trainee should sit at the feet of an experienced user of the tool, having the opportunity as an apprentice not just to observe, but mainly to try, interact and participate.
More specifically, the implementation of the application software training is currently based on the simple demonstration of the application to be taught, and on the descriptive analytical presentation of the functionalities of the software application, or on the interaction with a simulation application of the application software to be taught giving the end-user a limited feeling of how the application is used in real life conditions. Besides this weakness, another result is that the learning content integrated with current e-learning systems is costly and static, and, in case of IT software upgrade should be redesigned and recreated.
E-learning and e-training in application software in conjunction with sophisticated educational approaches and pedagogic models have the potentials to become the locomotives in driving growth and creating more and better jobs in Europe. Towards this direction, the ELEVATE project aspires to introduce a highly innovative combination of services aiming to enable enterprises and organisations to drive productivity through learning content management, knowledge sharing, assessment, rapid authoring, and performance support. The vision of the ELEVATE project is to leverage the quality of the existing application software products of the software SMEs and their respective application software training services, by acquiring e-learning, interoperability and pedagogical know-how from R&D performers, and by providing their clients, their business partners and individuals (i.e. professionals and application software users) with a holistic e-learning, educational process monitoring and certification environment adjustable to each application software for training the end-user in real usage conditions.
The ELEVATE exploitable assets
This section undertakes the identification of the ELEVATE exploitable assets, i.e. 'the project results'. The aim of this section is to make an updated decomposition of the overall ELEVATE system / solution in an attempt to analyze what are the individual exploitable assets (results) of the project so as to be able to assess their exploitability. The rationale behind this decomposition is to cover for the possibility that a specific component or part of the overall ELEVATE solution becomes the most exploitable ELEVATE asset depending on the market needs and the product quality. Starting from the big picture and the overall solution, we have defined each of the main products or parts that compose the solution, outlining their key features and showing the benefits gained by the use of the system as a whole.
This chapter is closely related to the technical deliverables and functioned as the bridge between the technological field and the business field. In the course of the project, it received feedback from the technical WPs as the work progressed, while, on the other hand, it provided input from the market about the business needs and perspectives into the technical development helping to define what the exact technological goals of the system and the components should be.
Asset #1 - ELEVATE holistic environment
The first ELEVATE exploitable asset is the innovative ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment that integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee. Thus, the trainee uses and interacts with application software to be taught under real life conditions, while apprenticeship is being developed even with the absence of an experienced instructor.
Why this is an asset?
- This is the overall holistic environment which integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure and comprises of all the sub-components of the project. It encompasses all the intelligence aspired and is the main asset of the project.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure.
- It provides real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement.
- It facilitates efficient monitoring of the trainee.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Not applicable, since the ELEVATE integrated environment constitutes by itself a holistic exploitable solution.
Asset #2 - ELEVATE pedagogical approach
The ELEVATE pedagogical approach utilises innovative learning tools and pedagogic methodology in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills within a unique learning environment.
Why this is an asset?
- The ELEVATE pedagogical approach may provide a valuable theoretical background which will constitute the basis for the ever-aspired personalisation of e-learning and e-training, tailoring the pedagogical content and procedure according to the needs and potential of the individual trainee.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It facilitates the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills.
- It facilitates personalisation of e-learning and e-training, tailoring the pedagogical content and procedure according to the needs and potential of the individual trainee.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, the ELEVATE pedagogical approach can be exploited independently for the conceptualisation, design and/or provision of personalised training services.
Asset #3 - ELEVATE e-learning and e-training material
For the demonstration of the SME-specific prototypes that were developed in the project, three sets of e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) were designed and developed, so as to materialise the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach.
Why this is an asset?
- The e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilised) materialise the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- Along with the SME-specific demonstrators, it constitutes a holistic solution for the participating SMEs. Namely, each of the SME partners involved in the project have both the environment with which their employees / business partners / other end users will interact, as well as the concrete content and procedure through which they will be trained on the use of the specific software.
- It forms the basis for the creation of e-learning and e-training material for other application software products.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- The sets of e-learning and e-training material are 'binded' with the corresponding application software products of the SMEs. In this sense, they cannot be exploited independently. However, they can form the basis for the creation of e-learning and e-training material for other application software products.
Asset #4 - ELEVATE SME-specific prototypes
Asset #4 4 comprises of the three ELEVATE SMEs prototypes that prove and validate the concepts and tools of the ELEVATE solution, regarding the integration and the effectiveness of the ELEVATE educational environment with three different application software products manufactured by the participating software development SMEs.
Why this is an asset?
- It constitutes the materialisation of the ELEVATE aspirations, the transformation of the theoretical approaches into tangible results.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- Along with the SME-specific e-learning and e-training material, it constitutes a holistic solution for the participating SMEs. Namely, each of the SME partners involved in the project will attain the holistic environment of the specific software with which their employees / business partners / other end users will interact and be trained on.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, each of the prototypes will be exploited individually by the corresponding SME participants.
Asset #5 - ELEVATE environment adoption methodology
The ELEVATE environment adoption methodology includes and documents the preparatory steps required for the integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products and the final productive deployment in real-world cases, based on the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development and the performance of the SMEs-specific prototypes and the pilot training sessions.
Why this is an asset?
- The adoption methodology documents the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development, and thus it facilitates the smooth integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system, either with other application software products of the participating SMEs, or with application software products of external end-users and interested parties.
What is the added value and the benefits of this asset?
- It documents the preparatory steps required for the integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products.
- It documents the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes' development for the avoidance of similar errors and thus result in the consumption of less time and less engineering effort for the debugging of the integration process.
Can it be exploited independently and for what purposes?
- Yes, the ELEVATE environment adoption methodology can be exploited independently for the smooth integration of the hybrid ELEVATE educational and certification system with application software products other than the SME-specific prototypes that were developed and show-cased within the project lifecycle.
The homogenised ELEVATE exploitation plan
The next bulleted list presents the homogenised view of the ELEVATE consortium partners' individual exploitation plans, illustrating how the five exploitation assets that have been identified above aim to be exploited by the partners.
More specifically:
1. The three participating SMEs (CAS, E2S, ITL) aim to exploit the SME-specific demonstrators towards the commercial axis.
2. As regards the ELEVATE training, educational and certification environment:
a. The three participating SMEs (CAS, E2S, ITL) aim to both commercially exploit it, as well as capitalise on the knowledge gained to exploit it towards the technological and the know-how axes.
b. The three participating RTD performers (Enocta, NV, SingularLogic), since they do not have the IPR required for commercial exploitation of the result, aim to capitalise on the knowledge gained to exploit it towards the technological and the know-how axes. Even more specifically, each RTD performer will try to capitalise on the knowledge gained from the deployment of the specific modules they are assigned, as well as from the integration activities.
3. As regards the pedagogically documented ELEVATE approach:
a. CAS, ITL and OKAN aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
b. ENOCTA and SEERC aspire to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axis.
4. As regards the ELEVATE e-learning and e-training material developed:
a. CAS aspires to exploit it towards both the commercial and the technological axes.
b. E2S aspires to exploit it towards the technological axis.
c. ITL and OKAN aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
d. ENOCTA aspires to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axes.
5. As regards the ELEVATE adoption methodology:
a. CAS and ITL aspire to exploit it towards the know-how axis.
b. Enocta and SEERC aspire to exploit it towards both the technological and the know-how axes.
Dissemination measures
ELEVATE project consortium has conducted various activities in dissemination field as this has been one of the key areas for recognition and absorption of the project results and innovations. The project has various innovative facets to be disseminated. These include the conceptual paradigm that ELEVATE provides, namely that:
- in the highly competitive industry of software products a modest company with limited resources can generate its own e-learning training content and materials using the IIL tools and IPT environment with little help or by itself;
- systems analysis of the software product that is to be the object of the learning content is to be conducted through certain steps including a knowledge quantification technique based on a network representation of competences;
- various different methodologies of e-learning content or training material can be integrated within a general environment based on personalisation.
The above ELEVATE innovations and the general project developments have been disseminated, as explained in the Annex, through different channels. The dissemination channels so far been exploited until December 2009 or under planning include: face-to-face expert meetings and academic workshops, academic publications, general interest media presence, web presence, e-mail delivery and non-academic meetings targeted at potential customers or European SMEs.
We can categorise the dissemination activities in this project according to the communication or the channel characteristics:
- Meetings: conferences, workshops, special groups, symposia, etc. Workshops section of this category will be further detailed in D6.4_b.
- Publications: papers in academic peer reviewed journals, papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings, articles in professional periodicals or magazines, articles in general purpose print press.
- Web presence: articles published online over general Web sites or the web sites managed by the consortium partners.
- Mail distribution: e-mail distribution, mass mailing, leaflets posted to partners, etc.
- Community management: special interest groups, online groups.
1. Meetings
European Commission FP7 ICT area projects have been during the last decade assembled and met in the eChallenges conferences. These conferences are held by the European Commission and take three days of meetings bringing together academics and experts from various universities and research institutes. During eChallenges 2009 held in Istanbul at the Marmara Hotel Convention Centre, ELEVATE project consortium held a separate workshop on 22 October 2009 afternoon with participation from European experts in e-learning and ICT under the title 'ELEVATE: A universal technology-enhanced learning platform for software industry'. In the workshop, many external experts contributed in ideas and discussed various matters regarding the project and its innovations. This meeting is further detailed in content and effects in the following sections of this report.
The ELEVATE project consortium also agreed upon in the Istanbul project meeting held on 19 October 2009 that there will be a large scale conference inviting potential adopters of the ELEVATE innovations and output. Because CAS is the largest of the partners with many value-added partners and customers Germany market was chosen as the central target and Karlsruhe as the venue. The Germany meeting was organised jointly by CAS and OKAN, and a special effort has been made to coincide it at the annual meeting of CAS with its partners and customers which attract several hundred participants so that the dissemination effect would be maximised. The details are discussed in the report D6.4_b.
In addition, the two workshops organised in 2009 and 2010 to two different communities, there have been participations by partners in other workshops, conferences and symposia where the developments in the ELEVATE project has been publicised.
CAS and SEERC have participated in the workshop 'Research supporting service innovation: A workshop for European SMEs', organised by the European Commission on 20 May 2010 in Brussels. A presentation on the project has been made to an estimated 40 participants.
The two partners took part in the PRO-VE 2009, 10th IFIP Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, Thessaloniki, Greece, 7 to 9 October 2009, and presented the ELEVATE methodology.
SEERC also attended and presented the ELEVATE developments at the conferences:
- 4th Balkan Conference in Informatics (BCI2009)
- 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT2010) and
- Professional Training Facts 2010.
2. Publications
A list of papers published in peer reviewed media is included in the table later in this chapter. In addition, ELEVATE generated non-academic print-media coverage. In one of the Turkish innovations and technology management journals circulated by the prestigious Turkish Informatics Foundation that has approximately 20 thousand readership in the ICT and innovative technologies sector, 'Bilgi Çagi' (The Age of Information), one consortium partner, Enocta, was interviewed on ELEVATE project developments and expectations for the January issue of the magazine. CAS also issued an article in the German language periodic publication CAS@work, which is published by CAS and circulated 40 thousand copies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and regularly read by at least 100 000 readers. The article details are 'E-learning erkennt Lücken und serviert Wissen', CAS@work, No. 49, February 2010.
3. E-mail distribution
CAS, the project's coordinating partner distributed ELEVATE paradigm and ideas and developments to its large customer base in Germany and abroad twice in the past year. Each of these mass distributions reached 5000 partners and customers. Similarly, Enocta has circulated in Turkish language ELEVATE developments to its approximately 18 000 recipients of government and private sector companies. In addition, E2S also distributed the ELEVATE developments per e-mail to it's customer base.
4. Community management
ELEVATE project has prepared a general special interest group (SIG) action plan based on establishing a network of experts in the area of software product e-learning content discipline. Although initially this was conceived as an open platform implemented on an open free community management tool, in the project meeting in October 2009 it has been agreed that the community should be closed during the project's duration and be managed under the community management facilities offered under the existing ELEVATE website, only accessed by partners or selected outsiders. The outside third party members of the SIG community are to be offered by consortium partners with each partner offering a minimum five experts or participants. It was decided that the SIG community can later be made open when products and systems are completed and upon the common decision of the consortium membership.
As a result 30 experts from all partner countries were selected for an online forum that allowed sending of project documents and developments. The experts in the special interest group were informed and occasionally send back feedback. As the participants in the SIG are all experts with connections in various platforms, it is expected that the function of the SIG is not only deriving ideas but also a medium of dissemination as well. It is of course is not possible how precisely the dissemination effect of this medium as opposed to publications with known effects. The documents posted to the SIG were of non-restricted and non-confidential nature.
There has been other online community initiatives such as on the social networking platform Facebook with a specific ELEVATE project external community with 60 members that share views, public documents and publicity materials.
Project website:
http://www.elevate-project.eu
Spiros Alexakis
CAS Software AG
Wilhelm-Schickard-Str. 10-12
D-76131 Karlsruhe
http://www.cas.de
spiros.alexakis@cas.de