Transcription

(slide 1)
Delphi is an elearning project approved in 2000, under the Second Call of the 5th Framework Programme. The aim of Delphi is to create an observatory of elearning practices based on the review of thirty projects funded under a number of EU programmes.
(slide 2)
Three key programmes were selected: IST, Minerva and Improving Human Potential (IHP)Socio-Economic Research projects. Many of the projects have already been completed, but some of them are still running, especially those from IST. Delphi wanted to look at these projects with the aim of searching for approaches to innovation in respect of practice and pedagogical approaches.
(slide 3)
The key point of Delphi, in the sense of creating a knowledge base of innovations, is to set up an observatory of elearning innovation and elearning practices. The aim of this observatory is the dissemination of innovative practices, providing documentation and elaborating indicators of innovation. A secondary goal is to establish a laboratory which would be a collaborative network of researchers providing a common place for discussion and exchange between people interested in elearning innovations.
(slide 4)
We selected a list of 18 Minerva projects, most of them already completed: 8 ICT projects and four IHP cluster projects dealing with the socio economic area. The Delphi project was informed by previous work, done within the socio-economic research area by the Merlin project, which analysed five cluster projects. That project has now finished but we applied a similar philosophy to the analysis of different European projects. I think we got a good representation from the quantitative and qualitative point of view of projects and programmes. All of the projects are related to this broad area of elearning or ICT learning innovation.
(slide 5)
The focus of the analysis is based on three axes. We were looking for pedagogic innovation, for institutional and organisational innovation and for socio-cultural and socio-economic innovation. We have not concentrated particularly on technology, which would be another dimension of learning innovations and of ICT.

(slide 6,7)
The analytical approach involved the use of qualitative indicators as we believe these might point to relevant changes in learning. These qualitative indicators are present, they are part of the projects, but they are not easy to find, or they are not necessarily well defined in the projects. Often they can not be well defined within the projects. If this were the case we would have used quantitative indicators. Since we are dealing with innovations we preferred to look at the approaches used in the projects. This certainly needs some kind of reflection and definition. So these qualitative indicators of change form the three main areas of the discussion.
(slide 8)
So what's new, what's so special. So here is the web portal. It's based on open source, it's a CMS system and that makes it rather easy to administrate and to add information and to add tasks and different artefacts. You find examples of all the activities and you find the starter tool kit, if you want to start your own 5D activity. Labtools, that is collaborating with the administrative tool. You have areas for collaboration and for sharing. We have a "my 5D group" where you find contact and support and of course you also find static information.
(slide 9)
The Education software is the 5D Labyrinth and the 5D Labbuilder. Here you can see the administrative tools. In 5 steps you can build a mission and when you have done that, you can go into the labyrinth and work with it. It's not extraordinarily technical, but it's rather innovative, since it is so flexible. There is also the possibility to make a total local adaptation. It's not something that is already done, but it is more a framework that you can adapt to your own local settings. You can reuse what others have done. You can also use it in other contexts. Paregos, our programming partner has shown this to other companies and they are very interested to use the framework for adult learning settings as well, with some changes. Further the tool is translated to other languages than English, so we will have it in English, Swedish, Danish, Spanish and perhaps in Catalan.
(slide 10)
Within the institutional, organisational dimension we were looking at the set of indicators. We should say that these indicators come from reviewing the literature on one hand, but on the other from the projects themselves. We have different indicators based on what we have found from the analysis of the projects. For instance, in this area, we found that institutional change resulted from the implementation of ICT into the existing structures of the educational system or of the educational institutions. Staff training is an important criteria that deals with institutional development as well. We have not been dealing specifically with the training itself, but with the plans for changes in training within the institutions, based on the needs of ICT. We also searched for the actors, adopters and resistors to innovation or to the adoption of innovations within the institutions. Organisational changes and organisational conditions that we found in the projects, are good examples of being supportive or unsupportive to learning innovation. Further, we have been dealing with the problems of the flexibility of learning settings and the accessibility of learning in different ways.
(slide 11)
Within the socio economic and socio cultural aspects we are talking about important factors.. Socio economic aspects involve the discussion of elearning standards, the issues of globalisation and the use of new elearning organisations. Other socio cultural aspects are for instance language and language problems within the framework of globalisation.
A further point was funding and commercialisation: what are the consequences of decisions on the funding of elearning or on commercialisation. We looked at the implications of elearning, ICT learning from the point of view of lifelong learning, which opens new opportunities for adult education, post graduate courses etc.
(slide 12)
Finally we have been concentrating on a kind of synthesis at the end of the project, of what was considered the most innovative aspect for us and for the projects. What were the specific rules of ICT in the innovations. What was the most important role of ICT, if any, because many times ICT is just something added and not innovatory.
(slide 13)
An important issue which we would like to discuss in this workshop are the problems of sustainability, transferability and scalability of innovations. We want the workshop to focus on these three key aspects. On pedagogical aspects, on institutional and organisational aspects and on socio cultural and socio economic aspects of innovation. These dimensions are interconnected. In fact it is difficult to talk about one dimension without saying something about another. They are very well connected, all of them. We would like to hear more about what are your experiences and what you think is important on the issues of transferability, scalability and sustainability - from the viewpoint of your experience, either from the project for which you have been invited or from other projects related with ICT.
(slide 14)
We want to start with a dialogue on the future actions of the observatory and the laboratory with you as researchers and practitioners, policy makers, and with someone from the Commission. That's why we invited our project officer and representatives of the wider learning community. We are looking for insights on overcoming problems, constraints and basically for the promotion of the innovation take-up and to elaborate policy briefs: new directions for research and recommendation for future policy recommendations.
(slide 15)
Before this workshop we sent you a document, which was a kind of a discussion position from our point of view. I hope you all have had this document and have read it. I just want to recall some key questions that we posed to you in this document. They were related again to the sustainability of innovations for the projects to be sustainable and for having an impact in practice.
(slide 16)
Should we engage in applications that have the possibility to be applied on a larger scale, or are we mostly interested in our own applications? What is our approach to dealing with implementation or research in ICT based learning? These are some of the problems behind the scalability.
(slide 17)
Are there intermediate strategies between large scale information and particular information that finishes when the project ends? How could we define good transferable practice by providing strategies for applying the results, in terms of examples and quantified research results? Well these are the questions. You don't have to answer them at all, but please keep in mind the issues of sustainability, scalability and transferability within your other experiences in the projects you have been dealing with.