Using the Personal Competence Manager as a complementary approach to IMS Learning Design authoring

Vogten, H., Koper, R., Martens, H., & Van Bruggen, J. (2008). Using the Personal Competence Manager as a complementary approach to IMS Learning Design authoring. Interactive Learning Environments, 16(1), 83-100.In this article TENCompetence will be presented as a framework for lifelong competence development. More specifically, the relationship between the TENCompetence framework and the IMS Learning Design (LD) specification is explored. LD authoring has proven to be challenging and the toolset currently available is targeting expert users mostly working for institutions of higher educations. Furthermore these tools re-enforce a fairly rigid top-down workflow approach towards design and delivery. This approach it is not always the most suitable model in all circumstances for all practitioners. TENCompetence provides an alternative bottom-up approach to LD authoring via its first implementation: the Personal Competence Manager (PCM). Constructs such as competence profiles and competence development programmes, let users define, modify, and acquire competences they need for achieving their personal goals. We will show how the PCM provides support for these constructs and stimulates the bottom-up development of learning materials. We will also show how these concepts can be mapped towards LD. This allows the ad hoc designs of the PCM to be captured in a Unit of Learning (UOL). These UOLs can be enhanced and eventually fed back into the PCM, therewith closing the edit cycle. This editing cycle allows for a gradual integration of bottom-up ad hoc designs with more formal top-down designs introducing LD in a gentle fashion.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Personal profiling to stimulate participation in learning networks

Today continuous acquisition of new competences and updating existing capacities is crucial to personal empowerment and job performance. Due to the dynamics of the rapid technological change our society experiences, traditional, classroom-based methods of learning fail to meet the learning demands of today’s lifelong learners. People as self-directed learners will learn via informal knowledge sharing in ad hoc learning communities and Learning Networks. The Personal competence Manager under construction in the TENCompetence project aims to support the knowledge development of learners in social interaction with their peers in learning communities. Social encounters in Learning Networks need various cues to allow them to help meet a person’s learning needs. From the multiple suggestions to bootstrap learning interaction that are available, we will in this paper look at the role personal profiling and context portfolio information can play. Our particular focus will be building a common ground for communication and trust ultimately to enhance the learning process

Designing for change: mash-up personal learning environments

Institutions for formal education and most work places are equipped today with at least some kind of tools that bring together people and content artefacts in learning activities to support them in constructing and processing information and knowledge. For almost half a century, science and practice have been discussing models on how to bring personalisation through digital means to these environments. Learning environments and their construction as well as maintenance makes up the most crucial part of the learning process and the desired learning outcomes and theories should take this into account. Instruction itself as the predominant paradigm has to step down. The learning environment is an (if not 'the�) important outcome of a learning process, not just a stage to perform a 'learning play'. For these good reasons, we therefore consider instructional design theories to be flawed. In this article we first clarify key concepts and assumptions for personalised learning environments. Afterwards, we summarise our critique on the contemporary models for personalised adaptive learning. Subsequently, we propose our alternative, i.e. the concept of a mash-up personal learning environment that provides adaptation mechanisms for learning environment construction and maintenance. The web application mash-up solution allows learners to reuse existing (web-based) tools plus services. Our alternative, LISL is a design language model for creating, managing, maintaining, and learning about learning environment design; it is complemented by a proof of concept, the MUPPLE platform. We demonstrate this approach with a prototypical implementation and a – we think – comprehensible example. Finally, we round up the article with a discussion on possible extensions of this new model and open problems

D2.1 Integrated Roadmap

Deliverable 2.1 – The Integrated Roadmap – summarises the first 18 months of requirements gathering and analysis in the TENCompetence project. The document consists of a summary description and a number of annexes with detailed results. The methodology chosen by the project is the Unified Process, supplemented with scenario-based software development techniques. On the basis of initial scenario’s and specific use cases, six high-level use cases were identified that summarise the future functionality of the TENCompetence integrated system. These high-level use cases build on the domain model that is also included. The four main components of the TENCompetence project, i.e. (a) the high-level use cases, (b) the domain model, (c) the project objectives and (d) the experimental setup of the pilots were then critically analysed in order to identify possible gaps between them. On the basis of this gap analysis, some recommendations were formulated for the next development cycles. On the basis of all the work in the four components and the gap analysis, detailed extended use cases with activity diagrams and a data model were developed and formulated, which again serve as the basis for the first version of the integrated system, the Personal Competence Manager. Finally, the document describes the future of the requirements process in the form of a research roadmap, and a detailed procedure for handling change requests to the integrated system.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Turning university professors into competent learners (or how to interweave a new educational methodology with a tool for Lifelong Learning)

This paper presents the results of a pre-pilot experiment offered in Bulgaria for teachers’ trainers who have to update their skills using ICT in teaching. The pre-pilot became a synergy of results of two European projects – the Leonardo Innovative Teacher (I*Teach) project and the FP6 TENCompetence project. The methodology for build-ing ICT-enhanced skills, developed in the frame of the I*Teach project, was applied for training teachers how to use ICT, using the provided by TENCompetence project tools and infrastructure

Keys to Successful EPIQ Business Demonstrator Implementation

Shoikova, E., & Denishev, V. (2009). Keys to Successful EPIQ Business Demonstrator Implementation. Paper presented at the 'Open workshop of TENCompetence - Rethinking Learning and Employment at a Time of Economic Uncertainty-event'. November, 19, 2009, Manchester, United Kingdom: TENCompetence. [unpublished] For the book please see http://hdl.handle.net/1820/3191This paper presents the keys to successful implementation of the business demonstrator in high‐technology company EPIQ EA in electronic industry. The business demonstrator was designed and took place in the final stage of the TENCompetence evaluation work. It is related to the objective: To ensure the validity and viability of the approach during the project by performing real life pilot implementations in different organisational and international settings. The EPIQ business demonstrator has a unique piloting scenario because it involves an organisation, that has no previous experience with the competency‐related concepts, and has to make the entire shift (both methodologically and practically) from the traditional types of HR management process to the competency‐based talent management process. A competency‐based approach to developing the business demonstrator smart strategies and systems has been adopted. This process comprised of two parts. The first part included the analysis of the current and desired workforce competencies as the starting point for developing the talent management system that gives the HR team, executives, managers, and employees new power to drive performance and achieve immediate and long‐term strategic goals. The second part embraced the application of the competency‐based approach to create a cost‐effective, multiyear plan for building a fully integrated talent management system and pilot the TENCompetence organisational and technological infrastructure tailored to the organization’s unique culture, business processes and strategic goals. As significant outcome of the business demonstrator implementation a competence dictionary and set of competence profiles were created.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org