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ECP 2008 EDU 428016

OpenScout

D3.2.1 Initial Version of the Tool Library

Deliverable number D3.2.1

Dissemination level Public

Delivery date November 30, 2010

Status Final

Author(s) Alexander Mikroyannidis, Alexandra Okada, Peter Scott (UKOU), Henri Pirkkalainen, Philipp Holtkamp, Jan Pawlowski (JYU), Elisabetta Parodi (eXact learning solutions), Uta Schwertel (IMC), Marco Kalz (OUNL),Krassen Stefanov (ITD), Covadonga Rodrigo(UNED), Cecilia Loureiro-Koechlin (BRUN)

eContentplus

This project is funded under the eContentplus programme1,

a multiannual Community programme to make digital content in Europe more accessible, usable and exploitable.

1 OJ L 79, 24.3.2005, p. 1.

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Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 3   2  FUNCTIONALITY OF THE TOOL LIBRARY ......................................................................................... 4 

2.1 AUTHENTICATION ...................................................................................................................................... 5   2.2 USER PROFILES ........................................................................................................................................... 6   2.3 WIDGETS AND PERSONALISATION .............................................................................................................. 7   2.4 SOCIAL METADATA .................................................................................................................................... 9   2.5 SOCIAL RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................................................................................... 10   2.6  GROUPS .................................................................................................................................................... 12 

3  DATA OF THE TOOL LIBRARY .............................................................................................................. 14 3.1 TOOL COLLECTION ................................................................................................................................... 14   3.2 OER GUIDELINES ..................................................................................................................................... 15   3.3 ADAPTATION CASE STUDIES ..................................................................................................................... 16   3.4  INITIAL COMPETENCE TAXONOMY ............................................................................................................ 17 

4  NEXT STEPS ................................................................................................................................................ 18 4.1 TOOL LIBRARY SERVICES ......................................................................................................................... 18   4.2 INTEGRATION REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................................................. 20   4.3 MULTICULTURAL SUPPORT ...................................................................................................................... 21   4.4  EVALUATIONS AND PILOTS ....................................................................................................................... 21 

5  SUMMARY ................................................................................................................................................... 23 APPENDIX A: OER AND ADAPTATION HANDBOOK .............................................................................. 24 

OER: WHAT DOES THE CONCEPT MEAN? ........................................................................................................... 24 STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL OER RE-USE .................................................................................................................. 26 ADAPTATION BEST PRACTICES – “HOW TO LOCALIZE?” ..................................................................................... 28 

APPENDIX B: USER GUIDES FOR TOOLS .................................................................................................. 32 ADAPTATION TOOLS ........................................................................................................................................... 32 COLLABORATION TOOLS .................................................................................................................................... 62 COMMUNICATION TOOLS ................................................................................................................................... 65 RELATED TOOLS ................................................................................................................................................. 68 

APPENDIX C: INITIAL COMPETENCE TAXONOMY ............................................................................... 78 

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1 Introduction

This report presents the initial version of the OpenScout tool library. The tool library is currently available as a beta release, aiming to gather data about reusing and adapting learning resources. The tool library prototype is analysed in this deliverable in terms of the available functionality and data. In particular, a walkthrough guide is provided, explaining what the user can do with the current version of the tool library. In addition, the types of data currently present in the tool library are described, including the collection of tools and user guides, adaptation case studies, OER guidelines, as well as the initial competence taxonomy.

The work undertaken for the development of the tool library is part of Task 3.2: Tool Library. This deliverable reports on the progress of the following outcomes of Task 3.2, according to the DoW (cf. page 34):

• Integration implementation for authoring tools, in particular easy to use tools for annotation, content manipulation, social tools (wiki)

• Provision of a users guide for authoring functions

• Implementation of tagging services

• Initial competency ontologies

• Integration of re-authoring tools

• Implementation of quality and recommendation mechanisms

The remainder of this report is structured as follows. Chapter 2 describes the functionality available in the current version of the tool library, while Chapter 3 outlines the types of data that have been gathered in the tool library so far. Chapter 4 introduces the plans for further development of the tool library regarding its integration with the OpenScout portal, multicultural support, as well as future pilots and evaluations. Appendices A, B and C include the current data of the tool library, namely the OER and adaptation handbook, the user guides for tools, plus the initial competence taxonomy.

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2 Functionality of the tool library

The OpenScout tool library has been envisioned as an ecosystem of people, stories, and resource, as shown in Figure 1. The purpose of this ecosystem will be to bring together people that are developing or using learning resources and provide them with the ability to share their stories and resources. These people come from diverse backgrounds and are involved in various stages of the lifecycle of learning resources. They belong to four major stakeholder clusters: content providers and brokers, educators, collaborators, and social learners. Their stories include completed or running case studies and learning scenarios, their experiences with learning resources, as well as their future expectations from them. Finally the learning resources involved are either learning tools or content, such as Open Educational Resources (OER).

Figure 1. The tool library ecosystem of people, stories, and resources

The initial version of the tool library is available online at http://openscout.kmi.open.ac.uk/tool-library. It allows users to create accounts, connect with other users, create a personalised environment, work with widgets, share stories and resources, as well as create and join groups. The current version of the tool library has been marked as a beta release, as it is still under development and, as such, bugs may exist. However, it is stable enough for gathering data about the fundamental aspects of the tool library, namely people, stories and resources.

The initial version of the tool library has been built with the use of the Elgg2 open source social networking framework. Elgg provides the necessary infrastructure for building a social network, either public or private. The functionality offered includes user management, support for widgets, tagging, as well as viewing in mobile devices. In addition, there is a plethora of plugins available by a community of developers, extending this functionality with additional features, such as blogs, forums, and more.

2 http://elgg.org/

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The rest of this chapter describes the functionality of the initial version of the tool library from the perspective of the user and the ways she can interact with this environment.

2.1 Authentication

Figure 2 shows the initial screen of the tool library. From the menu on the left hand side, the user can login to the tool library with the following ways:

• Tool library account: The user can login with an account created specifically for use within the tool library.

• Roaming account: Instead of creating a new account for the tool library, the user can be authenticated via an existing account from an external provider. Currently, the following roaming accounts are supported:

o OpenID: OpenID3 is a widely used roaming account, with over one billion OpenID enabled user accounts and over 50,000 websites accepting them for authentication, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL, MySpace, and more.

o Facebook: Facebook4 authentication allows users to transfer data from their Facebook account over to the tool library, such as the user’s registered first name and surname, as well as their profile picture.

3 http://openid.net/ 4 http://www.facebook.com/

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Figure 2. Login screen

2.2 User profiles

A user that has registered for the tool library, either with a tool library account or a roaming one, can build her profile, consisting of the following (optional) information:

• Brief description: A short text outlining the background of the user.

• Location: City / country of residence.

• Interests: Keywords summarising the user’s interests.

• Skills: Keywords outlining the skills of the user.

• Contact details: Email, telephone, mobile phone, web site.

• Portfolio: Academic history, training and working experience, references.

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The user has the ability to control who has access to this information. In particular, the user can choose to make this information either public, private, visible to all registered users, visible only to friends, or visible to a certain group of users. Figure 3 shows how this information is displayed in the profile page of a user. The profile page can also be customised by the user to display widgets, the use of which is explained in the next section.

Figure 3. User profile

2.3 Widgets and personalisation

For the implementation of the tool library, we have adopted a widget-based approach, which allows for easy personalisation of the environment by each user. Widgets are micro-applications performing a dedicated task. This task can be as simple as showing news headlines or weather forecasts, but also more complex like facilitating language learning or collaborative authoring. Widgets can be either desktop-based or web-based. Desktop-based widgets reside locally on your computer and may access the web for information, such as a desktop widget that shows the local temperature and weather. Web-based widgets reside on

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the web and can be embedded on a web page, such as an RSS reader widget that fetches news on your start page. Web-based widgets have proven quite popular as they enhance the interactivity and personalisation of web sites. Google widgets (also called gadgets) are the most widely used on the web, with the Google gadget directory listing thousands of free gadgets5.

There are two places in the tool library where the user can add widgets: the dashboard and the profile page. Widgets in the profile page mainly provide information complementary to the user’s profile, such as the Twitter or blog feed of the user. On the other hand, the dashboard is the home page of the tool library, the place from which the user has access to the tools and other resources of the tool library. When clicking on the “Add a new widget” button, the user is provided with a list of the widgets available in the tool library. Apart from the widgets already integrated in the tool library, the user can choose to import a widget from the Google gadget directory. The user can then set her preferences for a widget by clicking on the “Edit” link on the widget. The widgets can also be dragged and arranged in different positions in the dashboard, or removed.

Figure 4 shows an example of a personalised dashboard. It includes widgets that display the group memberships of the user, the resources that she has contributed to the library, the recent activities of her friends, the tag cloud of the tags she has used, as well as a list of her friends. In addition, the FlashMeeting widget is a flash-based videoconferencing tool developed by the OUUK, which has been integrated in the tool library.

5 http://www.google.com/ig/directory

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Figure 4. Personalised dashboard

2.4 Social metadata

The user has the ability to create social metadata on the resources of the tool library, namely any page, tool, blog, etc, as shown in Figure 5. These metadata consist of:

• Tags: These are keywords that characterise a resource. A widget is also available for displaying the tag cloud of the tool library, allowing a user to identify trends in topics that tool library users are interested about.

• Ratings: The user can rate a resource in a 5-star scale. Accumulated ratings by all users that have voted are displayed below each resource.

• Comments: Feedback is available in the form of textual or multimedia comments. Threads of comments are available for discussion between users about a particular resource.

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Figure 5. Tags, ratings and comments

2.5 Social recommendations

A user that comes across an interesting resource in the tool library can recommend this to other users. Social recommendations can be sent either to users of the tool library or users of external social networks, like Facebook and Twitter.

Social recommendations between tool library users happen through social bookmarks. Figure 6 shows the form for creating a new social bookmark for the concept-mapping tool Compendium. The user can add a comment about the tool, tag it, and select the users from her list of friends with whom to share this bookmark.

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Figure 6. Social bookmarks

In addition, social recommendations about tool library resources can be sent to users of the Facebook and Twitter social networks. By clicking on the Facebook or Twitter buttons on the sidebar of a tool library resource, the user can share this resource with her friends in these social networks. Figure 7 shows the dialog boxes for posting the Compendium tool on Facebook and Twitter.

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Figure 7. Social recommendations for Facebook and Twitter

2.6 Groups

The groups of the tool library allow people with common interests, backgrounds, and purposes in reusing and adapting learning material, to share tools and other resources, as well as engage into discussions and collaborative tasks. Four broad groups have been created so far in the tool library:

• Social learners: This group is directed to learners within education that are interested in tools and social services (social metadata information). These tools and social services provide mechanisms for personal networks with users from different learning environments who may have similar learning interests.

• Collaborators: This group regards institutes and organisations, such as SMEs and enterprises, which are interested in establishing partnerships and co-authoring learning resources internationally with other partners, developing research and expanding their existing communities. The members of this group may be interested in publishing remixed content, including multicultural resources in different languages for large scale and also contribute to the open content movement.

• Educators: This group is directed towards high schools, academic higher education institutions and universities as content users for education, plus instructors (professors, teachers, or trainers). The members of this group are interested in enriching existing courses by suggesting related resources from different repositories, including most recent ones. They might also be interested in integrated services and recommendation mechanisms for rating and evaluating content.

• Content developers: This group is for professors, lecturers, learning designers and team leaders who are developing new courses, workshops or training sessions and authoring new learning materials. They are interested in selecting and integrating new media and content from different repositories for new learning scenarios. Their needs might also be services and tools for analyzing existing content for repurposing and re-authoring tools for content manipulation.

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Figure 8. The social learners group

The above groups are expected to become more focused and specialised with the creation of subgroups as the tool library will become populated. Figure 8 shows the social learners group, featuring the discussions going on between members of the group, the files and pages they are sharing, as well as the tasks they are collaboratively working on.

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3 Data of the tool library

While the previous chapter described essentially what users can do with the tool library, this chapter provides an overview of the types of data that the tool library has been populated with so far. This data is mainly comprised of tools, user guides, case studies, OER guidelines, and the initial competence taxonomy. The following sections describe each of these types of data in more detail.

3.1 Tool collection

In this section, we describe the initial set of tools provided in the tool library. All tools have been categorised according to their functionality. For each tool category, we provide the users of the tool library with introductory user guides, together with links to additional external resources and access to the tools. The user guides are listed in Appendix B and can be accessed from the tool library at http://openscout.kmi.open.ac.uk/tool-library/pg/pages/view/614/. In particular, the following tool classification has been adopted:

• Adaptation tools: These include editors for modifying the contents, as well as tools for the annotation, translation, re-assembling and design and knowledge mapping.

• Collaboration tools: These tools are used to create resources by collaborative effort, e.g. Wiki, Google documents.

• Communication tools: The tools of this category support the creation and design of contents, e.g. video conferencing, forums.

• Related tools: These are tools related to the OpenScout architecture that do not belong to any of the above categories.

This classification follows the initial classification presented in D3.1: Adaptation Strategy and is updated with an extended analysis of requirements from the DoW, the adaptation case studies of D3.1, as well as literature review. The tool categories and initial set of tools are presented below. Since most of the tools recommended in OpenScout do not serve only one purpose, they might fall under many categories.

3.1.1 Adaptation tools Part of the adaptation strategy of OpenScout is to offer the ability to adapt resources provided in the content federation. The adaptation will always have to be in line with the corresponding licenses of the materials. In the initial phase, we allow access to all tools in our library and additionally provide some recommendations on how the users should approach adaptation (see Appendix A). The user is thus provided with a set of guidelines for adaptation and with clear tool descriptions that explain what the tool does and how. During the project, we will explore ways to guide users through different types of adaptation processes and indicate restrictions with the licensing schemes.

The subcategories of adaptation tools are:

• Modification

• Annotation

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• Translation

• Re-assembly and Design

• Knowledge Mapping

3.1.2 Collaboration tools Under this second main category, we provide tools that support collaborative working on materials, which means that more than one person can be a part of the adaptation process. The subcategories are:

• Collaborative writing

• Check note taking / sharing

3.1.3 Communication tools Under this category, we provide tools that allow the tool library users to communicate with each other while adapting and re-using materials in their own context. The subcategories are:

• Video conferencing

• Chat

• Forum

3.1.4 Related tools Under this category, we provide tools that are not necessarily for adaptation of learning materials but are considered as relevant by the consortium and many of these are also suggested in the DoW. The subcategories are:

• Educational games

• Finding and sharing

• Rating

• Competence development

• Accessibility support

3.2 OER guidelines

For the initial version of the tool library, we have created a set of guidelines for re-using and adapting OER. Within the course of the project, we will create ways to provide personalized recommendations for the end users. This set of guidelines together with our collection of tools and user guides will therefore serve as the user guide for authoring and adaptation. This set of guidelines is built on the knowledge gained for D3.1: Adaptation Strategy. It consists of best practices both from literature and the provided case studies. It will be extended by further knowledge from multicultural adaptation experiences and case studies with the project duration.

The entire OER and adaptation handbook is provided in Appendix A. It is also accessible from the tool library at http://openscout.kmi.open.ac.uk/tool-library/pg/pages/view/656/.

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3.3 Adaptation case studies

In the process of formulating the OpenScout adaptation strategy in D3.1, we conducted a survey into a collection of adaptation case studies in order to understand the main challenges and benefits involved in the adaptation of learning content. A number of case studies were collected and analysed, based on the quality of evidence contributed to the theme of the survey, as well as their diversity in terms of the adopted approach and target audience.

We have extended this collection of case studies with additional ones collected more recently, and have made the entire collection available in the tool library at http://openscout.kmi.open.ac.uk/tool-library/pg/pages/view/327/. For each case study, a set of questions and answers is provided, covering key issues in content adaptation, including its purpose, type of materials adapted, tools used, expertise involved, content delivery methods, challenges faced and lessons learned. This collection is complementary to the OER guidelines and is intended to provide users of the tool library with an insight into the experiences and lessons learned from various adaptation approaches that have been applied in different contexts. Table 1 summarises these case studies by listing a short description, the target audience, as well as the OpenScout partner that has provided each of them.

Case study name Short description Target audience Partner

GRAPPLE Personalized learning environments, automatically adapting to personal preferences, competences, learning goals, personal and social context.

Learners and educators eXact learning solutions (formerly Giunti Labs), Italy

OpenLearn Adapting self-study distance learning materials for use as open educational resources.

Open content communities: learners, educators, educational institutions, professional agencies and institutions, commercial companies and individuals

The Open University, UK

eXact Packager Converting assets from mainstream legacy and editorial formats into multi-delivery packages.

Content providers eXact learning solutions (formerly Giunti Labs), Italy

SLIDESTAR Delivering, sharing and cross-linking of content.

Companies, training providers, universities

IMC, Germany

Flexible instructional modules

Designing modules that are adaptable to different learner’s needs and different delivery platforms.

Higher education teachers and students

University of Sofia, Bulgaria

AVICENNA Establishing an eLearning knowledge network inside the

Universities and Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia,

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Euro-Mediterranean area, focusing on the humanistic and intercultural dimension of inter-cooperation.

companies Spain

COSMOS Creating educational pathways as templates for new learning scenarios (e.g., lesson plans) in astronomy.

Higher education teachers and students

University of Jyva�skyla�, Finland

Table 1. Summary of the adaptation case studies provided by the tool library

3.4 Initial competence taxonomy

The competence taxonomy for the domain of business and management education is currently being developed by WP2 in cooperation with stakeholder partners in the OpenScout project. This taxonomy will be the basis for a competence-based search facility allowing end-users to search for learning resources in the OpenScout portal, based on competence information. The initial version of this taxonomy is provided in Appendix C, as well as in the tool library at http://openscout.kmi.open.ac.uk/tool-library/pg/pages/view/660/. This version will be reviewed by domain experts and stakeholder partners and the final taxonomy will be published in D2.3: Integrated OpenScout Taxonomy (M21). This taxonomy will be used to enrich the metadata of learning resources in the OpenScout federation.

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4 Next steps

This chapter outlines the next steps for the tool library and, in particular, the plans for development of web services, integration with the OpenScout portal, extensions for multicultural support, as well as the forthcoming pilots in higher education and SMEs.

4.1 Tool library services

The initial version of the tool library has been implemented in a separate environment from the OpenScout portal. Therefore, the next phase of development for the tool library will be dedicated towards the integration of the tool library with the portal through the provision of web services to the latter. The first step towards this direction will be providing a set of tool library services to the portal, through which the portal will be enriched with tool recommendations. Once this set of services has been developed, we will be able to further collaborate with the rest of the OpenScout technical work packages in order to produce mash-ups of services.

In order to produce the tool library services required by the portal, the initial requirements analysis and consultation with user groups will be considered. During the first year of the project, a number of usage scenarios were produced for the tool library and were evaluated by internal users through a formative evaluation process in collaboration with WP6. These scenarios and the evaluation outcomes will be documented in D6.2.2: Initial evaluation report (M18).

According to these scenarios, an important aspect of user interactions with the OpenScout portal is finding tools in order to further work with a particular type of content. Based on this requirement, a set of services will be implemented that will provide tool recommendations to the user, given a particular type of content. Figure 9 shows how these recommendations will be presented in the portal. In particular, the proposed tools will be organised in tabs according to the classification described in the previous chapter. In addition, a short introduction will be provided for each of the recommended tools.

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Figure 9. Tool recommendations in the OpenScout portal

As a further step, the OpenScout Connector, currently being developed on top of an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) by WP5, will be employed to combine services and feed them to the portal. The Connector will be utilized as a key enabler for implementing the infrastructure for a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The following types of services are the first candidates for creating service mash-ups through the Connector:

• Content federation services (WP1)

• Competence services (WP2)

• Tool library services (WP3)

Combining these services will result in enriched outputs for the portal, for example enriched competence ontologies based on user data originating from the tool library.

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4.2 Integration requirements

Social networking plays a crucial role for the implementation and integration of the tool library with the rest of the OpenScout components. Therefore, in order to fully integrate tool library services with the OpenScout portal the following set of requirements needs to be implemented in the latter. These requirements are mainly related with providing a social networking infrastructure to the user and aim at extending the functionality offered by the portal in the following ways:

• Authentication via a common protocol: This will ensure that the user will not have to create an account specifically for using OpenScout tools and services, but will be able to use instead an existing account from a major authentication provider, such as OpenID, Facebook, or Google. Attracting users from these communities will also be easier, as they will be able to transfer account data automatically from their preferred social network over to the OpenScout portal and the tool library.

• Building a user profile: This should include a portfolio of a user’s resources, such as tools and learning materials, as well as the user’s learning interests and competencies.

• Personalisation: A personalised dashboard will be the area providing access to a variety of tools and services, originating both from OpenScout as well as third parties, such as the Google gadget directory. The dashboard should be fully customisable by the user, who will be able to personalise it according to her needs and preferences. A widget-based structure will be suitable for this purpose, as it will allow the user to add and remove widgets to her liking.

• Sharing resources: Users should be able to share among them resources, including tools, learning material, adaptation scenarios, best practices, etc.

• Inter- and Intra-Repository Social Metadata: Users should be able to provide their feedback on the resources available in the OpenScout portal and the tool library, through tagging, rating, as well as textual reviews. The OpenScout social metadata service was developed and is running in the prototype. It enables users of OpenScout to tag, rate and comment on learning resources. For more Information about this service see Deliverable D1.2.1. In the next steps in cooperation with WP1 and WP5 possibilities to exchange these social metadata with external systems such as LCMS and repositories will be analyzed. Discussion forums will also facilitate exchange of opinions among users.

• Creating focus groups: Focus groups will cluster people with common interests in adapting learning materials. For example, a focus group for educators will bring together people from education that are interested in enriching existing courses by suggesting related resources from various repositories. Through these groups, users will be able to share resources and engage into discussions.

• Connecting with other users: Users should be able to find and connect with other users with whom they share common interests regarding the use and adaptation of learning resources.

• Following activities of friends: Users should be able to follow the activities of users they have connected with, so that they are notified about activities that will potentially

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interest them. These activities will comprise of resources that friends have shared, discussions that they have participated in, focus groups that they have joined, etc. Of course, users should have complete control over what activities are monitored by their friends.

4.3 Multicultural support

A significant aim of WP3 is to support multicultural adaptation of learning resources. As we have shown in this deliverable, the initial version for the tool library provides the means for the support of multicultural working and learning groups through an infrastructure for social networking and collaboration. In addition, the OER and adaptation handbook provides high-level support for localization and adaptation of materials. This handbook will be updated during the project in accordance with our adaptation recommendations development.

Starting with the tool collection and the social networking functionality of the tool library, we are currently exploring ways to promote and support multicultural work. The following requirements bring together some of the aspects that we consider important for the multicultural support and will therefore drive subsequent development and pilots within the tool library:

• Providing ways to build interest groups and find contacts from available networks

• Providing means to share information and resources

• Providing means to support collaboration needs of individuals from different origins

• Providing instruction and help how they should address adaptation

• Providing easy access to tools that enable both collaboration and adaptation

• Expressing benefits that come out of the collaboration

4.4 Evaluations and pilots

The evaluation strategy of OpenScout consists of formative evaluations, pilots and large-scale trials (see D6.2.1 for more information). Within WP3, we approach evaluations in a way that all our prototype development is first evaluated internally in a formative way, before addressing external users. In this way, we make sure that everything we present to the external audience has gone through a quality management procedure. As the tool library will be extended and improved throughout the project duration, the validation of the tool library will happen in iterations.

The current plan of WP6 is to start pilots early 2011. The pilots for the tool library will be addressing both academic and business audiences and will be based on the following scenarios:

• Higher education scenarios o Teachers: Teachers preparing their courses search for existing material in this field

in order to improve their teaching. They adapt some of this material, enrich it with their own, and republish it. For a specific course, they create an interest group and invite their students. In this group, they provide and recommend learning material to the students as well as communicate with them in different ways.

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o Students: Students access material provided by their teachers through a specific group for the course. They also search and find additional material regarding the subject of the course. When they find useful material, they collaborate with friends on the material by synchronous or asynchronous communication and by annotation. To be able to collaborate with friends, the students build their own personal network and add friends to their profile. The students also evaluate the material with various quality mechanisms.

• SME scenario: A network consisting of international, national or local SMEs is looking for specific management information. They adapt some of the material, enrich it with their own experiences, and republish it. For a specific subject, they create an interest group and invite other SMEs. In this group they provide and recommend learning material to the colleague SMEs, as well as communicate with them in different ways.

In these pilots, we will address users from each stakeholder group. This will be done in a way that for each pilot, we will assign responsible partners to run the evaluation with their stakeholders. Table 2 lists the higher education institutions and enterprises that will undertake pilots according to D6.2.1. As a result of each pilot, we will have a better understanding of the stakeholder specific requirements for the tool library and will be able to adjust the development plans accordingly.

Pilot Context User Group

Teachers Learners Other

Higher Educational Institutions

Universities ITD, NCSR, UNED, OUUK, JYU

ITD, VMU, JSI, OUNL, NCSR, UNED, OUUK, JYU

Business Schools EFMD, OUUK EFMD, OUUK, ESCP

EFMD (Librarians)

Research Centres

ITD, NCSR ITD, JSI, NCSR

Vocational Training Centres

ITD, JSI, NCSR

ITD, NCSR

Enterprises SME SPK SPK, IMC, (ESCP)

GILABS, IMC (SME Consultants)

Large Company (IMC) (IMC) IMC (Large Company Consultants)

Table 2. Responsibilities for pilots in Higher Educational Institutions and Enterprises

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5 Summary

The current deliverable reported on the progress of the implementation of the tool library, based on the work that was undertaken so far in the context of WP3 and Task 3.2. More specifically, the first release of the tool library was presented and its functionality was analysed. This release aims in capturing data about people, stories and resources, therefore an overview of the currently available data was provided as well. In addition, the plans for proceeding with the implementation of tool library services and the integration with the portal were outlined. Last but not least, initial plans for pilots and subsequent evaluations of the tool library in the context of higher education and business scenarios were provided. The outcomes of these evaluations are expected to provide us with a more focused insight into the needs and requirements of users regarding content adaptation in a collaborative setting, both in the academia and the industry.

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Appendix A: OER and adaptation handbook

This document presents a collection of best practices for the adaptation of learning materials and explains what we understand as Open Educational Resources (OER). With this user guide you will understand better, how you can benefit from OER and learn the necessary things to be taken in to account while adapting materials for your own needs.

Please notice that within the duration of OpenScout project, we will enable users with personalized and guided processes how to adapt materials for their own needs. This initial guide will underline some of the issues we feel as crucial for adaptation support.

OER: What does the concept mean?

The UNESCO defined OER as "technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes". (UNESCO, 2002). However, OER are not always altruistic or non-commercial and the term “non-commercial” is often dropped from the definition6. In principle, OER just mean that they are freely accessible and re-usable in different licensing conditions. We see OER as:

“Any digital object which can be freely accessed and used for educational purposes”

This broad definition includes a lot of different objects, such as digital learning objects, software tools like wikis or authoring systems, simulations or animations, electronic textbooks, but also lesson plans or experiences shared. The main aspect is that the object is usable to improve education. The following classification shows parallels to other initiatives (extended from Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2010):

• Resources: Currently, the main research field is how to make learning objects (specific digital objects created for learning purposes) available and re-usable. These resources are purposefully created for educational purposes. This includes multimedia documents, simulations, educational games, podcasts, webcasts but also simple html web resources.

• Articles, textbooks and digital equivalents: This class of resources contains typical objects provided by libraries, such as articles, papers, books or journals. When becoming freely available, this class of objects is connect to the concept of Open Access (Björk, 2004, Bailey, 2005).

• Software tools and web applications are used for different purposes, such as producing / authoring learning resources but also for communication and collaboration

6 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127

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(Cohere7, Flashmeeting8 (OpenLearn). Objects of this class are usually referenced as Open Source or Free Software (Raymond, 1999).

• Instructional / didactical designs and experiences: Educators are highly dependent on successfully planning and designing their learning experiences – this class of resources includes access to instructional designs, didactical plannings such as lesson plans, case studies or curricula. It also includes one of the most valuable resource: sharing experiences about materials and lessons between colleagues. This class of objects is also called Open Educational Practices.

• Web assets: This class of objects regards simple resources (assets) like pictures, links, videoclips or short texts which are not usable on their own in a learning context but can be used to support or illustrate a certain topic. In many ways, these are objects found by google or similar search engines.

This list is not intended to be complete, it just distinguishes the main concepts and explains how other “open” concepts are related.

Within OpenScout we provide means and tools to adapt previously described resources and assets for personal needs. In the field of business management education and training, many OER do already exist but they are not easily retrievable. We aim at facilitating search, retrieval and usage of such kind of resources, via providing the main services, among which adaptation.

References:

Bailey, C.W. 2005. Open Access Bibliography. Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries.

Björk, B.-C. 2004. Open access to scientific publications - an analysis of the barriers to change. Information Research, 9(2).

Henri Pirkkalainen and Jan Pawlowski. Open Educational Resources and Social Software in Global E-Learning Settings. In Pertti Yliluoma, editor, Sosiaalinen Verkko-oppiminen, pages 23–40. IMDL, Naantali, 2010.

Raymond, E.S. 1999. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source. Accidental Revolutionary, O'Reilly & Associates.

UNESCO. 2002. UNESCO Promotes New Initiative for Free Educational Resources on the Internet. Retrieved 29/06/2010 from: http://www.unesco.org/education/news_en/080702_free _edu_ress.shtml.

7 http://cohere.open.ac.uk/ 8 http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk

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Steps to successful OER re-use

In the following, we show the envisaged steps of content re-use (Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski 2010) in a generic context, and suggest which factors to take into account. The guideline does not mean to be complete and cannot guarantee success – but it can help to identify key aspects of the re-use process.

How to find fitting resources and how to evaluate them? This is the main question of the initial search phase.

1. Choose the starting point for your search – in this step, find a good starting repository for your search. We recommend to either use a specific repository for a certain topic (e.g. OpenScout repository federation for Management, LRE for school contents) or a federated repository which searches more than one source.

2. Clearly state your requirements and needs: what are the main characteristics of your content besides the topic area – which is the age of the target group, context (school, Higher Education, SME training, etc), instructional context. All these aspects can usually be specified in the search engines and make it more likely to find good results

3. Check the quality of a resource: Has the resource been reviewed by colleagues? Has it been certified or has it achieved good ranking from previous re-users?

4. Ask colleagues and networks: it is promising also to ask experienced colleagues or search forums by fellow teachers as an example. In most cases, you easily find a colleague sharing good ideas and hints.

5. Familiarize yourself with some basic licenses: most OERs use a creative commons license which aims at providing a simple transparent scheme. In most cases, re-use is allowed when informing the author in non-commercial settings. However, the Creative Commons website9 for OER helps to clarify what your legal situation is and also provides a tool10 to build licenses for your needs.

6. Search and try: most repositories provide direct access to resources, so it might be useful just to try out a few resources and see how it fits your context.

7. Make your decision: you cannot use all resources but soon you will find resources and colleagues which are fitting your context.

Having found some good initial resources, there are more steps to make the resources fit your context and style. In most cases, small adaptations are needed (adaptation phase).

9 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Creative_Commons_and_Open_Educational_Resources 10 http://creativecommons.org/choose/?lang=en_GB

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1. Small involvement or more? As a first step, a strategic decision is needed – will you only re-use materials or do you see this as a potential for strategic collaboration. Simple re-use just requires downloading the resource and adapting some graphics (just like changing a powerpoint slide design). In some cases, you might find the materials as a good starting point, but you would add concepts and enrich / enhance the contents and share it again with the original author and a community – this can lead to dynamic content enhancements and – even more important – trusted communities (see also the next section: Adaptation best practices – “how to localize?”).

2. Tools: some materials are simpler to modify (web pages, wiki pages), some need more effort. The selection of good (and free) tools to make changes is essential for a good process.

3. Collaborate: it is always advisable to let the original author and potential colleagues know about your plans. By this, you can clarify the authors’ intentions but also initiate a longer cooperation. People who share their materials are in most cases more than willing to discuss and listen to your suggestions.

4. Adapt and try: making your adaptations, bringing in new ideas, discussing improvements with colleagues. This is the main challenge of this phase. However, you should always try the result before publishing it again.

The last phase is important for a community which depends on the users and the contributions (share and exchange phase).

1. Re-publish your results: if you have made changes, you should send your results back to the original author. However, consider whether your work could be interesting to other people in the community. It will generate a dynamic process which might give you even more ideas.

2. Discuss and share: what were the steps when you adapted the materials? Share your open educational practice and your experiences, it will help other colleagues who later help you with their experiences as well.

3. Build your network: it is an illusion that all educators around the world will cooperate and work together. However, it is quite important to build a successful network of colleagues who work in similar areas, who share your ideas and principles for education and who you would simply trust. In those networks, you easily get good recommendations and new ideas.

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This is just a very short guideline – more advice on OER usage and good practices can be found in different communities, such as OER Commons11, UNESCO Open Training Platform12, PBWorks OER infokit13 or eduwiki14.

Adaptation best practices – “how to localize?”

This page highlights some of the main aspects for adaptation identified in the OER movement and expresses guidelines and actions you should take in to account when localizing materials to your needs.

Needs for the adaptation When you have found potential materials that should be adapted to your needs, think, which are the main needs for the adaptation. Wikieducator15 has listed the following reasons to adapt OER:

1. To address a particular teaching style or learning style

2. To adapt for a different grade level (e.g. a teacher changes some wording in a fourth grade unit on spaceflight to make it better suited for his third grade students)

3. To adapt for a different discipline

4. To adjust for a different learning environment

5. To address diversity needs

6. To address a cultural preference

7. To support a specific pedagogical need

8. To address either a school or a district’s standardized curriculum

Therefore, it is important to clarify what you’re actually adapting, if it includes:

• course-related materials that have an explicit learning focus, or

• non-curricular content, such as primary source materials or images (support material)

11 http://www.oercommons.org/community 12 http://opentraining.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/page.cgi?p=adaptlocalize&d=1 13 https://openeducationalresources.pbworks.com/ 14 http://fi.eduwiki.eu/wiki/Etusivu 15 http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook/educator/Adapt

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Tool and delivery formats When you have analyzed the main needs for the adaptation, you should also take in to account the delivery mechanism of your adapted materials.

• What are the requirements for delivery of the materials?

o Should the materials appear in a specific format (does the material have to be packaged (SCORM, CC etc) or delivered with a specific Learning Management System (Moodle etc)?

o Does your institution or organization have any guidelines or practices that should be followed?

• Are the materials you are thinking to adapt already in the expected delivery format?

o If not, OpenScout offers tools for adapting your materials. Please check for appropriate tools for different format types (see Appendix B).

What do you adapt? The following things should be taken in to account in the adaptation process:

Based on UNESCO16 , adaptation is very likely to occur on one of the four levels:

• Level 1. Re-branding: adding institutional name, logo, and contact information

• Level 2. Localizing: adding local examples

• Level 3. Contextualizing: changing the content and syntax to match characteristics of the local audience and principles espoused by the organization

• Level 4. Adapting materials for e-learning

Commonwealth of Learning has listed the following as the most potential factors people want to adapt:

1. cultural elements and contexts that can facilitate better comprehension;

2. study advice;

3. activities which trainees may undertake during the training or as follow up;

4. examples drawn from your country’s national experiences and the local environment;

5. self-tests;

16 http://opentraining.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/page.cgi?p=adaptlocalize&d=1

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6. summaries;

7. assessment material;

8. links to local resources;

9. case studies; and

10. additional media elements such as an audio tape or a web site.

How should you adapt? How you actually perform the adaptation depends highly on yourself. We want to share some ideas how adaptation should be done that it is line with successful experiences and in the end - serves the needs of the students and final users of the materials.

Remember to make your adaptation according to your needs (stakeholders, pedagogic goals etc.) and inline with the basic steps of OER re-use explained in section “Steps to successful OER re-use”.

It is crucial to have localization in mind when the E-learning design and development

starts. Ideally planning for localization should start before the core course is

designed. If this issue is not taken in to account beforehand, it is a probable risk that

the future localization effort will be very time consuming and complicated and many

components of the courses have to be redesigned and developed (Anand 200517).

While adapting your materials, please make sure the following general things are taken in to

account about how you should write:

• Avoid abbreviations, acronyms, and jargon.

• Cultural factors

o Avoid culturally sensitive graphics;

o Think about colours, symbols etc. since they have different meanings and connotations in different cultures;

o Provide captions and alternative descriptions and don’t rely on non-verbal cues.

ISKME18 has suggested the following things regarding formats and design:

17 http://www.knowledgeplatform.com/Content/Pdfs/Localizing_E-Learning.pdf 18 http://cnx.org/content/m15222/latest/

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Document file format:

Create materials in the most flexible formats available. HTML is one of the most widely available formats—HTML documents can be viewed with any web browser and the files are easily modifiable. Another popular format for document creation is Microsoft Word. Because Microsoft Word is a commercial product, some people may not own this program. Instead of saving your material as a Word document (.doc format), save the Microsoft Word document as a text (.txt) file or a rich text format file (.rtf). Both .txt and .rtf formats can be opened with any word-processing program.

Design:

Keep the design of your materials simple. Following W3C’s 10 Quick Tips to Make Accessible Web Sites19, will help make your materials accessible to those with disabilities.

The recommendations for internationalization of online materials collected by Sung-Shik 20include the following:

• Separating content from the presentation

o Use style sheets and course templates;

o Write content first, then add design templates, take different media, devices and preferences of users from various cultures in to account.

• For date and time, use ISO 8601 format.

• With graphics, use relative sizes rather than absolute units

To support internationalization and further adaptations of OER community, W3C21 has provided guidelines to support this:

• Ensure that the technology supports text in any writing system of the world.

Declaring files to support the characters of the target languages (Unicode UTF-8);

• W3C recommendations for internationalization tag set (ITS).

o Can be used to show which parts are assigned to be translated;

o Recommends how to provide instructions, hints and alerts to the localizers of

the materials etc.

19 http://www.w3.org/WAI/quicktips/ 20 http://www.slideshare.net/gregshin/issues-in-globalization-of-elearning-content-and-accessibility-presentation 21 http://www.w3.org/TR/its/

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Appendix B: User guides for tools

Adaptation tools

Modification Regarding the modification of resources, we propose some modification options for different types of resources provided in our content federation. This list of available formats might be extended when new repositories are brought to the federation. The user will be aware that the modification of existing materials has to be made according to the licensing schemes.

The following formats have been identified so far:

• HTML: HyperText Markup Language, predominant markup language for web pages

• PDF: Portable Document Format (PDF), an open standard for document exchange

• DOC: DOC or doc (an abbreviation of 'document'), a file extension for word processing documents; most commonly for Microsoft Word

• RTF: The Rich Text Format (often abbreviated RTF), a document file format for cross-platform document interchange

• PPT: File format for Microsoft PowerPoint

• CSV: A comma-separated values or character-separated values (CSV) file is a simple text format for a database table

• ZIP: The ZIP file format is a data compression and archive format. Used also for SCORM and IMS content packaging

• SWF x-Shockwave Flash: SWF (an abbreviation for "ShockWave Flash"), a file format for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript in the Adobe Flash environment

• MP4 Video: MPEG-4 is a collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual (AV) digital data

• Real Media Streaming Format: RealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks. Its extension is ".rm". It is typically used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio and is used for streaming content over the Internet

• MP3: MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3 (or III), more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format

• JPG: JPEG is a commonly used method of compression for digital photography (images)

• PNG: Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression

• EPUB: EPUB (short for electronic publication; alternatively capitalized as ePub, ePUB, EPub, or epub, with "EPUB" preferred by the vendor) is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF)

Below are the user guides for tools that allow the modification of the previously mentioned formats:

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Notepad++ (adapting HTML)

What is it? Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Who is it for? Users with a need to adapt web pages or for programming efforts.

How does it work? Notepad++ supports syntax highlighting and syntax folding for 48 programming, scripting, and markup languages. It attempts to automatically detect the language that a given file uses, using a modifiable list of file extension bindings. Users may also manually set the current language, overriding the extension's default language.

Some of its general features include:

• Tabbed document interface

• Drag-and-drop

• Multiple clipboard

• Split screen editing and synchronized scrolling

• Spell checker (requires Aspell) (Spell checker doesn't distinguish between text and code)

• Supports text encoding formats such as Unicode, for international writing systems

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• Find and replace over multiple documents

• File comparison

• Zooming

Related links: Download tool: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download

Help: http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus/forums

GoogleDocs (adapting pdf, doc, rtf, ppt, csv) As a part of our adaptation recommendations, we propose easy ways to modify pdf, doc, rtf, ppt and csv files. One easy way to work on them is through googledocs, by uploading your file and transforming it to a GoogleDoc format, which enables you to modify the material and finally export it to various format types.

What is it? GoogleDocs is a free collaborative writing application for easy document, spreadsheet and presentation editing with your colleagues or friends.

Who is it for? Anyone with an interest to write documents, create spreadheets and presentations online by himself or with multiple editors. Google account needed to start editing (simple registration if needed).

How does it work?

You can convert your files to googleDocs, edit your document and upload it in a format of your wish.

• Requires google account (registration possible if needed)

Related links: Access uploading to GoogleDocs: https://docs.google.com/DocAction?action=updoc&hl=en

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Guidelines how to upload and convert:

https://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50092

PDFescape

What is it? PDFescape is a service started by Red Software, a California software company which specializes in PDF related desktop software.

PDFescape is the first online PDF reader, editor, form filler, and form creator that does not require the download or installation of any software. PDFescape is entirely web based, relying on XHTML, JavaScript, XML, and a new web concept commonly called AJAX.

PDFescape is named for its ability to help users to escape the typical software requirements which working with PDF files often demands. PDFescape allows its users to escape from these often expensive technologies with this online web application.

In print, PDFescape should be written PDFescape as it appears in our logo or PDF ESCAPE where a single level of capitalization is required such as legal agreements.

Who is it for? Anyone with an interest to work on PDFs online.

How does it work? Free Online PDF Reader

• Open PDF documents natively in your web browser

• Rotate & zoom PDF pages to preferred viewing style

• Select text and copy PDF content to your clipboard

• Search PDF text for terms & keywords with ease

• Save, download, email, & print PDF documents

• PDF thumbnail, bookmark, & link support

Free Online PDF Editor

• Add text, shapes, whiteout & more to PDF files

• Move & delete PDF pages

• Create links to other PDF pages or web content

• Change PDF information tags

• Encrypt PDF contents using a password

• Add & edit PDF annotations (sticky notes)

Free PDF Form Filler

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• Fill out PDF forms using existing form fields or use text tool

• PDF text, checkbox, radio, list, and drop down fields supported

• Essential PDF field calculation and formatting supported

• Basic PDF field styling properties supported

• Quickly tab from field to field

Free PDF Form Designer

• Add new PDF form fields to any PDF file

• Style PDF form fields (font, size, color, etc)

• Modify existing PDF form fields

Related links: Integration: http://www.radpdf.com/

http://www.pdfescape.com/

Windows Movie Maker/Windows Live Movie Maker (for adaptation of .avi. mpg, mp4 etc.)

What is it? A video editing tool for Windows that is free. Windows Movie Maker comes included in Microsoft Windows Me, Xp andVista. Windows Live Movie Maker is included within Windows Live Essentials which can be downloaded for free.

Who is it for? Both versions of Movie Maker are aimed to general users with basic knwoledge of video editing.

How does it work?

Videos can be downloaded into Movie Maker from cameras or computer files. Within the application videos can be polished by using all the basic video editing tools (e.g. cutting and rearranging pieces of the movie), by adding video effects and transitions, titles, music and narrations.

Related links:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx

http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker?os=other

RELOAD content packaging editor (for adaptation of content packages (.zip))

What is it?

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Reload is a general purpose open source content package and metadata editor. This editor provides support for IMS Metadata, IEEE LOM, IMS Content Packaging and SCORM. There are versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. There are Java Swing-based and Eclipse-based versions available.

Who is it for? The RELOAD editor is of significant value to the wider e-learning community, since it provides the crucial "missing link" which allows users to author and transfer learning objects, in specification compliant format, between authoring and design tools, local and distributed digital repositories, and VLEs.

How does it work? The RELOAD Workspace basically consists of three panes: a folder tree view pane (left), a manifest view pane (right), and an attribute view pane (bottom). The attribute pane includes a section with context sensitive information on the currently selected element as well as a table of values and a box for data entry.

Each window represents a Content package and multiple windows may be open at any one time. If you wish to view the Metadata associated with a particular content package, then a new window is launched in addition to the Content Package window.

The RELOAD Editor has two toolbars. The Main Toolbar, with general options, and the Resource Pool Toolbar wit access to actions specific to the Resource Pool.

Main Toolbar

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From left to right, the icons represent (with equivalent menu actions in brackets):

New (File New) creates a new Content Package (CP) or Metadata Record.

Open (File Open) opens an existing CP or Metadata Record.

Save (File Save Ctrl+S) to save the current CP or Metadata Record.

Undo (Edit Undo Ctrl+Z) to undo the last action.

Redo (Edit Redo Ctrl+Shift+Z) to redo the last action.

Cut (Edit Cut Ctrl+X) to cut the current selection.

Copy (Edit Copy Ctrl+C) to copy the current selection.

PASTE (EDIT PASTE CTRL+V) TO PASTE THE CONTENTS OF THE CLIPBOARD.

Delete (Edit Delete del) to delete the current selection.

Move Up (Alt+Up) to move the selected file within the CP.

Move Down (Alt+Down)to move the selected file within the CP.

Edit Metadata (Edit Edit Metadata) to edit metadata for the selected manifest.

Edit SCORM (Edit Edit SCORM) properties for a given Item.

Make Content Package (File Zip Content Package) to create a .zip CP.

View File (View View File)to view an individual file (via browser).

Preview Content Package (View Preview Content Package) previews the CP.

Resource Pool Toolbar

From left to right, the icons represent (with equivalent menu actions in brackets):

Import to Resource Pool

Delete from Resource Pool

Refresh, refreshes the file list for the Resource Pool.

View File, launches a browser window to allow viewing of an individual file.

Related links:

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The main Web page of this tool is: http://www.reload.ac.uk/

eXact Packager – SCORM Compliant Content Authoring Tool (for adaptation of content packages (.zip))

What is it? eXact Packager® is a professional content development tool, part of learn eXact Suite®. It is a powerful client/server Windows™ application which empowers editors to easily create, tag and publish Reusable Information Assets (RIAs), Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs), Reusable Content Packages (RCPs) and structures (templates). It enables ingesting pre-existing assets from all main legacy and editorial formats (e.g. Word and Power Point) and converting them into multi-delivery packages.

Benefits:

• Power, Speed, Quantity and Quality

• Interoperability

• Import Legacy Resources or Even IMS and SCORM Packages

• Resource Indexing

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• Templates and Multi-delivery Content

• Standard-based and Future Proof

Who is it for? eXact Packager is for fast-paced organizations that need to meet hi-volume, professional and consistent learning output demand. These requirements necessitate both rapid authoring capabilities and model-based automation of content production. By using eXact Packager you can design sophisticated and highly interactive instructional content and develop standard and interoperable learning content elements (Learning Objects) that form the structure of a course.

How does it work? Authoring activities can be carried on both online and offline, so that organizations may produce information in both stand alone and location independent settings.

The authoring environment is designed to assemble information, resources, multimedia items into Learning Objects (Los) or Content Packages (CPs), rapidly and efficiently. Thanks to the built-in templates, eXact Content Models, creating screens and courses is just matter of dragging and dropping raw assets (audio, images, video, etc.) into a visual tree structure representing the template. eXact Packager is also the ideal tool for creating, indexing and packaging content that needs to be adapted to a variety of learning requirements, such as for PC delivery, print materials, and mobile devices.

Overall, the authoring environment can be customized to define the metadata, vocabularies and packaging standards to be used, such as SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, AICC and IMS. Moreover, the environment is highly ‘pluggable’, catering for any customer-specific requirements and fulfilling these via integration with ad hoc plugins or third party solutions.

Related links:

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http://www.exact-learning.com/en/products/learn-exact-suite/exact-packager-scorm-compliant-content-authoring

http://www.exact-learning.com/download.php?filename=exact-packager-datasheets.pdf

http://www.exact-learning.com/en/products/learn-exact-suite

Adobe Premiere Express Online Video Editing (for adaptation of .avi. mpg, mp4 etc.)

What is it? A stripped down version of Adobe Premier designed for simple online video editing. It requires a browser and Adobe Flash Player which can be downloaded for free.

Who is it for? Novices and general users.

How does it work? Adobe Premiere Express has been embedded into well-known websites such as Photobucket, YouTube and MTV and offered for free by these services. It allows their users to create and edit their videos online and share them as soon as they are ready.

Related Links http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereexpress/

Pixorial (adapting .rm, avi, mp4 etc)

What is it?

A video editing service with social networking features. It allows uploading and editing of videos for free up to 10 GB.

Who is it for? General public.

How does it work?

Users need to open an account with Pixorial. Within Pixorial users can upload their videos and add them into a storyboard (or timeline) alongside effects and transitions. Pixoria has also collaborative features allowing users to share their unfinished videos (editable versions) to friends to edit and remix. Finished videos can then be shared as dvds, video eCards, embedded on websites or shared on social networking sites.

Related Links www.pixorial.com

www.pixorial.com/help?context=producer

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YouTube Video Editor (adapting video formats)

What is it? A video editing facility embedded within YouTube. Available to YouTube users.

Who is it for? Anyone with a YouTube account. Users range between novices and home movie makers to experienced video producers.

How does it work? Users need to have an account with YouTube and upload their raw videos into the website. The YouTube video editor allows to trim videos arrange them in a timeline insert transitions and add audio. Finished videos can then be published on YouTube and shared by email, into social networking sites or embedded in other websites.

Related Links www.youtube.com/editor

SWFTools (adapting SWF x-Shockwave Flash format) For adapting Adobe Flash files (SWF), we recommend to access a collection of open Flash tools to find your optimal tool.

What is it? Collection of Flash tools to adapt SWF files (file format for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript in the Adobe Flash environment - dominant format for displaying "animated" vector graphics on the Web).

Who is it for?

Anyone with the need to adapt Flash files.

How does it work? Tools for adapting flash consist of several programs for reading SWF files, combining them, and creating them from other content (like images, sound files, videos or sourcecode).

Related Links http://www.swftools.org/

Power Sound Editor Free (adapting MP3, Wav, WMA etc)

What is it?

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Power Sound Editor Free is a visual audio editing and recording software solution, which supports many advanced and powerful operations with audio data. You can use Power Sound Editor Free to record your own music, voice, or other audio files, edit it, mix it with other audio or musical parts, add effects like Reverb, Chorus, and Echo, and burn it on a CD, post it on the World Wide Web or e-mail it. 100% Free!

Who is it for? Anyone with the need to adapt audio files.

How does it work?

Record Power Sound Editor Free helps you record new audio file from a microphone, sound card or other input devices (you can record audio from DVD / VCD / CD Player, MP3 Player, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Web Page, Internet Conversation, Internet News, Internet Radio Station and more) Edit This Free Sound Editor allows you to visually edit an audio file (Delete, Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste From File, Mix, Mix From File) and apply different effects (Amplify, Delay, Equalizer, Fade, Flanger, Invert, Normalize, Reverse, MultiTapDelay, Silence, Stretch, Vibrato, Echo, Chorus) Rip and Burn audio CD Advanced Audio CD rip/burner features support the ability to rip audio CDs to MP3, WMA, WAV, and OGG files or burn audio CDs from MP3, WMA, WAV, and OGG files.

Related Links Get the tool: http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Multimedia_and_Graphics/Misc__Sound_Tools/Power_Sound_Editor_Free_2010.html

Free Online Image Editor (adapting jpg, png etc.) For image editing we recommend to use desktop tools that are either commercial or non-commercial. See as an example:

• Paint for windows:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/mspaint_overview.mspx?mfr=true

• Photoshop (commercial):

http://www.photoshop.com/

For quick and dirty online editor, you could select “Free Online Image Editor”:

What is it? Online tools for image editing. For formats such as JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF etc.

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Who is it for? Anyone who want to quickly modify a picture online.

How does it work? The Free Online Image Editor lets you edit images ONLINE.

• Resize or Crop your images (also for animated gifs).

• Add Text to your images (also for animated gifs).

• Add Borders, or Overlay your images (also for animated gifs).

• Put your image in a Picture Frame or add a Mask. (also for animated gifs)

• Resize or Crop your images (also your animated gifs).

• Overlay your images with predefined animations!

• Convert, sharpen, reduce size of your animated gif

Related links: Access the tool: http://www.online-image-editor.com/

Tips and hints: http://www.online-image-editor.com/index.cfm?fa=help&help_id=index

Tool Calibre (adapting epub)

What is it? Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application. It supports all possible operations and functions related to eBooks.

EPUB (Electronic PUBlication) is the official de-facto standard for the digital publishing industry, maintained by the trade and standards association IDPF (the International Digital Publishing Forum).

Who is it for? Calibre is developed by users of e-books for users of e-books.

How does it work? Calibre has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories:

• Library Management: Calibre manages e-book collections. It is designed around the concept of the logical book, i.e., a single entry in library that may correspond to actual e-book files in several formats. Calibre can sort the books in the library by: Title, Author, Date added, Date published, Size, Rating, Series, etc. In addition, it supports extra searchable metadata:

a. Tags: A flexible system for categorizing collections

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b. Comments: Free text field that can be used for book description, notes, reviews, etc.

Each book collection can be searched for a particular book. calibre supports searching any and all of the fields mentioned above. The user can construct advanced search queries by clicking the helpful "Advanced search" button to the left of the search bar.

Arbitrary subsets of any collection can be extracted to the hard disk arranged in a fully customizable folder structure.

Calibre can go to the internet to find book metadata based on existing title/author or ISBN information. It can download various types of metadata and covers for your books, automatically. The metadata system is written using plugins so that different types of metadata sources can be supported in the future.

• E-book conversion: Calibre can convert from a huge number of formats to a huge number of formats. It supports all the major e-book formats. The conversion engine has lots of powerful features. It can rescale all font sizes, ensuring the output e-book is readable no matter what font sizes the input document uses. It can automatically detect/create book structure, like chapters and Table of Contents. It can insert the book metadata into a "Book Jacket" at the start of the book.

• Syncing to e-book reader devices: Calibre has a modular device driver design that makes adding support for different e-reader devices easy. At the moment, it has support for a large number of devices. Syncing supports updating metadata on the device from metadata in the library and creation of collections on the device based on the tags defined in the library. If a book has more than one format available, calibre automatically chooses the best format when uploading to the device. If none of the formats is suitable, calibre will automatically convert the e-book to a format suitable for the device before sending it.

• Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form: Calibre can automatically fetch news from websites or RSS feeds, format the news into a ebook and upload to a connected device. The ebooks include the full versions of the articles, not just the summaries. Calibre has over three hundred news sources and the news system is plugin based, allowing users to easily create and contribute new sources to calibre.

• Comprehensive e-book viewer: Calibre has a built-in ebook viewer that can display all the major ebook formats. It has full support for Table of Contents, bookmarks, CSS, a reference mode, printing, searching, copying, customizing the rendering via a user style sheet, embedded fonts, etc.

• Content server for online access to your book collection: Calibre has a built-in web server that allows you to access your ebook collection using a simple browser from any computer anywhere in the world. It can also email your books and downloaded news to you automatically. It has support for mobile devices, so you can browse your collection and download books from your smartphone, Kindle, etc.

Related links:

The main Web page of this tool is: http://calibre-ebook.com/

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Send2wiki

What is it? The Send2Wiki extension allows users to send web pages to a wiki via a web browser bookmarklet. Content is stripped from web pages hosted on known Open Course Ware websites and registered Wikis. Optionally the user can request a machine translation into a specified language. The extension attempts to detect and preserve Creative Commons, GFDL and other licenses.

Who is it for? Users who want to adapt content without spohisticated design tools.

How does it work?

• Content from a website is sent via a bookmarklet to a Mediawiki installation.

• User can change content there.

Related links: Download tool: http://code.google.com/p/send2wiki/

Annotation OpenScout will consider many different types of annotation. Adding quality, social and other metadata to the resources (public/social annotation) in the form of tags, ratings and comments have already been considered in OpenScout in the current prototype. In addition, OpenScout aims to suggest further private and collaborative annotation tools. Referencing/research tools are also planned with commenting within document functionalities, authoring tools with annotation possibilities, audio annotation and so on.

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In the upcoming tool library development, additional categorization of annotation tools will be considered (dividing to tag, comment, audio annotation etc.)

The following tools will be found under annotation tools in the first phase:

Sophie 2.0

What is it? Sophie 2.0 is open source software for writing, reading and visualizing rich media documents in an interactive, networked environment. The program emerged from the desire to create an easy-to-use application that would allow authors to combine text, images, video, and sound quickly and simply, but with precision and sophistication.

Who is it for? Sophie's users are interested in creating robust, elegant, networked, texts and multimedia works without having programming knowledge or training in the use of more complex and costly tools such as Flash.

How does it work? The main features of the Sophie 2.0 system are:

• Sophie Author allows users to create complex networked multimedia documents without specialized training.

• Sophie Reader allows readers to read Sophie books in a browser without downloading a separate application.

• Comment frames allow easily constructed spaces for discussion inside of books.

• Browser frames allow embedding fully functional web browsers in book pages.

• Sophie can import, embed, and export PDF files.

• Easy to use embedded books: Sophie books can open inside other Sophie books.

• Frame-based timelines present an easy way to create animations.

• Sophie Server allows uploading, managing, and downloading books on a server.

• Sophie Server allows simultaneous collaborative creation of books.

Sophie was initially designed and developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book. The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts assumed sponsorship of Sophie 1.0 and, with a generous grant from the The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has significantly revised and improved a new 2.0 version that was released on December 11, 2009. The Sophie project is being developed by Astea Solutions AD and additional contributors using a Java code base contributed to the project by Astea Solutions. The company works closely with Sofia University's Faculty for Mathematics and Informatics and Laboratory for Interactive Multimedia.

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Sophie is widely used in leading USA Universities. It is completely Open Source and is further developed mainly from Astea together with ITD, joint research units organized around University of Sofia, Faculty of Math and Informatics.

Related links: All information about the current Sophie developments (including downloads of the software) is available at the following Web site: http://www.sophieproject.org/

LearnWeb 2.0

What is it? Produced as part of the Personal Competence Management System (PCM 2.0), LearnWeb2.0 is a tool for the management and sharing of knowledge resources. More specifically, it provides users with the convenience of a single environment from which to access Web 2.0 tools best suited to the competence development process. It enables access to a wide array of resources from all over the web, which can then be exclusively tagged, rated and commented on by TENCompetence users for TENCompetence users. This is achieved by isolating competence-focused feedback from that of standard Web 2.0 users. In this way, members of a TENCompetence community are better able to make informed opinions on the value of resources for the purposes of competence development.

Who is it for? LearnWeb2.0 supports spontaneous communities of people wishing to collaborate. It is intended for use by both learners and teachers who wish to share resources and opinions of resources with peer users. It can also be used to facilitate contact between people with similar interests.

How does it work? The LearnWeb2.0 infrastructure brings together information stored on institutional servers, centralised repositories and community sharing systems. The functionalities of existing Web 2.0 applications are combined and accessed through an integrated platform that facilitates sharing, discussion and the creation of resources for subsequent propagation of user managed information across social networks. The system gathers information in an integrated environment and makes it easily accessible through its distributed and modularized infrastructure and single sign on (SSO) functionalities.

LearnWeb2.0 includes two interfaces: interactive web pages for direct use by people; and automatic web-service methods for interacting with other tools like Course Editors, Community Managers etc.

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Related links: The standalone LearnWeb 2.0 tool is available as an independent tool at: http://phpcake.it.fmi.uni-sofia.bg/

More info and source code is available at: LearnWeb and KRService integrated into TENCompetence: LearnWeb2.0 v.1.0

Share.TEC portal

What is it? Share.TEC is a platform granting unified access to digital resources across Europe in the domain of Teacher Education. Currently the portal refers to about 25 000 resources, while in the next year 2011 the portal will refer to 50 000 digital resources residing in digital repositories across Europe. Users may search, browse and annotate all these resources or let the system recommend them those resources and groups that best fit their profile.

Who is it for?

The Share.TEC platform is aimed for teacher educators, practising teachers and student teachers. As seekers of Teacher Education content, these users would come to Share.TEC to satisfy different needs. Share.TEC addresses these needs with a multiplicity of solutions so as to provide a best-fit response. Publishers and content/service providers are also core users.

How does it work?

The system includes texts, multimedia presentations, videos and audio recordings and media of all kinds and formats. This will be incremented by resources from other Teacher Education institutions, publishers and content providers, and from individual Teacher Education practitioners, including both open access and commercial content.

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Sharing experience with peers about (re)using digital content in Teacher Education is of fundamental importance in Share.TEC. The portal also supports many of the current communications tools in the Internet (Delicious, Facebook, Messenger etc.) if you want to share useful links with your colleagues.

Share.TEC is the only service at European level for locating and sharing specific Teacher Education content. Share.TEC is addressing Teacher Educators primary needs for resources by building a unified interface. As a member of the Share.TEC community the teacher educators create their own profile, express their areas of interests and have access to several interactive Web 2.0 tools like bookmarking, rating, commenting, saving favorite resources.

The heart of the Share.TEC system is the Share.TEC Repository. It contains metadata representing resources from the Teacher Education (TE) domain. These metadata are represented in the Common Metadata Model (CMM) format (very close to LOM loose) and are collected and retrieved using the OAI-PMH Harvester from various sources: partners' local metadata repositories and external repositories or additional sources containing such metadata.

The Share.TEC repository also contains the representation of the Teacher Education Ontology (TEO).

The Share.TEC portal is the place where the user of the Share.TEC system can communicate with all of its components and to specify what services she/he needs from the system. The Portal allows the automatic personalization of the interface to match user's language, community role, and history.

Automatic ranking of search results in accordance with user profile characteristics (weighting) is also supported. Comprehensive recommender system is used.

Related links: The system is available at the following address: http://portal.share-tec.eu/

Caliph & Emir

What is it? Caliph & Emir are MPEG-7 based Java prototypes for digital photo and image annotation and retrieval supporting graph like annotation for semantic metadata and content based image retrieval using MPEG-7 descriptors.

Who is it for? Caliph & Emir users are interested in annotate different documents using MPEG-7 descriptors.

How does it work? Features of Caliph:

• Extraction of IPTC and EXIF metadata and conversion to MPEG-7

• Extraction of following content based image retrieval descriptors:

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o ColorLayout (measures color distribution in an image)

o ScalableColor (basically a color histogram)

o EdgeHistogram (measures edginess)

o DominantColor (measure dominant colors)

• Annotation of images with

o Free text metadata

o Quality rating

o Structured text metadata

o Meta^2 data (metadata about metadata)

• Semantic Annotations

o Based on a editable catalogue for reusable semantic objects (like specific persons, places, …)

o Fully visual & graphical user interface

o Automatic placement and layout of visual descriptions

o Export of semantic descriptions to Structured Text Descriptions

• Annotation of shapes

• Load and save annotations as MPEG-7 XML file.

Caliph: Besides reading existing information, which already exists in digital photographs, and transformation of this information to MPEG-7, Caliph supports the creation of new metadata. Semantic information about the image is presented as directed graph, where the nodes reflect semantic objects, locations, agents, states, times or concepts and the edges define the relations between these semantic entities. To enhance retrieval efficiency content-based metadata is extracted and new instances of the image for faster visualization, like thumbnails, are created. The MPEG-7 description consists of the following parts: metadata description, creation information, media information, textual annotation, semantics, visual descriptors

Features of Emir:

• Retrieval of annotations using the file system

o with XPath queries

o with keyword queries

o with quality constraints

o with example images for content based image retrieval

• Retrieval of Annotations using a Lucene index

o with inbuilt index creation

o using different fields for structured retrieval

• Retrieval of semantic graphs based on a Lucene powered index

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o supporting wildcards for relations and nodes

o based on query expansion

o graphical query editor

• 2D data repository visualization based on FastMap and FDP algorithms

o for image content descriptors ColorLayout, ScalableColor and EdgeHistogram

o for graphs based on the minimum common sub graph metric

Emir: The experimental metadata based image retrieval tool Emir supports retrieval in file system based photo repositories created with Caliph. Different types of retrieval mechanisms are supported:

• Content based image retrieval using the MPEG-7 descriptors ColorLayout, EdgeHistogram and ScalableColor.

• Keyword based searching using the Lucene search engine.

• Graph based retrieval supporting wildcards for semantic relations and semantic objects.

• 2D data repository and result set visualization based on FastMap & FDP algorithms.

Furthermore clustering abilities are built in but not activated yet.

Related links: All information about the current Caliph & Emir developments (including downloads of the software) is available at the following Web site: http://www.semanticmetadata.net/

Pligg CMS

What is it? Pligg was created as a social networking CMS to manage a site with an unlimited number of authors. All of these registered users are in control of the website's content. It is a user driven CMS that relies on independent authors' content and participation to manage news articles.

Pligg started as a simple CMS to let users submit and vote on news articles, and that's still what we do best. Vote on stories that interest you and articles that receive enough votes will appear on the homepage of your Pligg site. Pligg offers a 5 star method for voting or the more traditional numbered voting as seen on sites like Digg, Mixx, or Reddit.

Who is it for?

Pligg is intended for people who are active in social communities, giving them very flexible and powerful ways to communicate and collaboratively work on and support their own community portal.

How does it work? The main features of Pligg are related to working with groups, private messaging and advanced comment system.

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Each user that signs up on a Pligg site gets their own profile page where they can change their settings, send personal messages, add an avatar, make friends and other great features.

Groups allow users to share articles with other members who share a common interest in a topic. Each user is expected to submit topical articles that other members would be interested in. Some groups may require membership approval.

Private messaging module allows the users to send to their friends private messages that they can respond to.

The system gives very flexible ways for users to comment on articles and rate comments posted by other users. This affects the way that the comments are displayed, putting higher quality comments on top where they belong.

Related links: The Pligg site is available at: http://www.pligg.com/

Translation Under the translation category, we provide tools to support automatic and manual translations.

In the first phase, we recommend to use translation tool provided by Google.

This tool that can be used to translate words, sentences, full documents or web pages should only be used as a support for translation. The quality of the translation might differ very much and is never usable as such.

Google translator

What is it? Translator tool to provide instant translations.

Who is it for?

Anyone with a need to find instant translation when quality of the translation is not crucial.

How does it work? You can translate:

• Words

• Sentences

• Existing files

• Web pages

Related links: Access the translator: http://translate.google.com/

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Re-assembly and design Under re-assembly and design, we recommend various tools for content packaging, course creation, instructional designs etc. In the first phase, the following are suggested to the end user:

eXact Packager – SCORM Compliant Content Authoring Tool Described previously under tools for modifying .zip formats.

RELOAD content packaging editor Described previously under tools for modifying .zip formats.

Pligg CMS Described previously under tools for annotation.

Compendium

What is it? Compendium is a software tool developed by the Knowledge Media Institute for visual thinking, used to connect ideas, concepts, arguments, websites and documents. It is designed as a sensemaking tool to link, interpret and annotate resources within the Open University site, as well as out to any other resource on the web, with a default visual language of icons and connections designed to provoke reflection on the differences between questions, ideas, and challenging/ supporting evidence and arguments. Who is it for?

Compendium has been integrated with the OpenLearn project, an Open Educational resources (OER) environment developed by the UK Open University (OU). Compendium has been used by different OpenLearn users such as Educators, Learning designers, Researchers, Professionals and communities of practice interested in mapping and also presenting learning content through hypermedia representations.

How does it work? The Compendium software tool at OU-UK provides a visual user interface for users to cluster, connect and tag icons representing issues, ideas, concepts, arguments, websites or any media document. Through Compendium, OpenLearn users can design and present learning content through graphical representations while they study or prepare a unit.

Graphical representations or knowledge maps can be very useful as a summary of a topic, collection of important resources and as a learning path through the maze of the Web. Knowledge Mapping is a concept that comprises techniques and tools for visualising conceptual models as explicit structures graphically. Knowledge mapping techniques include:

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• Conceptual models of any subject such as concept maps

• Personal plans such as mind maps

• Models of dialogue and argumentation such as dialogue maps and argument maps

Related links: Compendium web site: http://compendium.open.ac.uk/

Case study materials developed in Compendium:

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/3784/kmap/1228909323/B713_PM%208%20Dec%2008.html

Literature on Compendium: http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/ale/journals/05ijl2008.pdf

Knowledge Cartography for Open Sensemaking Communities:

http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/ale/journals/02jime2008.pdf

SLIDESTAR

What is it? SLIDESTAR is an open Web 2.0 Community Platform for delivering, sharing and cross-linking of various types of educational and knowledge content. The underlying platform technology can also be used by companies, training providers and universities in order to create and offer their own Web 2.0 knowledge platform or lecture portal.

Who is it for? SLIDESTAR can be used by students, professors, universities, schools, training providers, or companies e.g. in the following scenarios:

• to design an e-lecture portal (university or school). With the SLIDESTAR platform a university or school can create their own e-lecture portal. Professors or teachers can simply provide the students or pupils with content. Also the open Community Platform www.slidestar.net can be used to upload content that you want to share.

• to realize of a further education community (training provider). The SLIDESTAR platform can help further education institutes to set up their own community which will, in turn, enable them to offer new services related to their training material.

• To realize an in-house Web 2.0 knowledge platform (company) The SLIDESTAR platform technology supports the exchange and use of all types of knowledge documents, whether slides, Word documents or PDF files. Since authors’ content can be automatically linked via tags and metadata (depending upon their origin – author or department), an internal and external Web 2.0 knowledge platform can be created quickly and inexpensively.

How does it work?

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Registered users of SLIDESTAR can circulate their knowledge and experiences in various forms, for example slides, texts, videocasts, e-lectures, or pictures, and can make them available to the SLIDESTAR community. SLIDESTAR offers an intelligent full-text indexing of the contents and thus supports the search for information within the documents of the repository. The ability to rate educational content supports users in selecting contents from the search results. Contents can be viewed by other platform members; they can – if allowed by the author - be commented as well as downloaded and reused. Every user can decide about the following Creative Commons licence conditions related to his/her content: (1) prohibit manipulation and commercial use, (2) prohibit commercial use or (3) allow manipulation and commercial use.

SLIDESTAR thus offers an integrated platform for searching and finding, rating and commenting, publishing and networking, and for downloading and re-using open content.

Related links: www.slidestar.net

Sophie 2.0

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The open source software for writing, reading and visualizing rich media documents, Sophie 2.0 will also be made available in the re-assembly and design category, while the information of the tool in this deliverable will not be duplicated.

eXelearning

What is it? The eXe project developed a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content without the need to become proficient in HTML or XML markup. Resources authored in eXe can be exported in IMS Content Package, SCORM 1.2, or IMS Common Cartridge formats or as simple self-contained web pages.

Who is it for? The eLearning XHTML editor (eXe) is an authoring environment to assist teachers and academics in the design, development and publishing of web-based learning and teaching materials without the need to become proficient in HTML or complicated web-publishing applications.

How does it work? eXe has been designed to provide users with the flexibility to develop learning content or learning resources in a way that best suits their personal development processes. Some users for example, may prefer to outline the structure of their content before settling the detail of their content. Others might prefer to put in the detail and structure the content once they know the detail they have to cover.

For eXe users that prefer to design the structure of their content first, the Outline pane will enable you to construct an outline or course design that reflects your own preferred hierarchy and even taxonomy, e.g. topics-sections-units, or books - chapters - notes, etc. The outline structure can be easily adapted as content detail is added.

The iDevice (instructional Device) pane is a collection of structural elements that describe learning content and activities. Examples of these include, objectives, pre-knowledge, case studies, or even free text. Learning content is created by selecting iDevices from the iDevice menu and entering your learning content. A learning resource may consist of as few or as many iDevices as needed to deliver the learning content. New iDevices are in development and recommendations for additional iDevices are constantly sought from the wider learning community. Users can include images, math equations, and multi-media (including the majority of current video formats and mp3) - or attach any other resource - into any iDevice's rich-text fields.

If the iDevice you need is not amongst those generic iDevices listed in the iDevice pane you may be able to create your own new iDevice using the iDevice Editor. This is covered later in the manual.

Once authoring is complete content can be exported using eXe’s Export facility. Content can be saved as a self contained web site for publishing to a web server, or as a SCORM Content

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Package or IMS Content Package, which should enable the resource to be imported into most SCORM compliant Learning Management Systems (LMS). eXe also includes exports for flat text files as well as an experimental iPod notes format export. eXe pages also format well for the printing of resources.

Related links: All information about the current eXelearning developments (including downloads of the software) is available at the following Web site: http://exelearning.org/

Knowledge Mapping This category includes tools for collaborative or private knowledge mapping. The tools to support this private or collaborative effort include:

Compendium Info on the tool provided under the re-assembly and design category.

FreeMind

What is it? FreeMind is a free mind mapping application written in Java. FreeMind is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It provides extensive export capabilities. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X via the Java Runtime Environment.

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As with other mind mapping software packages, FreeMind allows the user to edit a hierarchical set of ideas around a central concept. The non-linear approach assists in brainstorming new outlines and projects as ideas are added around the mind map. As a Java application, FreeMind is portable across multiple platforms and retains the same user interface, causing some amount of variation from the common interface on each platform.

Who is it for? FreeMind can be used by anyone with one of the following purposes/objectives:

• Keeping track of projects, including subtasks, state of subtasks and time recording

• Keeping a collection of small or middle-sized notes with links on some area, which expands as needed. Such a collection of notes is sometimes called knowledge base.

• Essay writing and brainstorming, using colors to show which essays are open, completed, not yet started etc, using size of nodes to indicate size of essays

• Keeping a small database of something with structure that is either very dynamic or not known in advance.

…and in general, any brainstorming activity to keep track of.

How does it work?

To create a new map, you use graphic editor. You start with an empty map that contains just the root node, this can be labeled and further child nodes can be added. Several graphic elements and utilities are available to differentiate and highlight concepts , as well as import/export facilities and document managing.

Related links:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/extensions/freemind/appletwindow.php?browsemode_initial_map=http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/images/f/f6/Freemind.mm&mm_title=Freemind.mm

Mindmeister

What is it? An online mind mapping software that allows users to visualise their thinking in the form of diagrams containing words, ideas, tasks, etc, which are interlinked to a central key idea.

Who is it for? Mindmeister can be used by anyone who needs to organise their thoughts. Recently Mindmeister reported that their main users are in the areas of IT, education and marketing. (according to a survey run by the company www.mindmeister.com/blog/2010/02/user-survey-2010-results )

How does it work? Users need to sign up for the service. They can create, manage, publish and share maps. Work on mindmaps can also be done collaboratively with several users accessing simultaneously the same map.

Related Links www.mindmeister.com

www.mindmeister.com/help

bubbl.us

What is it? A free web-based application for online brainstorming.

Who is it for?

General public. Anyone with an interst in organising and sharing their ideas in diagramatic form.

How does it work? Users need an account. bubbl.us allows the creation of mind maps, collaborative work, and sharing and embedding of maps in websites.

Related links

http://bubbl.us

http://vodpod.com/watch/2582960-bubbl-us-tutorial

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mind42.com

What is it? A free collaborative online mind mapping tool.

Who is it for? General public.

How does it work? Users need a browser and to open an account. Mind42.com allows management of ideas individually or in groups by using images, links to external websites and by adding notes. Collaboration is done via the Google Talk gadget. Easy publishing and distribution of maps.

Related links http://mind42.com

Makeapath

What is it?

Make a Path is a tool that allows users to create easily navigable paths through web-based resources (Henson, 2007d) (see http://www.makeapath.org). Paths are made publicly available on the Make a Path Web site and are available in HTML, RSS, and RDF formats. To create a pathway, users install a bookmarklet in their web browser. As they browse the

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web and come across pages they want to include in their path, they click the bookmarklet and the page is added to the path that they choose. Path authors can easily edit, reorganize, and view their paths at any time.

Who is it for? Users who want to connect resources from several web pages to one path

How does it work?

• Users can make a new path and add web ressources to it.

• Paths are presented like a Power point presentation

Collaboration tools

Collaborative writing Under collaborative writing, we suggest tools that allow more than one people to work on a document.

TypeWith.me

What is it? TypeWith.me is a collaborative writing application for easy document editing with your colleagues or friends.

Who is it for?

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Anyone with an interest to write documents online by himself or with multiple writers.

How does it work? The tools is extremely easy to use.

• Click “create a new document”

• Invite people to collaboratively edit the document or start on your own

• You can download an existing document as a template to work on

• With the editor, you can use some basic functions to edit the presentation of your document

• While working collaboratively, TypeWith.me offers you a possibility to chat synchronously with your colleagues

• After writing, you have the possibility to export your document to plain text, html, microsoft word to pdf etc.

Related links: Access the tool at: http://typewith.me/

GoogleDocs

What is it? GoogleDocs is a free collaborative writing application for easy document, spreadsheet and presentation editing with your colleagues or friends.

Who is it for? Anyone with an interest to write documents, create spreadheets and presentations online by himself or with multiple editors. Google account needed to start editing (simple registration if needed)

How does it work?

• Create and share your work onlineCreate, edit and upload quickly

• Import your existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, or create new ones from scratch.

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• Access and edit from anywhere

• All you need is a Web browser. Your documents, spreadsheets and presentations are stored securely online.

• Share changes in real-time

• Invite people to your documents and make changes together, at the same time.

Related links: Access the tool at: http://docs.google.com/

Help for use and additional information:

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=28131

Zoho Writer

What is it? A free online word processor allowing for writing, sharing, and collaboration.

Who is it for? Zoho Writer can be used by anyone with basic knowledge of word processing. It is perfect for people who need to work collaboratively with people who are located geographically distant and who are on the move as documents can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

How does it work? Zoho Writer supports text and images. Users can access, edit, and share their Zoho documents from anywhere with whomever they choose. They can also lock or protect their documents while working in shared mode. Additionally users create a wiki, post documents to a blog, as well as export and import documents in a variety of file formats such as Word (DOC), SXW, Portable Document File (PDF), ODT, Rich Text File (RTF), TXT and HTML.

Related Links http://writer.zoho.com

http://writer.zoho.com/html/screentour.html

Check note taking/sharing Collaborative work usually involves note writing and sharing. The following tools are suggested:

mind42.com information on the tool provided previously.

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MyNoteit

What is it? A free online note taking community for students.

Who is it for? MyNoteit has been developed especially for school and college students.

How does it work? Designed to allow students to make notes, share them with others and link them for group work. Manage time with an appointment calendar, to do lists and support from those in your groups.

Relevant Links http://www.mynoteit.com

Communication tools

Video conferencing Flashmeeting

What is it? The FlashMeeting project (FM) is a lightweight videoconferencing application developed by the Knowledge Media Institute, which runs in a web page with the Adobe Flash browser plug-in. The system forces only one person to broadcast at any one time, while co-attendees can raise a symbolic hand or interrupt. The background channels of communication in FM include a text chat facility, voting, indicating emoticons and a shared whiteboard. The whiteboard can

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be used for collaborative work, such as discussing or annotating uploaded slides, brainstorming by adding text or drawing. All meetings are recorded (discussions and graphical presentations - see an example figure 2), and replays can be syndicated in a publicly accessible Web page, including a folksonomy created according to the keywords added by the users in the meeting booking page. The replays can be easily browsed, edited and annotated . The replay page also includes automatically generated links to the chat transcript, and to linear and polar representations (figure 3 and 4) of the communication channels used in the event.

Who is it for? FM has been integrated with the OpenLearn project, an Open Educational resources (OER) environment developed by the UK Open University (OU). FM has been used by different openlearn users such as Educators, Learning designers, Researchers, Professionals and communities of practice interested in discussing and also presenting learning content.

How does it work? FM requires no installation. OpenLearn account holders can "book" a meeting, adding the meeting details, such as date, time and duration, number of attendees, title and keywords etc. and forward the meeting link to the meeting attendees via email or posted in a forum. Up to 25 participants can connect in a meeting. The system forces only one person to broadcast at any one time, while co-attendees can raise a symbolic hand or interrupt. The background channels of communication in FM include a text chat facility, voting, indicating emoticons and a shared whiteboard. The whiteboard can be used for collaborative work, such as discussing or annotating uploaded slides, brainstorming by adding text or drawing.

Related links http://flashmeeting.open.ac.uk/

Chat It is also vital to offer a possibility to chat between the collaborators when involved in a cooperative setting. Initially, GoogleTalk is offered here.

GoogleTalk

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What is it? GoogleTalk is a chat tools created by Google.

Who is it for? Anyone with an interest to chat with friends or colleagues.

How does it work? GoogleTalk allows you to:

Text chat

• Instant messages: share quick thoughts in real time

• Status updates: see if friends are around and what they are up to

• File transfer: instantly send and receive files, pictures, and more

Voice chat

• Free long distance: make PC-to-PC calls to people anywhere in the world

• Audio conferencing: talk to multiple people at once

• Gmail integration: chat with your friends on Gmail

Related links

Help: http://www.google.com/support/chat/?hl=en

Forum Forum functionality is currently available for discussions in the groups of the tool library.

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Related tools

Educational games Under educational games we will suggest games that support learning of professionals. Especially for learners of business and management.

InTeLS Game

What is it? The InTeLS Game is based on the scenario of a small company that wants to start exporting. The objective of the game is to educate/teach the player about the various issues associated with international trade in a context which is true to life when running a business. The game compliments the e-InTeLS course and the InTeLS knowledge Base by helping learners to identify areas where they may have a lack of knowledge in a particular subject.

Who is it for? This game together with the elearning course aims to improve access to international trade training for staff & managers in European SMEs who are unable to attend classroom based learning due to lack of financial resources or time/geographical constraints. The main aim is to improve skills in international trade for a wide range of SMEs. It will be achieved by developing a suite of e-learning training materials meant to access and acquire the skills to import/export markets. The goal is to improve profitability of an SME and implement the measures needed to start trading internationally.

How does it work? The objective for the player is to make key critical decisions within the game in order to trade successfully internationally. The player goes through various stages/options which are chosen to highlight a range of international trade related subjects. The game is lasts approximately an hour, but can be paused at any point and returned to. Games can also be replayed depending on what decisions you make within the game.

The game compliments the e-InTeLS course and the InTeLS knowledge Base by helping learners to identify areas where they may have a lack of knowledge in a particular subject. Having identified the 'lack of knowledge' subject, they will then have the ability to find the relevant subject material (through the course or the knowledge base) in a traditional e-Learning format. The great thing about the game is that the player will be able to play it repetitively (through-out their learning phase) and test their new found knowledge in the context of the game.

This On-line website course is based on a structured set of materials presented in a modular format. It covers the range of international trade practices and procedures and is based on the successful UK government "Passport to Export" scheme.

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The InTeLS Course is free to use during duration of EC funding and will subsequently be made "free at the point of use" to all qualifying organisations.

The InTeLS Course is the fastest way to prepare individuals and companies for international trading. With its web-based format it allows access to materials from any internet enabled computer.

Related links: The Web site of the course and the game:

• http://intels.biz/staticsections/view/elearning/en

The on-line site for playing the game:

• http://www.pixelearning.com/support/INTELS/games/uk/play.html

YENTELS Game

What is it? The YENTELS Game is based on the scenario of a young person who decides to start a new DJ business. The game is used together with e-learning Web course. The eLearning course is a structured and modular way to learn about business practices and procedures based on the Coventry Chamber Entrepreneurship Programme.

This On-line website based course is based on a structured set of materials presented in a modular format. It covers the range of things that you need to know in order to successfully research, plan, set-up and run your new business.

The YENTELS products are made "free at the point of use" to all qualifying individuals.

Who is it for? The main purpose of the YENTELS game and other resources is to offer young people throughout Europe educational programmes that stimulate innovative ideas and drive and prepare them for starting their own companies. It was aimed to be achieved by developing a simulation/computer gaming based e-learning suite of training materials which will assist them in acquiring the entrepreneurial skills necessary to set up & run their own businesses. The game particularly focus on young people who have chosen not to follow the traditional higher education route and are more suited to following a vocational career.

How does it work? The objective for the player is to make key critical decisions within the game in order to turn their new DJ business into a success. The player goes through various stages/options which are chosen to highlight a range of business related subjects. The game is lasts approximately an hour, but can be paused at any point and returned to. Games can also be replayed depending on what decisions you make within the game.

The objective of the game is to educate/teach the player about the various issues associated with being an entrepreneur in a context which is true to life when starting a new business from scratch. The game compliments the YENTELS course and the YENTELS knowledge

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Base by helping learners to identify areas where they may have a lack of knowledge in a particular subject. Having identified the 'lack of knowledge' subject, they will then have the ability to find the relevant subject material (through the course or the knowledge base) in a traditional e-Learning format. The great thing about the game is that the player will be able to play it repetitively (through-out their learning phase) and test their new found knowledge in the context of the game.

The YENTELS game involves developing state-of-the-art features (e.g. animated simulations, computer gaming and e-learning) on technology platforms which will allow the end “product” to be relatively easily “tailored” to cater for a variety of linguistic, cultural and sectoral requirements.

UK leading game development company PixeLearning have enhanced their proprietary games development platform in a manner which makes the translation, amendment and contextualisation of the YENTELS game straightforward and speedy.

Related links: The Web site of the course and the game:

• http://www.yentels.com/staticsections/view/elearning/en

The on-line site for playing the game:

• http://www.pixelearning.com/support/YENTELS/eng/index.html

Finding and sharing Under this category, we suggest relevant tools for finding and sharing of OER and competence related information.

In the initial stage, the following tools are recommended:

Slidestar

Information of the tool provided previously

Learnweb 2.0 Information of the tool provided previously

Pligg CMS Described previously under tools for annotation.

ShareTEC Platform

What is it? Share.TEC is a platform granting unified access to digital resources across Europe in the domain of Teacher Education. Currently the portal refers to about 25 000 resources, while in the next year 2011 the portal will refer to 50 000 digital resources residing in digital

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repositories across Europe. Users may search, browse and annotate all these resources or let the system recommend them those resources and groups that best fit their profile.

Who is it for? The Share.TEC platform is aimed for teacher educators, practising teachers and student teachers. As seekers of Teacher Education content, these users would come to Share.TEC to satisfy different needs. Share.TEC addresses these needs with a multiplicity of solutions so as to provide a best-fit response. Publishers and content/service providers are also core users.

How does it work? The system includes texts, multimedia presentations, videos and audio recordings and media of all kinds and formats. This will be incremented by resources from other Teacher Education institutions, publishers and content providers, and from individual Teacher Education practitioners, including both open access and commercial content.

Sharing experience with peers about (re)using digital content in Teacher Education is of fundamental importance in Share.TEC. The portal also supports many of the current communications tools in the Internet (Delicious, Facebook, Messenger etc.) if you want to share useful links with your colleagues.

Share.TEC is the only service at European level for locating and sharing specific Teacher Education content. Share.TEC is addressing Teacher Educators primary needs for resources by building a unified interface. As a member of the Share.TEC community the teacher educators create their own profile, express their areas of interests and have access to several interactive Web 2.0 tools like bookmarking, rating, commenting, saving favorite resources.

The heart of the Share.TEC system is the Share.TEC Repository. It contains metadata representing resources from the Teacher Education (TE) domain. These metadata are represented in the Common Metadata Model (CMM) format (very close to LOM loose) and are collected and retrieved using the OAI-PMH Harvester from various sources: partners' local metadata repositories and external repositories or additional sources containing such metadata.

The Share.TEC repository also contains the representation of the Teacher Education Ontology (TEO).

The Share.TEC portal is the place where the user of the Share.TEC system can communicate with all of its components and to specify what services she/he needs from the system. The Portal allows the automatic personalization of the interface to match user's language, community role, and history.

Automatic ranking of search results in accordance with user profile characteristics (weighting) is also supported. Comprehensive recommender system is used.

Related links:

The system is available at the following address: http://portal.share-tec.eu/

Goal Orientation (Overview) Tool

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What is it? Currently, is still difficult for individuals, groups and organizations in Europe to get an overview of all the possible formal and informal knowledge resources, units of learning, programmes and learning networks that are available, and to identify the most appropriate one for their needs. The ultimate objective of the Goal Orientation Tool (GOT) is to provide such an overview and to identify a user’s goal in terms of a specific competence profiles that she/he needs to achieve. This tool is part of the TENCompetence framework and is available both as a standalone application as well as an integrated part of the TENCompetence portal framework. The output of the GOT can be used as the input for the Personal Development Planner (PDP) tool, another tool part of the TENCompetence framework. Furthermore GOT may be used to search for relevant people and for relevant resources and to support the social exchanges that occur between community members; in particular. GOT facilitates social networking (i.e., users-to-users and users-to-community connections), helps users to identify relevant learning opportunities and make informed decisions (i.e., users-to-competences connections), and fosters active contributions to the collective knowledge space (i.e., competences-to-competences connections).

Who is it for? This tool is aimed for the people who want to get oriented in all the possible formal and informal knowledge resources, units of learning, programmes and learning networks that are available, and to identify the most appropriate one for their needs.

An illustrating example could be a researcher who wants to pursue a post doc in a specific discipline and needs to explore the various possible openings in universities across Europe. In addition to finding the best way to access and obtain knowledge without having to manually filter out content, the potential post doc candidate will also be confronted with a series of questions.

• Who could I access who has recently gone through an experience similar to the one I am going to embark on?

• Who could I access who can provide me with advice on how to best proceed in developing the targeted competences?

• Who could I access who can provide me with the targeted competences in a “real-time” mode?

• Who could I access who can advise me on which document/site/programme is the most efficient/most pleasant way of developing the targeted competencies?

• Who could I access who can provide me with direct or indirect access to the people that are listed above?

• Which type of access to all these people can I actually get?

How does it work?

The Goal Orientation tools have four basic functionalities, accessible via buttons, located at the toolbar:

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The My map functionality shows a network of the user, together with his buddies (i.e. contacts).

If the user is new to the network, has some ideas about his future learning development, but still does not know what exactly to do within the TenCompetence infrastructure, he should click on the Define new goal button. He is then requested to define his goal, in broad terms, based on a list of one or more keywords. After searching the learning network a list appropriate competence profiles is generated and the user is suggested to chose and register for some of them (and the respective community). Next an embedded PDP tool window is started in order for the user to further refine his goal in terms of selection/creation of a particular Personal Development Plan:

Search functionality offers users the possibility to browse among various knowledge resources in the learning network. Currently available is search within actions, competence development profiles and competences. When the search button is pressed there appears the following dialog box:

In order to search, the user should type a search string and select in which one of the learning network knowledge resources he want to search. The following dialog box shows the results of the search:

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The user is also able to browse the map of any item that was returned as a result from the search. It is also possible to brows the community that contains the resources found

Related links: In order to use these functionalities as part of the integrated TENCompetence framework, you need to use the following address: http://pcm.tencompetence.org/

If you want to install it locally, see more info from: TENCompetence Web based Goal Orientation Tool

PDP Tool

What is it?

This tool is part of the TENCompetence framework, developed under the TENCompetence IP project “TENCompetence IST-2005-027087”. Produced as part of the Personal Competence Management System (PCM 2.0), the Personal Development Planner (PDP) tool positions the lifelong learner in relation to a target competence profile and assists in identifying and making good short comings in their skills set.

The PDP is a web-based learning tool that uses TENCompetence services and data to deliver a wide-ranging choice of professional or personal competence profiles. It provides learners with easy access to their competence proficiency levels based on the established EU Qualification Framework (EQF).

Who is it for? This tool is aimed at people who want to check the current validity and status of their acquired competences. It is primarily geared towards the self-managed professional and reflective learner, who prefers to perform his or her own analysis and to take the steps

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necessary to achieve competence development in order to remain competitive in the job market or simply for learning for its own sake.

How does it work? The PDP follows a simple user-friendly workflow process starting with planning and assessing personal strengths against the skills required to achieve a given competence profile. Once a user has defined his or her goals (e.g. to achieve a new professional goal, or update proficiency in a field), they can search for learning activities which will assist them in attaining the required competence level. At all times progress and experiences can be logged in a weblog and shared with others.

The PDP is a personal and learner-centred tool, where learners are free to choose their own activities, learning content.

Related links: The PDP tool is available as an independent tool at the following address:

http://pdp.it.fmi.uni-sofia.bg/

More info and source code is available at: PDP Web tool V2.0

In order to use these functionalities as part of the integrated TENCompetence framework, you need to use the following address: http://pcm.tencompetence.org/

Rating Under the rating category, we suggest relevant tools that allow you to rate OER and resources.

Slidestar Information of the tool provided previously

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Learnweb 2.0 Information of the tool provided previously

ShareTEC Platform Information of the tool provided previously

Sophie 2.0 Information of the tool provided previously

Pligg CMS Described previously under tools for annotation.

Competence development OpenScout offers tools to manage personal competence development. The following tools are included in the first phase:

Goal Orientation (Overview) Tool Information of the tool provided previously.

PDP Tool Information of the tool provided previously.

Accessibility support

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

What is it? Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a speech recognition software package developed and sold by Nuance Communications for Windows personal computers.

Who is it for? Dragon NaturallySpeaking is indicated to be used by people who want to transcribe voice-to-text or pass text-to-speech. Another people with accessibility problems can use to record commands to use in the computer.

How does it work? Dragon NaturallySpeaking utilizes a minimal user interface. As an example, dictated words appear in a floating tooltip as they are spoken, and when the speaker pauses, the programme transcribes the words into the active window at the location of the cursor. The software has three primary areas of functionality: dictation, text-to-speech and command input. Not only is the user able to dictate and have their speech transcribed as written text, or have a document synthesized as an audio stream, but they are also able to issue commands that are recognized

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as such by the program. In addition, voice profiles can be accessed through different computers in a networked environment, although the audio hardware and configuration must be identical on both machines.

Related links: All information about the current Dragon NaturallySpeaking developments (including downloads of the software) is available at: http://www.nuance.com/dragon

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Appendix C: Initial competence taxonomy

Competence category

Competence Taxonomy term (Taxon)

Business Economics Business economics

Being able to apply economic and business forecasting

Business forecasting

Being able to understand the relationship between corporate management and the economic and social development of developing countries

Corporate management

Being able to use economic tools to analyse consumer behaviour, production theory and costs, principles of industry structure and pricing policies across different markets

Economic analysis

Being able to take into account political processes, patterns of public policy and the relationship between politics and business

Public policy

Being able to apply microeconomic theory to business

Microeconomic theory

Being able to conduct capital budgeting and investment decisions

Budgeting

Project Management Project Management

Being able to ensure that both the outputs of the project and the processes by which the outputs are delivered meet the required needs of stakeholders.

Stakeholder needs

Being able to collect, store, disseminate, archive and destruct project information.

Archiving of project information

Being able to take information and present it in an appropriate format which includes the formal communication of project information to stakeholders.

Stakeholder communication

Being able to systematically identify, analyze and plan actions to communicate with, negotiate with and influence stakeholders.

Identifying actions

Being able to capture, analyze and test the documented statement of stakeholder and user wants and needs.

Requirements management

Being able to determine the overall project duration and when activities and events are planned to happen. This includes the ability for identification of activities and their logical dependencies, and estimation of

Time Management

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activity durations, taking into account requirements and availability of resources.

Being able to take into account the relevant legal duties, rights and processes that should be applied to projects.

Contract Management

Being able to ensure that processes and outputs meet the needs of stakeholders

Quality Management

Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Being able to manage risks and uncertainty Manage risks

To be able to understand the different qualities/merits of people and to use those individual qualities to build effective teams and to achieve the goals of the organisation

Use strengths of people

To be able to encourage and inspire people as well as motivate and reward people.

Motivate people

To be able to build and use appropriately high level plans and strategies, and to steer the team/organisation confidently and keep the people on track towards achieving the goal/vision.

High level plans

To be able to identify key innovation issues including techniques for creative thinking

Innovation

To be able to express thoughts and ideas clear and concise in written form

Clearness of expression

To be able to use and understand limitations of statistical procedures for decision-making

Limitations of statistics

To be able to manage change in an organization

Change Management

To be able to negotiate effectively Negotiation

Being able to formulate and communicate a vision

Vision

Being able to manage yourself Self-Management

Accounting and Control

Accounting and Control

Being able to apply generally accepted accounting principles and international accounting standards

Accounting standards

Being able to apply different financial analysis techniques

Financial analysis

Being able to apply activity-based costing and acivity-based management

Activity-based management

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Being able to measure and manage performance

Financial performance management

Finance Finance

Being able to Understand dividend policy, capital structure, mergers and acquisitions, LBOs and share repurchase

Dividend policy

Evaluation of projects, company strategies and financial securities

Project evaluation

Being able to apply risk management Risk management

Being able to evaluate portfolios Portfolio evaluation

Information Systems Management

Information Systems Management

Being able to manage a company’s technological fundamentals

Technology Management

Being able to operate technology effectively Media Literacy

Being able to chose and implement technology that motivates employers to share their knowledge

Knowledge Management

Being able to integrate technology into a company’s strategy

Technology Strategy

Being able to interpret, summarize, compare and contrast information with technological support

Information Management

Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship

Being able to determine the legal framework for a new business

Legal business framework

Being able to create a business plan Business plan

Being able to identify and analyze competitors

Competitor analysis

Being able to apply different pricing strategies

Pricing strategies

Being able to find and keep employees

Employee Management

Operations Management

Operations Management

Being able to do make-or-buy decisions Make-or-buy decisions

Being able to recognize opportunities for international outsourcing

Outsourcing

Being able to setup and manage the supply-chain

Supply-chain management

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Being able to care for the buyer and supplier relationship

Buyer/supplier relationship

Being able to manage materials and inventory

Inventory Management

Being able to apply manufacturing and production planning techniques

Production planning techniques

Being able to manage logistics and transport Logistic Management

Marketing and Sales Marketing and Sales

Being able to conduct market research Market research

Being able to evaluate and adapt the price policy

Price policy

Being able to optimize the distribution network

Distribution network

Being able to position a product on the market

Product placement

Being able to setup and manage customer-relationship management

CRM

Being able to manage different marketing channels

Marketing channels

Being able to apply different sales techniques

Sales techniques

Being able to apply SWOT analysis SWOT analysis

Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

Strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility

Being able to identify key success factors Key Success factors

Being able to formulate, implement and evaluate a strategy

Strategy

Being able to take into account ethical challenges of global business environments

Ethical challenges

Being able to take into account sustainability issues

Sustainability

Human Resource Management

HRM

Being able to recruit and hire employees Recruitment

Being able to manage benefits for employees Benefits

Being able to ensure training and development

Training and Development

Being able to evaluate performance of employees

Performance Evaluation

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General Management

General Management

Being able to plan and organize Planning

Being able to define tasks, objectives and priorities

Task, Objectives and Priorities

Being able to set milestones Milestones

Being able to define and apply evaluation criteria

Evaluation criteria

Being able to identify problems Identifying problems

Being able to apply different problem solving techniques

Problem solving techniques

Being able to manage resources and time effectively

Time and resource management

Being able to apply quantitative methods Quantitative Methods

Being able to manage projects in an multicultural context including language barriers

Intercultural Management

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