Knowledge management and life long education in scientific matter

Anna Moreno,Casaccia 7 aprile 2005

About ENEA (www.enea.it)

ENEA is the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment is a public undertaking operating in the fields of energy, environment and new technologies to support competitiveness and sustainable development

ENEA mission for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Promotes, fosters and supports innovation technology processes in the national production system, especially in small and medium sized enterprises;

Collaborates with regions and local administrations to promote productive development of local resources, through joint actions;

Promotes technical and professional training, also through ad-hoc agreements with national and international universities.

European Innovation scoreboard and number of patents in Italy (2003)

European innovation scoreboard

High technology UEB patents

High technology USP patents

Knowledge management and technological transfer

The virtuous circleKnowledge-Education-Training-Innovation

Knowledge and technological transfer

“There is nothing that brings the man to be suspicious as

the little knowledge”Francesco Bacone

Education and training in Europe and Italy (1 di 2)

Percentage of University degree

Percentage of basic education

Percentage of professional training Education and training in total

Education and training in Europe and Italy (2 di 2)

Level of education and job place

Job and education level

The size of Italian SME (Small and Medium Enterprises):1 worker with technical university degree every 130 enterprises

Italian SMEs cover the 97% of the national production

The Italian paradox and the “knowledge islands”

There is a good quality of scientific production and a large number of good quality University and research centers, but there is a low number of patent and low technological transfer capability

Knowledge sharing

Inhabitants in Europe

100 Billion Nerve Cells

Million Billion Connections

2 Million Miles of “Wires”

1.5 Liters in Volume

3.3 Pounds in Weight

10 Watts of Energy

100 Billion Nerve Cells

Million Billion Connections

2 Million Miles of “Wires”

1.5 Liters in Volume

3.3 Pounds in Weight

10 Watts of Energy

The best network: the human brain

Information, training, diffusion and technological transfer

The information is useful if the right one arrives to the right people in the right moment

The adults learning and training is useful only when is designed with the adults themselves and by them can be managed

The diffusion is efficient only if it arrives to any level of the organization

The technological transfer is efficient only if it is sustained by the right information, learning and diffusion process.

Internet User

Internet: an instrument to be used with intelligence

Percentage of internet in Europe

Total number of internet hosts (Netsizer)

January 1999 44.282.000January 2001 101.308.000March 2003 ~ 250.000.000

Increase: > 50 Mio. p.a.

Search for 'Organic Chemistry' – ~1.940.000 hits

Search for 'Organic Chemistry' – ~ 2.370.000 hits

Number of hosts and search engines

The New York Times reports that the limits of current search engines’ indexing ability means that they have access to less than one percent of all the pages on the Web.

Up to 500 billion pieces of content are hidden from the search engines, according to search specialist BrightPlanet.com.

What does the press say

The Minimum Data Set for the presentation of the content

Title  

Subtitle  

Acronim  

Description of the course  

Content description  

Final users  

Requirements  

Structure

Time required

Story of the course

Teacher

name:  

address:  

e-mail:  

interview:  

The origin of the ENEA e-learning

platform

The platform was launched in 1996 thanks to a National ADAPT project funded by the FSE (European Social Funding)

The project was devoted to the continuing education and qualification of workers.

Has become a door open to and from the SMEs world

The ENEA e-learning platform

mission

To promote the sustainable development through the diffusion of scientific culture and technological transfer

To provide scientific knowledge to anyone, anywhere and at anytime

The users must be free to learn what they want, when they want, and where they want

The ENEA web site as a link between research and productive world

ICT ResearchDr. Flavio Fontana

Research in the field of e-learning

Dr. Maria L. Bargellini

Research in the field Of Environment, En

Information, learning, technological transfer

Services for SMEs and PA

Public andPrivate fund

PMI

PMI

PMI

PMIPMIPMI

PMI

PMI

PMIPMIPMI

The isolation of SMEs

The wish to be in a network

The network promoted by the ENEA e-LEARN platform

Stage

Scuole superiori

Istituti formazione

Università

Istituti diricerca

Assegni di ricerca

Tesi di laurea

ENEAE-LEARN

Highschool

Trainingistitution

University

Research institute

Researchgrant

Thesis works

ENEAE-LEARN

The IEEE P1484 Learning Technology Systems Architecture (LTSA)

The IEEE P1484 Learning Technology Systems Architecture (LTSA)

ENEA platform doesn’t cover assessment, this function is left to a third part such as High Schools, Universities and Enterprises themselves. The assessment must be based on the learner’s knowledge and on the needs of the commitment and is not based on the time that people have spent in training

About ENEA’s Platform

Nowadays the users are more than 20.000

The courses are 43 and they will sensibly increase during this year

The courses are free Many agreements have been signed

with Universities, Schools and local training organizations

The actual home page (http://odl.casaccia.enea.it): a user frienly

interface

The services

The actual offer (1 of 2)

The actual offer (2 of 2)

Future development

Many courses are under development: Biological agriculture, Natural fight against parasites and infesting

plants, The UN convention on climate change Energy manager and energy save Reclaiming of disposal land Cultural heritage Radon protection Fuel cells …

Uniquely of the ENEA experience

ENEA experience in e-learning didn’t start from an already made platform filled with courses without any logic;

the requirements of the users have been carefully interpreted and the platform has been developed and it’s still developing following their needs

ENEA usability laboratory (U-lab) has developed a very friendly interface for non expert users

The U-lab has created simple tools such as web lessons and web seminars which allow to a real life long education on scientific and technological themes

The main characteristic of the ENEA ODL (Open Distant Learning)

“Open” means that the knowledge can be acquired by different classes of users, at different time and in different places:

The courses can be utilized both in synchronous and asynchronous mode.

The course is structured in sections, modules and lessons. Each module is self consistent so that the user can follow a

personalised learning process; it means that different users with different background knowledge can study only what they need and are not obliged to study modules that they already know or that they are not interested in.

At the end of each module there is a self evaluation section in order to give the users the opportunity to evaluate their level of comprehension. The test at the end of the modules is usually a test with multiple choice answers.

The learning object standard for the ENEA ODL (Open Distant Learning)

The modules are divided in lessons with explicit titles. For instance instead of : “lesson 1”, “integrated resources of STEP model”.

The lesson has a length that allows the user to study (not only to read) in an average of 20 minutes. It means that the text has to be between 800 and 1500 words depending on the subject difficulty.

The index allows the user to easily follow the learning process he has chosen.

In order to facilitate the on line study different colours have been used in order to highlight the main concepts;

Links to other parts of the modules facilitate the connection between different concepts

Images, clip art and cartoons are used to draw the attention on the main concepts and facilitate the process of memorization

Links to other modules or courses as well as links to other web site related to the subject are useful in order to promote the enlargement of the knowledge in an automatic way.

The Minimum Data Set for the presentation of the content

Title  

Subtitle  

Acronim  

Description of the course  

Content description  

Final users  

Requirements  

Structure

Time required

Story of the course

Teacher

name:  

address:  

e-mail:  

interview:  

Example of one course: http://192.107.71.126/cascade

Example of a self test evaluation

Sex of the Users

Age of the users

Users occupation

Satisfaction about the contents

Comprehension of the learning material

Connection during the week

Connection during the day

Interest to print instalments

Conclusions Italian enterprises system is such that a very

user friendly e-learning platform has to be used The gap existing between the scientific world

and the production can be overcome only if the knowledge is freely accessible to anyone

A standard model of courses has been built for facilitating the life long education of workers

ENEA is open to international collaboration for the development and the share of other contents

Conclusions

“... Science is, above all

communication”Josiah Williard Gibbs,

physician