WP 8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development Alicia Cheak INSEAD CALT (Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies) TEN Competence Kickoff Meeting 9 December 2005 Valkenburg, The Nederlands

Structure of the Presentation WP objective and tasks Focus of the effort What is critical, what can be reused from other projects? Action plan for fulfilling the objectives Deliverables, effort, tasks, who will do what?, etc.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development – WP 8 Objective: Create a network of interoperable formal and informal competence development programs from different providers from different countries.

WP 8: Tasks 8.1 Overview tool to capture all formal and informal competence programs. 8.2 Competency observatory to monitor the changing competences in different fields (focus on pilot competences first 18months). 8.3 Software agents to facilitate pro-active knowledge sharing within the network. 8.4 Management tools to sustain the network and assess the quality & effectiveness of the above tools/methods. 8.5 Roadmap for future activities.

WP 8: Framework TENCompetence Network Architecture Observatory  Map general to specific competencies  Monitor changing competencies Overview tool  Software to connect a variety of existing competence development programmes in a web-portal Social software  Support direct and indirect interactions  Stimulate participation & social exchange Management Framework  Decentralized  Self-organizing  User Empowered Supports

Goals 1.Transform individual users into active members in the network community. 2. Encourage group formation and activities. USERS INCREASED # OF GROUPS, COPs, LEVEL OF GROUP ACTIVITY TENComp Virtual Network 3. Transform the environment for knowledge discovery, diffusion and community building into interactive, socially suported spaces. Content/ Members Interactive, stimulating, visual presentation of knoweldge resources and members TENComp Virtual Network ACTIVE PARTICIPANT TENComp Virtual Network USER

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 1. Develop and test methods and tools to set up a competency observatory. A.Define the function of the observatory. Identify organizational and individual competencies associated within the pilot fields. B.Define the method/tools for the observatory. Simulated game-like approach to capture competences by domain.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 2. Provide an integral overview of all the possible formal and informal competency development programmes. A.Identify components to capture and consolidate formal and informal competency development programmes. e.g. search facilities like scholar.google.com; collaborative filtering, data mining, visualization of search results, etc. e.g. Ontology, semantics, e.g. general to specific competencies, level (basic, entry level, high performance), etc. B.Tools should harness the collective knowledge of the network. i.e. users as co-developers, contributors through WIKIs, blogs & tags.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 2. Provide an integral overview of all the possible formal and informal competency development programmes. C. Identify software components that will connet a variety of programmes in a kind of web-portal. D.Identify and develop tools for maintaining the network. Social memory, concept maps for better visualization Community visualization tools etc.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 3. Develop and test policies and software agents to stimulate the pro-active sharing of learning and knowledge resources among users. A.Guidelines and rules for supporting virtual communities in a social way. e.g. definition of roles, category of users, rules, norms, reward mechanisms, quality standards and procedures. B.Use of social agents to follow community activity and promote group knowledge exchange, collaboration and networking. e.g. tracking online activity and facilitating the forming of groups based on common interest; making suggestions toward experts and resources, etc.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 3. Develop and test policies and software agents to stimulate the pro-active sharing of learning and knowledge resources among users. C.Test the effects social exchange services on sharing behaviour amongst members and the management of the network. Number of exchanges, length of exchanges Number of groups formed Number of knowledge resources references Change in user level of activity and social behaviors over time Change in relationship intensity (user’s close and broad network) over time D.Software components compliant with technical standards and architectural constraints.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 4. Develop and test models and tools to manage the network. A.Develop policies and tools to maintain a maximum of autonomy and control of participants. B.Services and tools that foster successful, self-organizing communities (e.g. COPs). i.e. What are the rules, network mechanisms which help the formation of groups? e.g. visualization of individuals, groups and resources; agents can help the forming of groups, ways to automate the networking process. C.Test the effects of the models and tools on the self-organisation of the network. e.g. Density of network, how to model connections among people, how to represent social network and groups, what does it mean, self-organizing communities- some rules, network mechanisms.

WP8: Networks for Lifelong Competence Development –Task 5. Develop a roadmap for further work. Plan of work for subsequent 18-months period.

WP8: Key Numbers for the first 18 months Start date: Month 0 Effort / resources: 34 man.months 1 deliverable (month 18): Report with summary of WP outputs and a roadmap for work in subsequent months. Duration: 18 months Participant number: OUNLCERTHINSEADUVASYN Person- months per participant:

Approach – Architecture of participation e.g. shared spaces, socially translucent, interactive, high level visualization, harnessing collective intelligence & facilitative networking and collaboration. Simulated Environment Competence Observatory -map the organization -map the individuals -map the formal, informal networks -organizational competence profiles -individual competence profiles Visualization Visual representation of relevant resources according to needs.  Organization-Competence  Individual- Competence  Competence - Individuals Result: People and concept maps Social agents Support from intelligent agents -provide visual representation of network -Provide recommendations/ suggestions for knowledge exchange and sharing

Innovation – Game/Simulated Environment Game-like environment to initiate users into the network space. Mapping the organizational level of the domain + competence profiles (organizational, individual level). Key Concept: learning through experience. Key objective: to navigate the network to locate appropriate resources and, or experts. Social agents can support navigation through a scaffolding process. awareness, interest, participation, reflection Mechanism for competence observatory.

Innovation – Socially translucent user interfaces Interaction spaces, resources and members made visible. Visualization and self-discovery tools such as social and concept maps of members and clustering of resources for easy and interactive navigation. e.g. Kartoo.com (meta visual search engine) Thinkmap (interactive visual theasaurus) Search engine INPUT Competence Development Programmes Experts Competencies General skills Specific Skills Formal Informa l OUTPUT

Innovation – Support through social agents Agent architecture Provide value-added recommendations for resources, programmes, individuals based on user behavior and needs (INDIVIDUAL & ORGANIZATIONAL levels) Identify and aggregate interesting knowledge Agents will act on user models and user interactions within the system. Function on different levels using a scaffolding process: awareness, interest, participation, reflection

Deliverables & Milestones Deliverables D8.1: Report with summary of WP outputs and a roadmap of Networks for lifelong competence development RTD (month 18), based on: the design of observatory, overview tool, pro-active sharing agent and self-organisation tools methods & policies for observatory, pro-active sharing & self- organisation prototypical observatory, overview tool, pro-active sharing agent and self-organisation tools

Deliverables & Milestones Milestones M8.1:Report with: the design of observatory, overview tool, pro- active sharing agent and self-organisation tools; and methods & policies for observatory, pro-active sharing & self- organisation (month 12) M8.2:Prototypical observatory, overview tool, pro-active sharing agent and self-organisation tools; Report with summary of WP outputs and a roadmap of Networks for lifelong competence development RTD (month 18)

Action Items –Before Jan technical meeting. Definition of function & state of the art of observatory and overview tools. State-of-the-art in social software. State-of-the-art in self-organizing communities & management of networks. Define the minimum requirements for WP 2 & 3. Delegation of responsiblities among the partners.