Project N° 3
Transcultural Education and Training
- Progress Report - April 1996 - Goal
The pilot project "Transcultural Education and Training" does not aim to develop new models of network based Transcultural Education and training offers for its own, because a big variety of those projects are already funded under national and European Union programmes. The pilot projects want to promote the development of those initiatives towards a more coherent and more candid global market, being aware 'Market' in this area means an ordered and coordinated co-existence of commercial as well as non-profit parts.
To achieve this, a virtual "Global Server on Transcultural Education and Training" should be properly planned, designed and set into operation, which at the end allows a comprehensive access to all ressources and experiences in that field, userfriendly and cheap, with no respects from which part of the world these informations are looked for.
Those services have to cover the whole span of users demand, reaching from different platforms to exchange experiences and results to a global resource of transcultural learning materials of all types and to a (limited) global testbed for pilot experimentation. Technically they have to cover a span from relatively simple cheap network technologies available also in areas with lower infrastructures up to high bandwith multimedia applications.
Structure and funding
As the group of the G7 States is no formal body, there is non "G7 budget" available for a pilot project. The theme 3 actors are very aware that they have to identify and to synchronize national, regional and European Union funds and programmes in a way that those distributed resources will be able to support a common project. To achieve this ambitious goal, a reasonable amount of planning and coordination has to be done. The actors are very greatful to the European Commission, which is willing and able to finance an initial feasibility study over a period of 9 months to prepare carefully the pilot project itself by collecting all information necessary for that process, and by designing the virtual "Global Transcultural Education and Training Server", including the key structure on a small experimental scale.
Feasibility Study "TEL*LINGUA"
This feasibility study with the former working title "GETALL" (Global Communication Platform for Network-Based Transcultural and Language Learning and the Language Industry) will now be made public under the title "TEL*LINGUA", which will also be the name of the Consensus Conference, planned as a central tool for the study.
After some delay out of different reasons, the feasibility study started in February '96 and will be finished in October '96. The Consensus Conference will be organized 07-08 October '96 at Turino in the Lingotto conference premises with around 300 invited attendees, with key sessions broadcasted over satellite at least to the whole Europe.
Active contributors to the feasibility study are the G7 States, Spain, Greece, Portugal, The Nordic Countries (under negotiation) and one other EU member state, together with Australia and Switzerland as non-G7 non EU members, due to their outstanding contributions in the field of network based learning. Out of legal reasons, European Union funding can be only used for the overall coordination of all national contributions and to a limited extent to national contributions from EU-member states, while other countries participating will look for resources needed nationally.
Workpackages of the feasibility study will be - as already reported -
- user needs analysis (in the public education sector as well as in occupational training) ;
- analysis and recommendation towards policies ;
- content providers and service (network) providers ;
- use of servers and materials from neighbourfield of interest (including coordination with other G7 pilot-projects of special interest) ;
- good practice and quality managment ;
- design of the virtual server.
Key servers for the last workpackage will be located in Paris (France), and Erlangen (Germany). From the beginning, other national servers will join, at least one in London (UK), Madrid (Spain), Genova (Italy), Toronto (Canada), and Geneva (Switzerland).
The analytic work of the feasibility study will be done by collecting national results and data available with the help of experienced institutions within each state, consolidating them and set them into relation, and thus developing a draft set of concrete recommendations for further actions. These recommendations will be validated by a well prepared in-depth discussion during the consensus conference, so these recommendations will be broadly supported on a global basis at the end of the work.
Collaboration with other G7 pilot projects
The theme 3 project is readily prepared to work with existing and upcoming networks for the development of the concept of virtual global servers and set it into operation step by step while being highly visible. Therefore, we are very happy with the offer to closely collaborate with theme 2 by using the global testbed from the beginning and in a way, designing it. It will fit into the ambitious requirements of transcultural education and training, necessitating advanced and highly standardized multimedia facilities on different levels.
We also hope for a close cooperation with our colleagues in the field of "electronic libraries", "electronic museums and galleries" because their contents and structures are key resources for transcultural learning. In a more specific way, we also hope for collaboration in other areas with other colleagues, like "telemedicine" and "SMEs".
On April 29th, the next meeting in the whole theme 3 group will take place in Sèvres (France), reporting about the working progress and defining the next steps to be taken, especially preparatory work necessary to plan the ongoing activities after the end of the feasibility study in October '96. At its last meeting on 18.04.96 in Brussels, the feasibility study core group continued its work to synchronize all European Union activities in that field, offering TEL*LINGUA as a coordination platform for that purpose. First results of the first two meetings are highly encouraging ; the same type of coordination will be initiated on different national levels.
Midrand Conference
Responding to the call for the exhibition at the "Information Society and Development" conference held in Midrand (South Africa) 13-15 May 1996, the theme 3 proposal for participation was broadly appreciated, highlighting especially the benefits that the planned pilot project may have for developing countries, where infrqstructures are less dense than in the industrialized world and where transcultural learning may have a special value within their development process.
The projects here wants to present access to the experimental servers by the networks over two or three workstations with two or three competent contact persons available, in this way also establishing the outside G7 contacst for a further broadening of the regional scope of the work, using targeted invitations to the Turino Consensus Conference as one of the mechanisms to do so.