• Home
• Login
• About
• News
• Events
• Instruments
• Partners
• Programme of Work
• Repository

• WP1. The Grand Research Challenge for TEL
• WP 2. Building Strategic Capacity
• WP3. Building Researcher Capacity
• WP4. Building Next Generation Capacity
• WP5. TEL Community Level Capacity
  • Objectives
  • Tasks
  • Deliverables
  • Stakeholder Capacity Committee
• WP6. Science 2.0 for TEL
• WP7. Monitoring, Evaluation and Quality Assurance
• WP8. Management

Description of work

The major challenge for a network that aims at shaping the research agenda for TEL is to avoid self-referentiality: that is why openness to the broader research community and structured dialogue with stakeholders are two pillars on which STELLARnet needs to build. Furthermore at the integration of national and international initiatives is a key success factors for successful integration and constructive dialogue and critiquing of initiatives. Thirdly the community level work can build on existing alternatives with the different stakeholder groups while some activities have shown to be more effective than others in the past.

In that sense representation and involvement of stakeholders will build on (based on the results of Task 1 below) the Kaleidoscope Stakeholders Club (http://gateway.noe-kaleidoscope.org/), created in October 2006 by KALEIDOSCOPE Gateway, the Prolearn Industry Board, and associate partner networks bringing them together in the STELLARnet Stakeholder Panel. The broad spectrum of stakeholder groups in the STELLARnet Panel - as well as other research and networking initiatives in the field - will promote an active role of several categories of TEL research stakeholders (policy makers, TEL industry, user industry, teachers’ associations, teachers’ training colleges, students’ and parents’ associations, etc.) at the three levels of:

• taking part in the validation of approaches and technologies emerging from TEL research;
• taking part is the process of research implementation by expressing suggestions, expectations, concerns, interests;
• taking part in the research agenda definition by an open process of dialogue and interaction, thus facilitating a full awareness of the research community on stakeholders’ priorities and, vice versa, a new feeling of ownership of research agenda and results by the relevant stakeholders.

STELLARnet will target the different stakeholder groups on different levels as appropriate to discuss topics of personal development, sustainability and the use of new technologies. STELLARnet will approach this from the identified broad societal problems relevant in the different educational sectors. As an example for primary and secondary education sectors teacher education is an essential problem therefore STELLARnet will organize events and workshops to rise awareness and trigger important developments for the involved stakeholders as teachers, teacher education centres, policy makers, international level as for example OECD activities around PISA. In the industrial education sector awareness about the potential of technology enhanced learning for education in the core of business processes, as also awareness about the direct connection between workforce empowerment, education, and business value is often lacking on a short term perspective. Changes in technology offer new solutions that enable a much closer connection between performance, education, documentation, coaching, mentoring, and all other processes closely connected to business value.

As a possible solution STELLARnet will closely connect STELLARnet researchers and industry related events with innovative meeting formats such as blind-date meetings (e.g. from the iKnow conference) and strategic discussions on workforce development and best practices. Essential for both examples is a bottom up and top down approach that integrates stakeholder events on a national level and research agenda synchronization and transparency on an international level. As anticipated above one of the main targets of STELLARnet in terms of stakeholder outreach is industry, including large and small companies whose activity is relevant to TEL and whom can benefit from the results of STELLARnet and provide contributions to upgrade the results of the project in terms of usability of scientific results in industrial terms. The challenge of the Stakeholder Panel will be to establish a systematic cooperation with European and national industrial actors at the level of multinationals, large corporations and SMEs involved in the design, development and commercialisation of TEL products and services.

Task 1: Stakeholder Analysis and Initiation of Activities: Review current links of STELLARnet  membership to existing TEL associations and networks present in Europe building on existing works for associate partner models, stakeholder clubs, and European technological platforms. This includes the linking to relevant organisations in the lifelong learning cycle and related stakeholders in the process on an organisational, structural, governmental, and research level. The main result of this activity will be a community level strategy and taxonomy of relevant stakeholders as well as a proposal for relevant potential members to be invited to join the Stakeholders Panel (feeding therefore task 2).

Task 2: Establishment of Stakeholder Panel, monitoring tools, and metrics: Invite a core group of associations (including TELEARC and EATEL as initial supporters) to join with STELLARnet on the Stakeholder Panel. Establish contacts with industry representatives (such as ELIG) for the establishment of the Research and Innovation Group within the Stakeholders Panel. Develop and establish a memorandum of understanding with identified associations. In detail different stakeholder communication and integration mechanisms and levels should be identified and established. Ranging from panels for stimulating the needs for TEL as also the innovative usage of TEL results in the stakeholder groups from different educational sectors, organisational levels, and industry sectors. Furthermore these tasks will establish success criteria in collaboration with the Associations. Set up evaluation templates for feedback on the range of STELLARnet to provide the basis for iterative improvement. This will enable STELLARnet to conduct annual evaluations of the impact. It includes a Stakeholder Panel review of evaluation findings and address any issues or concerns. Furthermore develop recommendations for important gaps of actions to take on a network level. The Stakeholder panel should take on the task of forming a Stakeholder Advisory Board to meet and liaise with the STELLARnet EB.

Task 3: Stakeholder Needs Analysis: Joint specification with Associations on the most compelling ways to highlight STELLAR activities to their leadership and membership. Specific aspects to be covered include:

• Gathering intelligence on how Associations/stakeholders wish to engage with STELLARnet to ensure effective use of tools for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.
• Decisions and planning for 6-8 events at which STELLARnet will be present with broad networking activities but also with highlighted experts from the network.
• Elaborate the range of outputs available across STELLARnet arising from the other WPs to the wider community and identify their main impact areas.
• Develop a shared understanding of the future role of TEL for stakeholders in form of a MoU.

Task 4: Elaboration and Showcasing: Coordinate with other WPs to ensure effective two-way communication between STELLARnet members and stakeholders, especially in relation to WP Grand Challenge and the related research communities. This also ensures the integration of relevant work in related research communities into other STELLARnet work-packages. This will be realized in a selected set of events organized by STELLARnet on a national and international level. Furthermore such events will build on an infrastructure from WP6 Science 2.0 within which partners can distribute and showcase prototypes and results in a national context integrating remote STELLARnet experts.

Task 5: Implementation of Synergetic Activities: Ensure presence at 6-8 conferences per annum including ECTEL. Conference presence ranges from dedicated workshops, training sessions, to promotional stands etc. Ensure smooth running of stakeholder involvement in STELLARnet activities, and in feeding STELLARnet outputs through linked TEL associations. This should focus on regular face-to-face events for the Stakeholder Panel group and the RIF group as described above.