Abstract
As a form of Corporate – Higher Education Alliance (“Alliance”), Bridge-eLearning (www.bridge-elearning. com) is a consortium (“Consortium”) that was created in May 2004. Its purpose is the advancement of e-learning content and practices within the corporate and higher education worlds. The project design intent was to build a more effective bridge between these two worlds and to foster high value by assembling a small number of members from Europe and North America. The ambition of this not-for-profit consortium was moderate. Pragmatic and attainable objectives were set for the initial three-year plan. A balanced collaborative business model is based on investment from each of the consortium members; and common values such as fairness, trust, collaboration and risk sharing are fostered among all members.
TopIntroduction
As a form of Corporate – Higher Education Alliance (“Alliance”), Bridge-eLearning (www.bridge-elearning.com) is a consortium (“Consortium”) that was created in May 2004. Its purpose is the advancement of e-learning content and practices within the corporate and higher education worlds. The project design intent was to build a more effective bridge between these two worlds and to foster high value by assembling a small number of members from Europe and North America. The ambition of this not-for-profit consortium was moderate. Pragmatic and attainable objectives were set for the initial three-year plan. A balanced collaborative business model is based on investment from each of the consortium members; and common values such as fairness, trust, collaboration and risk sharing are fostered among all members.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Use Case: A complete scenario that describes how an organization does, or will do, a specific business process, including the information this process receives from, and/ or supplies to, other processes and the sequence of events and steps from a user’s perspective.
Community Of Practice: The process of social or group learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject matter or problem collaborate over a period of time to share knowledge, experience and ideas, find solutions, and create new knowledge.
Learning Object: A digital, self-contained, reusable entity that is assembled via an LCMS, that is designed to achieve a specific learning objective and is trackable in the context of computer-supported learning. It contains three internal components: content made of media objects, instructional or learning activities, and context elements. Once assembled, the learning object has external components associated with it, i.e. the metadata which help identifying, storing, retrieving and managing it.
Mutualization: The process that allows members to bring together the resources and means of each for the benefit of all, with or without a goal of producing something in common.
Blended Learning: The combination of two or more different training media (e.g. technologies, activities) and the use of different learning approaches (e.g. self-study, live) into a program to effect learning outcomes for a specific audience.
LCMS: (Learning Content Management System): A software-based system that allows learning content developers to create, assemble, edit, store, reuse, manage and publish for delivery digital learning objects from a central object repository.
Corporate University: An organization usually associated with one large corporation and mandated to provide company-specific and other training and education to the company’s workforce, and possibly to employees of the company’s supply chain partners, with its own and third-party content.
Virtual Organization: A productive organizational entity comprising independent organizations or individuals as members that share resources and skills to achieve a common goal and where the interaction among members is conducted mainly through computer networks.
Synchronous Learning: An approach or mode of learning where a group of learners learn the same things at the same time and benefit from interactive pedagogical resources.
Asynchronous Learning: An approach or mode of learning where a learner uses technology-based training materials or content delivered through self-paced modules.
Virtual University: An organization comprising one or many higher education degree-granting institution(s) that either provides some or all of its programs on the Internet or acts as a virtual organization.