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Technology and Knowledge

TEN-A, Trans-European Network Academy

The TEN-A project was a cooperation of several leading educational institutions and technology companies throughout Europe, funded by the European Community

The TEN-A project was a cooperation of several leading educational institutions and technology companies throughout Europe, funded by the European Community. TEN-A itself was an online world-class brokerage and delivery service, linking educators and trainers for the exchange and distribution of learning resources. This online "broker" can be described as an entity that offered an attractive electronic marketplace, where offer was able to meet demand.

Brokerage services have two types of users: those who offer their products for sale (providers) and those who buy the products offered (consumers). TEN-A facilitated the exchange of Learning Resources between organisations whose members were registered users of the services. The organisations may be universities, business schools, public and private training institutes or companies, while the individuals using the service are teaches, researchers or training managers.

The technology system that enabled effective brokerage and delivery services is the TEN-A brokerage and delivery platform. This platform existed as a prototype and was validated for the European market during the  TEN-telecom market validation phase. TEN-A enhanced the availability of high quality, up-to-date Learning Resources for a wide audience. The benefit for buyers was that the organisation was able to get Learning Resources cheaper than producing them itself. The sellers were able to get payback on the investment on the Learning Resources.

The technology system was web-based and supported the creation and sharing of knowledge. It enabled collaboration among educators by having provided a full range of services to support the exchange of knowledge resources. The platform provided functionality for cataloguing and delivering the following kinds of knowledge resources:

  • Educational materials, which refer to sharable chunks of reusable content such as electronic textbooks, recorded lectures and presentations, case studies, quizzes, lecture notes, etc.
  • Educational activities, which refer to distributed, instructor-supported educational and training activities such as lectures, tutoring sessions, synchronous group collaboration, complete on-line courses
  • Research materials, such as research papers, theses or data sets

The Resources offered via TEN-A were packaged, e.g. web-courses, PowerPoint presentations, video, etc, or live, e.g. lectures using live two-way videoconferencing.

Team:

  • Mag. Gregoire Besnier (project leader)
  • Sanna Harringer
  • Herbert Schlader

Section: Technology and Knowledge

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Type: Education

Program: eTEN

Project Status: Finished

Start/End: 06/2002 - 02/2004

Project Duration: 21 months