What's new in elearningeuropa.info?
elearningeuropa.info, the European reference portal on education and technology, has launched on Thursday May 12, 2011 its new platform. It is designed and built user-centered and it contains participatory tools to communicate, share and discuss.
The new platform is the result of a year’s work of careful planning and design, from the elearningeuropa.info team, with a focus on developing the technological solution most suited to user requests and aimed to facilitate a better flow of ideas and interaction.
The European Commission initiated elearningeuropa.info nine years ago, to support the transformation of education through technology. Available in 21 languages, it has now become a key forum for the generation and presentation of ideas.
elearningeuropa.info has more than 36.000 registered users with an average of 16. 000 monthly visits. Thanks to this large user base the portal provides great opportunities for research and exchange of ideas and information amongst researchers, practitioners, students and policy makers across Europe.
The portal re-launch will also benefit from the use of the latest cutting edge open source technology: A new Content Management System (CMS) has been deployed based on the award winning ‘Drupal’.
The portal’s online journal ‘eLearning Papers’ will be presenting its new visual identity and structure in the new platform. A leading publication in its field, the journals five annual issues are guided by an Editorial Committee chaired by Tapio Koskinen, Head of New Solutions at Aalto University Professional Development.
Some of the new sections the portal will be launching are blogs, which offer users the chance to express their opinions and insight as well as a dedicated TV Channel which offers users the possibility to find the most relevant and highest quality videos about education and technology in one place.
In addition, users will be able to create communities and working groups around themes and topics of interest and use these privileged spaces to display their content to a wider audience. These communities are the ideal space for co-creation and sharing ideas.
Our first communities are up and running with discussions and insight into Language Learning and Social Media; Open Education and virtual worlds and gaming. Join us to explore them and share your experience.
Navigation is now simpler and more intuitive.
Some of the new functionalities include:
- A new user scoring program has been created, called Kudos. Kudos are a way to acknowledge the activity and reliability of registered members. Each activity a registered user performs on the portal is awarded with a numerical value which is associated to the member’s profile. In other words: the higher the total number of Kudos a member has, the more active he/she is and the more visible they will be on the portal.
- The most interesting articles are now selected and highlighted on the portal by the editorial team.
- The members section has been renamed as "People" and it has more visibility, you can now access it directly from the homepage.
- The portal now offers the possibility of creating a contacts list by adding other portal members as friends.
- You can now contact other users by sending them a personal message from the platform itself.
- The user's profile has been updated and now provides information on the communities which the user is a part of.
We are always happy to offer advice and support should you need further details on any of the new features.
We hope you like the new platform and welcome your feedback