EduXchange, a business framework for Content Exchange between Higher Education Institutions and Corporations

EduXchange operates in the mode of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that involve key actors from the academic and the corporate world. SIGs include, from the outset, people from organizations, institutions, and corporations who:

Are in a position to identify the needs and demands on both the academic and the corporate sides,
Are able to contribute to the expansion of the SIGs to a broader European network,
Are in a position to take on responsibility for the viability and sustainability of the solutions to be offered
Do have a viable interest in the future use of project results
And who stand for the quality of technical and business solutions as well as the services to be offered in the future.

The creation and management of three high level Special Interest Groups by involving key players from the HEIs as well as the corporate sector, engages the following main activities:

Establishing direct contacts to key stakeholders (individuals, organizations, university consortia, professional associations, chambers of commerce etc.])
Holding public seminars to create awareness for the need of U2C-brokerage services
Having regular SIG-working sessions to validate the business model and the services to be offered.

Within the EduXchange project Special Interest Groups are the basis for all discussions and analysis.

Three major SIGs are envisioned in the scope of the project, each with a different focus:

Technological advancements applied to e-learning services and related technologies will be the focal point of EduXchange’s Special Interest Group One. The main effort of this group will be focused on the emerging practices of exchange of content between HEIs and the corporate world, which, as yet, are not well defined. From a functional point of view Special Interest Group One composes an advisory body combining the expertise of its members in the various fields of its scope. Our vision for SIG One is to gather top experts in the field of e-learning technology and services from the HEIs and the corporate world in order to create an exchange mechanism of expertise with the EduXchange consortium.

A collection of e-learning services and technologies essentially derived from currently running pilots or
promising prototypes will constitute the research pool of the group. A modest number of initiatives will be analysed so as to provide an indication of the technological innovations and potential breakthroughs in the coming years, the time required to implement, deploy and integrate them in the e-learning process as well as in the current socio-economic context.

Within the EduXchange project, SIG2 focuses on the assessment of learning requirements in companies, with a special emphasis on SMEs. While there is a good understanding of the needs of large, multinational corporations and the strategies they have deployed to implement e-training, little is known on what work is currently being done in SMEs.
As there is no possibility of having a statistically significant, cross-sector survey of a relevant sample of SMEs in Europe, SIG2 will reach out to market players who have already displayed e-training activities which are either in direct relation with SMEs or which can be, in time, extended to SMEs, and to public or private organizations whose mission include providing advice to their member organizations or to their staff. SIG2 welcomes experts from the following organizations: corporate e-training service providers, corporate e-training platform providers, mobile IT technology providers, HRD in large corporations, Lifelong learning and executive education departments of higher education institutions, SMEs, Professional unions, Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Trade Unions.

The Special Interest Group (SIG) 3 of the EduXchange project deals with the relationships and the cooperational framework of universities and corporations, or more general: of knowledge suppliers and knowledge purchasers. In this framework, the members of SIG 3 will discuss how to set up and maintain a platform for education and knowledge brokerage. This includes the design of technical solutions as well as communication pathways, cooperation policies, organizational structures and a coherent and validated business model. All these elements will serve as a basis for a roadmap for the implementation of EduXchange as a professional service in the market of learning, education and knowledge exchange.

Work and Participation in SIGs

The main objective for the intended work in all three Special Interest Groups is to enable direct contact
between institutions and experts from higher education institutions and the corporate sector. It is intended to arrange interviews with SIG members to identify the current status as well as emerging requirements on the SIGs topics. These interviews will be carried out with selected SIG members from the academic and the corporate sector. Beside these interviews, surveys will be conducted in order to gain a clear image of the trends, outlooks, and of the requirements of stakeholders who cannot participate more actively in the work of the SIGs. Furthermore, it is planned that a selected group of experts will also be invited to participate in the activities within the EduXchange project.

Knowledge Exchange in SIGs

As mentioned, the main objective in all three Special Interest Groups is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between experts from higher education institutions and experts from the corporate sector.
The EduXchange portal (see http://www.eduXchange.org) will serve as a dynamic forum for sharing ideas, concepts or project ideas as well as a major tool for the dissemination of documents and results of the SIGs and of the EduXchange project. The portal will include open forum facilities, newsletter registration, a hot topics area, presentation of state-of-the-art solutions for U2C implementations, etc. Furthermore, the portal will provide secure, dedicated facilities for on-line discussions of specialized SIGs.

Different kinds of meetings are planned for facilitating the exchange of knowledge in the different Special Interest Groups. Public seminars as well as regular SIG-working sessions will facilitate face-to-face meetings of experts in the focused fields.