WHEN KNOWLEDGE MEETS INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY

The ENEA e-LEARN Experiences through Technology and Research

Anna Moreno, Francesca Caminiti

ENEA, Italian Agency for New Technology, the Energy and the Environment, 301, Via Anguillarese, 00123, Rome, Italy

Celestina Coccia, Anna Amato

ENEA, Italian Agency for New Technology, the Energy and the Environment, Rome, Italy

Clara Martin, Alessio Carducci, Sergio Grande

ENEA, Italian Agency for New Technology, the Energy and the Environment, Rome, Italy

Keywords: e-Learning, Knowledge, Research, Innovation, Technology.

Abstract: ENEA is the Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment. The paper will deal with

the ENEA challenges and initiatives to better spread scientific knowledge and promote research and

innovation technology supporting innovative processes in the production system.

Indeed, as in the mission of the organization, ENEA aims to disseminate and transfer technologies, provides

managerial and technical-scientific support to both public and private bodies and enterprises and, finally,

helps the Country's competitiveness and sustainable development underling the relevant role of training for

developing new skills. An e-learning platform has been designed and implemented in order to achieve all

these goals: an open and distance learning system that can be considered as a self training one by its users

because they can learn whatever, whenever, wherever they want. The ENEA e-LEARN model has been

considered to be one of the best ten practices internationally by CEN. The structure of the e-learning

platform called MATRIX Multi Platform has been successfully used in the frame of several projects and in

more than 150 on-line courses. Statistics show ENEA success in carrying out its knowledge objectives.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent days, the European Community has

reaffirmed the importance of:

 strengthening scientific and technological

bases across Europe;

 developing its competitiveness in pursuit of

sustainable development including the

environmental protection;

 satisfying the needs of its citizens, by

achieving a European Research Area (from

here on, ERA) in which researchers,

scientific knowledge and technology can

circulate freely.

 ERA constitutes a core element of the

Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs.

 One should stress the necessity to guarantee

that ERA is fully operational and

completely contributes to the “knowledge

triangle” o f research, innovation and

education showing the international

competitiveness and sustainable

development of Europe and underpinning its

ambitions to become a leading knowledge-

based economy and society.

2 THE ENEA e-LEARN

The Italian Agency for New Technologies, Energy

and the Environment (from here on, ENEA) has

designed and implemented an e-learning platform in

order to better spread scientific knowledge and

promote research and innovation technology

supporting innovative processes in the production

system. Actually, as in the mission of the

161

Moreno A., Caminiti F., Coccia C., Amato A., Martin C., Carducci A. and Grande S. (2009).

WHEN KNOWLEDGE MEETS INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY - The ENEA e-LEARN Experiences through Technology and Research.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing, pages 161-166

DOI: 10.5220/0002300501610166

 SciTePress

organization, ENEA aims to spread and transfer

technologies and provide managerial and technical-

scientific support to both public and private bodies

and enterprises, underling the relevant role of

training for developing new skills. For this reason,

ENEA is one of the key actors about Italian e-

learning, thanks to the knowledge and the highly

specialized skills of the researchers in supporting

innovation. The Agency has been involving for a

long time in the process of knowledge transfer

towards enterprises and schools. Transferring and

spreading the results of its research, and promoting

their valorization with social and production

purpose, ENEA supports the technologic innovation

processes of the National production system with

particular attention to Small and Medium

Enterprises (from here on, SMEs).

The ENEA e-learning platform was born in 1996

and now it is a well-established reality offering a

number of about 170 courses, which are more and

more increasing, with more than 18.000 users in the

last two years (from January 2006 to June 2008, as it

is shown in the charts below for a depth analysis of

the end-users).

2.1 Our Experience

ENEA offers a system that can be considered as a

self training one by its users: it means that they can

learn whatever, whenever, wherever they want. The

ENEA e-LEARN model has been considered to be

one of the best 10 practices internationally by CEN

(Comité Européen de Normalisation), the European

Committee for standardization (CWA 15660

Providing good practice for E-Learning quality

approaches). The structure of the e-learning

platform, called MATRIX Multi Platform (that will

be better described below) is the result of years of

work and experimentation of a panel of researchers,

which leads to the fourth generation of the

aforementioned platform.

A lot of studies (ASTD, 2001) have shown the

advantages of e-learning in being able to provide

flexible, “just in time” learning with smaller learning

“components” than traditional course structures.

This has fuelled the movement toward modular or

unit based learning and the development of learning

objects. Learning objects are based on the idea of an

open standard supporting the creation of small

components of learning. The key benefits of object

based e-learning materials are seen as follows:

 Content of learning objects can be more

readily reused for different purposes and it

can be easily updated by replacing only the

outdated content rather than having to

rebuild a new course;

 Customized learning can be created to meet

specific individual needs;

 Learners are able to locate the particular

information they need according to the

context of their own work.

In our modular approach, the subject is decomposed

into its essential parts and each of them starts from

very basic concepts going to deep details in the

successive modules. This learning system enables

personalization within a learning design, so that the

contents and activities within a unit learning can be

adapted depending on the preferences, portfolio,

previous knowledge, educational needs, and

situational circumstances of users.

The so built courses are suitable for any worker at

any educational level. Indeed, this modular approach

by itself can solve the problems of those, with more

expertise, who would be bored if they had started

from the beginning. A self-evaluation test has been

introduced between successive modules: in this way,

any user can make the test to evaluate his knowledge

of the subject and, then, decide whether to study the

course from the beginning or skip the simplest

modules.

The platform, has been successfully used in the

frame of several projects such as the awarded project

DESIREnet, (Sustainable Energy Europe Awards,

Category Co-operation Programmes), the DEPUIS

Project (one of the six Europe INNOVA Standards

Networks (2006-2008) working towards achieving a

more successful exploitation of existing standards

and enhancing innovation in Europe), the

deployPromis, e-QUEM etc.

DESIREnet project on renewable sources of energy

(www.desire-net.enea.it) produced some e-learning

courses on:

 photovoltaic energy;

 solar thermal energy;

 geothermal energy;

 biomass energy;

 energy efficiency for building;

 wind energy;

 hydrogen energy and fuel cells;

 geographic systems to support decision

makers energy scenario.

All those ones were produced using both traditional

hypertext e-learning courses and video-web-

seminars.

The DESIRE-net web-seminaries have been

transmitted both in synchronous and in

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asynchronous modalities toward more than 30 not

European countries. The courses have been also

translated into French by the African Engineers

Association, who wants to promote renewable

energies in French-speaking African countries. The

DESIRE-net project was awarded during the 2008

SEE week as the best cooperation project in Europe.

The strategic objective of DEPUIS project has

been to enable more companies, particularly SMEs,

to use Life Cycle Thinking to decrease the

environmental impact of their product by the design

of new products, in conformance with the

Communication on Integrated Product Policy of the

European Commission. DEPUIS has developed a

multimedia handbook with more than 30 e-learning

courses, the majority in English, about 40 hours of

video lessons and a few data bases to share the

knowledge of the ISO technical committee among

all the stakeholders. The multi-media handbook is a

compilation of information from many sources and it

is frequently updated. The main components are:

 A self-evaluation questionnaire to identify

requirements for information about

materials;

 A searchable database of standards for

product data technology and for LCA;

 A searchable database of the e-learning

courses, already available and planned;

 Relevant technical documents for

download;

 Example of applications and good practice.

The aim of PROMIS project was to provide SMEs

with integrated service for managing quality,

environment, health and safety in the respect of

existing European legislation. The objective was to

give a holistic approach to SMEs supporting them in

complying with the complex legal, commercial and

social requirements at National and International

level, by means of specific e-learning courses,

qualified consultant’s advices and a tailored

legislation database.

e-QUEM is a project of the EQUAL initiative

whose goal is to promote the skill of the energy

manager also among the SMEs. For this purpose, ten

e-learning courses have been developed on the

different competences that an energy manager

should have:

 Energy, development and environment;

 Fundamentals of energy;

 Duties of an energy manager;

 Rational use of energy;

 Renewable energy sources;

 Energy accounting;

 Normative, standards and contracts;

 Organization and management;

 Communication and marketing;

 Economy and finance.

Simplified courses for public administration are

under development.

2.2 What is the MATRIX Multimedia

Platform

The MATRIX Multimedia Platform (from here on,

MMP) has significantly defined the real integration

of heterogeneous web based applications in a single

standard end-user interface by means of a portal site.

The main issue of this project has been the idea to

overcome the difficulties that a single end-user can

face in the access of a new web site, of new on-line

courses and the extremely repetitive actions of

registration and login. In particular, the MMP can

visualize in a single course catalogue e-courses

retrieved by different e-learning systems and

manage information like user-ID and Password and

course accesses. The end-user is always informed to

which e-learning platform the course belongs and by

personal profiles the courses that he can access. The

web interface of MMP is based on the structure of a

Portal site for services and contents.

2.2.1 How the MATRIX Multi Platform

Works

Matrix Multi Platform solves the issues concerning

the integration of different systems through a unique

graphics interface and unified number of tools and

functionality. The main elements that characterize

the integration of different e-learning services are:

 The Unified Course Catalogue

: it visualizes

the e-learning courses by a standard graphic

and minimum data set valid for all the

external e-learning systems;

 The Tracking/Report tool

: it is a standard

module for the tracking and reporting of the

end-user actions during the studying time on

the offered courses; MMP has defined an

end-user tracking based on the data

recorded by the system during the

connection. The information is not intended

as a standard method but is sufficient to

make a knowledge valuation on the access

frequency. These criteria are based on the

total connection times in relation to the

minimum studying time that the docent

gives for the specific course.

WHEN KNOWLEDGE MEETS INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY - The ENEA e-LEARN Experiences through

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163

 The Auto-valuation Test

: it is a defined

minimum number of questions necessary to

qualify the end-user's knowledge after the

study session. The questionnaire builder

associates a set of weights and points at

each correct and incorrect answer defined

initially by the docent and tutor of the

course. There is the possibility to insert a

significant explanation for each answer

 The Authoring system

(from here on, AS):

it is an advanced tool aimed at the creation

of hypertextual courses in order to simplify

them, from their creation to their

publication.

AS is included in the Matrix e-learning platform and

can be used by both the lecturer and the Content

Creator (CC). CC has the task to add the didactic

contents provided by the teacher in the system, using

the standard methodology and formats. To get to the

AS, it is necessary to enter the “Services” section in

the ODL (Open Distance Learning) Main Menu and

to get to the “Teachers Management” page, entering

the password and login.

Fourth generation ODL is available on the following

web address: http://192.107.92.31/fadivgen2.

Authoring System interface is divided into three

main areas:

Figure 1: S.A. interface.

In the A area (top) there are the tools for creating

page of the course and its properties. First of all, CC

has to pick up one of the courses, whose framework

will be displayed in the B area (Course Framework)

and then he will insert or modify the contents of the

single pages (modules, lessons, units) in the C area

(Content). A area includes the standard formatting

tools. In such way, CC can use an interface which is

similar to any word processor. The AS will update

the course framework and will check its consistency,

while the lecturer supervises the contents of the

Unit.

2.3 Who are the ENEA E-LEARN

Users?

Thanks to the collaboration of the ENEA ODL

(Open Distance Learning) users, filling in the

questionnaires about customer satisfaction, we could

realize a series of statistic researches that have been

helping us to manage the catchment area and, above

all, understand the end-users’ needs, expectations

and opinions just to improve the given services.

This activity has been working since 2002: the

period 2002-2005 can be found at the website

http://odl.casaccia.enea.it/FADIIIGen/FadIIISite/ind

ex.htm (click on Services and then Statistics).

The statistics concerning the period from January

2006 to June 2008 are divided into five main areas

“Users’ gender”; “Users’ geographic distribution”,

“User’s job”, “User’s age” and “Courses’ subject” as

you can see below:

2000

4000

6000

8000

number of

users

gender

users' gender

2006

2007

2008

2006

1497 3656

2007

1342 4463

2008

1451 6276

WOMEN MEN

Figure 2: User’s gender: The statistics show that more

than two- thirds of the ENEA ODL users are men, even if

the proportion of female users redoubled in less than two

years.

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

numbers of

users

2006 2007 2008

year

Regional areas

North Centre South Islands Not Declared

Figure 3: Regional areas: Taking into account that almost

one third of the users have preferred not to declare where

they are from, it is anyway meaningful that the 43% of the

users come from the North of Italy.

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164

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

numbers of

users

2006 2007 2008

years

users' age

>20 >30 >40 >50 >60 Not Declared

Figure 4: User’s age: The statistics demonstrate that the

ages 20-40 is maybe the most productive period for a

person to increase their knowledge with self learning

means.

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

numbers of users

2006 2007 2008

years

Job

Employees

Professionals

Managers

Unemployed

Entrepreneurs

Students/Researchers

Teachers

Others (housewives;

retired people)

Figure 5: Job: The majority of the users did not declare

their job. Probably, even though they are still working

they are trying to keep themselves updated: that’s the real

sense of long life learning!

courses and topics areas

ood

nforma

ciety & culture

ech

log

nvi

ron

men

nergy

lity & certification

saf

ety

courses

number of users

2006

2007

2008

Figure 6: Courses and Topics area: ENEA includes 170

courses. Energy, Environment, Safety and Informatics are

the topics areas mostly taken by the users: it depends not

only on the main subjects studied by ENEA. As a matter

of facts, the Agency's activities are carried out in the

following four areas: Clean Energy, Technologies for the

Territory, Technologies for the Future Advanced and

Technology Applications) but even on the more and more

increasing interest in such topics.

2.4 Some Considerations

The Italian production is undertaken by 97% of

SMEs: most of them have less of 15 employees and

are in the North of Italy (see fig. 3). It’s rare that

Italian employees can be involved in traditional

learning courses because they cannot leave their

workplace. The culture of innovation in SMEs is

hindered because of a low scientific education level

of the workers. Only 0.6% of SMEs workers, in fact,

have got a technical university degree. It’s so rare to

find enterprises being able to translate the research

results in success actions for their enterprise

competitiveness. These peculiarities lead to the

difficulty of transferring research results from the

Italian research centers to SMEs. The New Economy

can be considered as a Learning Economy, in which

learning is a strategic resource for the growth and

the economical development of industries and

countries. ENEA launched an e-learning scientific

platform in order to overcome the difficulty of

technological transfer and, currently, ENEA offer

includes 170 free courses (see fig.5). The Platform

user interface is very friendly and it has been

developed in the Usability Laboratory of ENEA.

The courses are built thanks to the Authoring system

(AS) which is an advanced tool aimed at the creation

of hypertextual courses in order to simplify them,

from their creation to their publication. The

statistics showed that ENEA courses reinforce the

virtuous circle, Knowledge-Training-Learning–

Innovation: indeed the e-learning facilitates the

training and learning processes. The ENEA ODL

courses feedback reveals that many people got a new

job, other ones grew professionally and someone

else re-skilled thanks to these lessons. Finally, the

courses are in Italian and in English for

International users.

3 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

PESPECTIVES

The European Union Recently issued

recommendation and directives in order to make the

circulation of the professional skills easier over the

EU and the recruitment in each EU country

(Recommendation of European Parliament and of

the Council 18 December 2006 n. 962 related to key

competences for permanent learning; 23rd April

2008, concerning the European Qualification

Framework (2008/C 111/01); and the Proposal for a

Directive of the European Parliament and of the

WHEN KNOWLEDGE MEETS INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY - The ENEA e-LEARN Experiences through

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165

Council on the promotion of the use of energy from

renewable sources (COM-2008- 30 final).

The European Qualification Framework aims at

the free and easy circulation (mobility) of people in

Europe. A common reference Framework is needed

to make the learning final results transparent,

formally and semantically understandable and then it

is:

 Neutral –for the training and certification

systems of the different countries based on

units consisting of learning objectives or

“learning outcomes” consisting of different

levels the training objectives at each level

are: knowledge, skill and competence.

 based on units consisting of learning

objectives or “learning outcomes”

 consisting of different levels (the training

objectives at each level are: knowledge,

skill and competence)

According to the EQF, ENEA is going to develop

new skills in the framework of ENEA-CEPAS

agreement (Italian certification body) for:

 Designer of photovoltaic plants;

 Installer of photovoltaic plants;

 Inspector of photovoltaic plants;

 Expert in energy efficiency for buildings;

 Consultant for integrated management of

QEHS, Quality Environment Health Safety;

 Expert of information management of

product data

In conformity with ISO/IEC 17024 standard

“Conformity assessment - General requirements for

bodies operating certification of persons, CEPAS

has developed a certification schema, which takes

into account the whole study and work experience of

the candidate. Here the schema.

REFERENCES

Thione L., 2003. La certificazione delle figure

professionali, un valido strumento al servizio della

qualità, Sincert ASTD, 2001

CEN Comité Européenne de Normalisation Providing

good practice for E-Learning quality approaches CWA

15660

Anna Moreno, Sergio Grande, 2005. Knowledge

management and life long education in science, Data

Science Journal, volume 4

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