Giunti Labs presents new LCMS & DR success stories at Online Educa Berlin

Within the OEB conference, Giunti Labs’ CEO, Fabrizio Cardinali, explores the theme of ‘building digital content repositories and marketplaces for the Knowledge Society’.

He explained: "Increasing globalisation is putting pressure on Educational Organisations to invest in better educational materials and in more effective ways to distribute and reuse educational materials, such as e-learning courseware, textbooks and ebooks."

Cardinali believes that, in addition to the increased use of mobile and location-based content delivery and the need for personalised learning experiences, there is an emerging trend for informal access to learning via portals and software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems. This will generate new digital marketplaces for education, revolutionising the way we deal with learning resources online.

"It means that the learning content can be customised by the learner rather than the developer or producer," said Cardinali. "Learners download and use the material or even use it 'on the fly' using new devices such as Apple’s iPod Touch or iPhone and Amazon’s Kindle.

"Today's big challenge facing providers of academic as well as corporate learning materials is how to enrich existing packaging formats, for learning content publishing and distribution, such as SCORM or the new IMS Common Cartdridge formats, not via single, turnkey system but via an open architecture - especially adding web services protocols to content packages making the learning experience richer and more personalised," he commented.

Giunti Labs’ Carin Martell joins Pascal Debordes of Cegos, the €194m, France-based e-learning content producer, to outline the results of Cegos’ 2007 cross-Europe learning survey. According to Debordes: "We found that the biggest budgets for corporate training occur in France but much of this money is spent on administration rather than on training.

"The UK spends about a third of French budgets on training but provides its workers with broader access to training materials – and appears to be better at evaluating the return on investment (ROI) from these. Forty seven per cent of surveyed companies in the UK are assessing ROI compared with only 26 per cent in France.

"Nonetheless, learners across Europe have the same expectations of e-learning materials – notably that they are user-friendly; have high quality content, design, graphics and interactivity, and contain ‘concrete’ examples and exercises," he said.

In response to the survey’s findings, the Cegos Group has expanded its customised e-learning offer to include a range of off-the-shelf modules – in the process, joining forces with Giunti Labs. Cegos also relies on the Giunti Labs’ learn eXact learning content management system (LCMS) platform to customise modules according to specific customer demands – and, with this unique market offer, Cegos’ e-learning department is targeting sales of €25m in 2010.

Sophie Touzé, of France’s Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon, along with Amiel Kaplan, of Giunti Labs, France, showcase content federation via Giunti Labs’ HarvestRoad Hive digital repository and WebTV.

"For many years, the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire de Lyon has explored the use of new technologies in pedagogy," said Touzé.

"We believe that new technologies offer a way to integrate the four concepts of good pedagogy: interactivity, autonomy, simulation and collaborative work," she added. "Working with Moodle and HarvestRoad Hive has allowed us to make our learning resources available to, among others, three other national French institutes and the University of Montreal.

"Web TV, part of the Hive repository, is very attractive, offering to any teacher or student the possibility to search, find and watch a video created in their – or another - institute. The query, in this case, is only done from one access point - using OKI technology integrated in Hive," she said.

Finally, Paul Landers of Ericsson, the world leader in telecommunications, outlines a case study of ‘mobile learning for Africa’. Ericsson is partnering with The Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in The Millennium Villages project, which is designed to bring mobile communication and the internet to some 400,000 people in ten African countries where the project is working.

The first mobile pilot in this project uses Giunti Labs' technology to deliver just-in-time snippets of learning to train the aid and healthcare workers who help the mothers of newly born children in Rwanda.

Giunti Labs is a Silver sponsor of this year’s event. Please visit Giunti Labs at Foyer Potsdam, B61. For further details of OEB, visit http://www.online-educa.com/

In addition, Andrea Lorenzon, Giunti Labs’ chief solution architect, is speaking on ‘content production and content management for a new generation’ at the OEB Security & Defence Forum, on 3rd December.

In his presentation, Lorenzon is discussing the challenges facing defence organisations which have to manage and deliver both learning content and technical publications in an integrated platform. In particular, Lorenzon examines the emerging technologies, tools, standards, processes and best practices required for building a tailored yet flexible learning platform for both content types.

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About Giunti Labs
Giunti Labs is a leading Online and Mobile Learning Content Management Solutions provider with global headquarters in Italy and offices in London (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), Lund (Sweden), Boston (US), as well as Sydney and Perth (Australia).
Giunti Labs provides a wide range of solutions, in response to any content, learning and knowledge management need, covering:
• 24/7 multi language learning content production
• LCMS and Digital Repository Platforms
• Delivery solutions for mobile & wireless
• Consulting and professional services
Giunti Labs is part of Giunti Group, a leading educational and cultural heritage publisher with roots back to 1841. Over the years Giunti has built a catalogue of huge dimensions (over 7.000 titles) and acquired new brands in Italy and worldwide.
In 2008, Giunti Labs acquired the HarvestRoad Hive digital repository system, which manages any form of content used in online learning, corporate training and knowledge management initiatives. HarvestRoad Hive can interface with practically any ERP, Learning or Course Management System and is already integrated with several commonly used course management systems, authoring and content assembly tools.

Further information from:

Minna Leikas, Giunti Labs, +39 3474435167, m.leikas@giuntilabs.com
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405, bob.little@boblittlepr.com