A model for the classification of quality approaches in eLearning

The proposed action aims at all stakeholders of the E-Learning lifecycle, such as course authors, providers, trainers/tutors and as important learners. The action is supported by consumer councils (ANEC) which specifically requires these activities from the learners’ perspective. Other stakeholders will be included by multipliers, such as eLIG (e-Learning Industry Group), academic associations and selected quality projects (e.g. from the ELearning initiative and the IST programmes of the European Commission). The CEN/ISSS Workshop on Learning Technology Standards will include the key stakeholders to ensure the maximum consensus rate and acceptance. All key stakeholders for the learning process are involved in the work on the adaptation guidelines based on the forth-coming ISO quality standard, specifically in this context, learners, content providers, service providers, consultants, trainers, tutors and administration are involved. The activity will show different implementations to promote the European diversity of E-Learning quality approaches. Therefore, European requirements are included and promoted. The result will help to harmonise quality approaches, as well as maintaining diversity and individualisation. The results will then be fed into the global standardization in ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36. This CWA is one of three CWAs developed by the Project Team Quality workgroup. CWA1 provides good practice for E-Learning quality approaches. It results directly from experiences when applying quality strategies into practice mostly from a decision makers-perspective. In addition, CWA2 aims at covering the experiences gained in E-Learning situations from the learner’s perspective. Its resulting LET (Learning Experience Transparency) Profile will enable knowledge exchange and improve decision processes. Stakeholders involved are mainly producers, learners and customer councils (specifically ANEC and national consumer councils). This CWA (CWA3) finally provides a conceptual framework (metadata model and process model) to illustrate and support the process of selecting and applying a suitable quality approach to a specific E-Learning situation from a conceptual point of view including all stakeholders. The proposed Conceptual Model will improve the ability to share, exchange and improve knowledge on quality approaches in the field of E-Learning by providing a methodology to improve interoperability and knowledge exchange. The usefulness of the model has been tested in the E-Learning project "European Quality Observatory".