South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

Training on the usage of software products, particularly in a corporate context, has gained from the outset a central position among the application areas of e-learning. Nevertheless, e-learning approaches that target this type of training have failed to place appropriate emphasis on pedagogic quality. What is essentially absent from contemporary e-learning solutions for software training is the adoption of educational approaches which treat the application-to-be-learned as a tool for everyday use, for the learning of which the trainee should have the opportunity to not just observe, but interact and experiment with, in a real-life setting.

The ELEVATE project (Grant Agreement number: 222353) is set to investigate and propose new, pedagogically-motivated methods for incorporating e-training add-on components into commercial software products, such that the application software to be taught and the educational process can become effectively integrated. The aim of the ELEVATE project is the creation of a novel hybrid environment for the training and certification of end-users of commercial software products, which will enable European software SMEs to deliver innovative e-training services for their business partners and customers.

• An innovative ELEVATE training and certification environment that integrates the application software to be taught with the training procedure, providing real-time interoperability and interaction with the e-learning environment in the scope of training process improvement and efficient monitoring of the trainee
• The ELEVATE pedagogical approach that utilizes innovative learning tools and pedagogic methodology in order to facilitate the integration of e-learning technologies with the acquisition of technological skills within a unique learning environment
• Three sets of e-learning and e-training material (one per application software product utilized) that will be designed and developed so as to materialize the educational models and directives derived from the innovative ELEVATE pedagogical approach
• Three ELEVATE SMEs prototypes that will prove and validate the concepts and tools of the ELEVATE solution, regarding the integration and the effectiveness of the ELEVATE educational environment with three pre-selected application software products
• The ELEVATE Adoption Methodology that will document the preparatory steps required for the integration of the ELEVATE training and certification system with application software products and the final productive deployment in real-world cases, based on the lessons learnt through the evaluation of the prototypes and the pilot training sessions
• The ELEVATE Special Interest Group (SIG) that will include enterprises (mainly SMEs) from the European (and not only) Software Industry and their Business Partners Networks (BPNs