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Centre
Giunti Labs
Master
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Giunti Labs, Exchange House, 494 Midsummer Boulevard, Milton Keynes MK9
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Tel +44 (0)1908 306009/ +44 (0) 7733 365063; Web
www.giuntilabs.com
20th March 2007
Giunti Labs' provides LCMS technology in PROLIX, Europe's largest
e-learning and business intelligence project
Giunti Labs, Europe's leading e-learning and mobile learning content
management solutions (LCMS) vendor, is taking part in PROLIX, a
four-year research and development project co-funded by the European
Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme, Priority 2 'Information
Society Technologies'. The PROLIX project, which brings together 19
partners from nine countries, is coordinated by IMC Germany and
provides LMS, LCMS and business intelligence tools aimed at aligning
learning with business processes, by bridging e-learning and business
intelligence tools by means of shared standards and interfaces.
The PROLIX architecture is designed through a service-orientated open
framework named OBELIX (Open Business intelligence and E-Learning
Interoperability and eXchange framework) and implemented by means of
blending both vendor (such as Giunti Labs' learn exact LCMS) and open
source components.
As a target outcome, the PROLIX architecture will enable organisations
to improve their employees' competencies more quickly, as business
requirements change. The goal is a minimum 20 per cent reduction in the
'time to competency' to be measured in the workforces of the large
organisations and multinationals which are engaged in the project.
"The delay between the identification of learning needs and actual
learning affects the competitiveness of any company," explained Giunti
Labs CEO, Fabrizio Cardinali. "The PROLIX project aims to make people
and organisations more competitive by reducing the time it takes to
fill competency gaps and build proficiency, based on business needs and
daily work processes."
The key innovation in PROLIX consists of a process and competency
driven framework which interlinks business process intelligence tools
with knowledge management and learning environments.
Angus Turpin, manager for Giunti Labs in the UK and Ireland, commented:
"Not only should the delay between identifying a learning need and the
actual learning taking place be as short as possible but the learning
material must be targeted to the learner's individual learning style
and behaviour.
"Personalised learning solutions are needed in order to improve an
employee's work performance significantly. Achieving this involves
using technological solutions which will allow the user to access
learning content any time it is needed - and to access it via the most
convenient device available at that time."
The PROLIX project envisages a system that allows for business process
driven learning at the workplace, taking into account the single
learner and her/his needs as well as the learner's organisation's
requirements. In addition, the learner will be able to initialise a
learning task her/himself, thus producing self-guided learning in
corporate environments.
PROLIX supports a complete learning process life cycle from analysing
complex business situations and identifying individual and
organisational learning goals, to analysing competencies and matching
them with individual skills. According to Cardinali, this should lead
to the definition and execution of appropriate learning interventions
and the simulation of competency oriented processes, with a constant
monitoring of learners' performance with respect to defined learning
and business goals.
"PROLIX combines business processes with learning processes in
corporate environments, enabling business process driven learning at
the workplace, taking into account both the needs of the individual
learner and those of the company," Turpin added.
The solutions under development will support and enhance the speed and
effectiveness of both formal and informal learning processes,
integrating learning management platform technologies - such as Giunti
Labs' learn eXact LCMS - with support services.
Fabrizio Giorgini, R&D Manager of
Giunti Labs, commented: "Learning models will enable the identification
of learning scenarios for process-orientated learning. The models will
be described according to the IMS Learning Design specification.
"The first prototype of learning design editor has been already
developed and integrated in the reference LCMS, Giunti Labs' learn
eXact.
"A simple and intuitive graphical user interface allows the models to
be created or modified and learning resources, roles, activities and
services to be defined according to the particular business scenario.
Developed web-services for the access to the learning resources
repositories enable the exchange and interoperability of e-learning
pedagogy and materials - and encourage greater reuse and efficiency."
The first PROLIX/OBELIX open workshop is planned for EC-TEL2007
(http://www.ectel07.org/) in Crete, on 18th September. Participation
will be free of charge.
End
Notes for Editors
About PROLIX
PROLIX aims to deliver an open learning platform. It will integrate the
systems needed to fully support the learning life cycle by providing
interfaces to skills management systems, learning management systems,
LCMSs and knowledge management systems as well as performance
measurement systems.
In addition, PROLIX will provide learning process workflow services (LPWS)
to manage learning processes. Learning activities and business process
needs will be aligned by integrating learning services into existing
business process platforms.
PROLIX will allow the European learning solutions industry to integrate
its solutions in business process architectures with limited additional
effort. To do so, the PROLIX architecture will be designed according to
emerging Service Oriented Architecture (SoA) paradigms.
PROLIX will provide a framework of services to enable a community to
register its learning materials and allow those contents to be
searched, queried and analysed in order to identify competency gaps and
plan learning activities.
The PROLIX system will result into an open, public domain reference
architecture (OBELIX). This should help to facilitate industry-wide
discussions about extensions, integration standards and also promote
the interoperability of learning and business management systems.
About Giunti Labs
Giunti is unique in the international publishing industry.
In 1497, Giunti publishers and typographers in Florence, together with
others in Venice, began modern book manufacturing. Over the years
Giunti has built a 'historical catalogue' of huge dimensions, through a
gradual process of 'fusion' of different publishers, but also through
the creation of new brands, including Giunti Labs. Giunti Editore now
includes 20 companies in the publishing sector.
Giunti Labs, which has its EMEA headquarters in Italy and an office in
Milton Keynes (UK), provides a wide range of services, in response to
any content, learning and knowledge management need, covering:
-
Content
production
-
Research
and development
-
Technological solutions for content, learning & knowledge management
-
Architectural and technological solutions for mobile & wireless
-
Training
and consulting
Giunti
Labs provides the learn eXact suite, Europe's leading e-learning and
mobile learning content management technology. This suite is
interoperable with all major vendor-driven and open source LMS and VLE
solutions in the market including Oracle, SumTotal, Saba, WebCT,
Blackboard, Sakai, .LRN and Moodle.
Moreover, Giunti Labs does not just adhere to the international
standards relating to the LMS/LCMS world, it is one of the
organisations that helps to determine and drive these standards:
co-writing and developing them. Giunti Labs plays a key role in most of
the international institutions for the definition of e-learning
specifications (IEEE LTSC, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC36, CEN/ISSS WSLT, AICC, IMS,
ADL-SCORM and OKI).
About Giunti Labs' learn eXact suite
Giunti Labs' learn eXact is a learning content management system (LCMS)
that enables users to create, manage and deliver content based on
learning objects, XML, standards and international specifications. It
delivers learning content to location-based mobile devices, interactive
TV and wearable computer devices.
Further information from:
Angus Turpin, Giunti Labs, +44 (0) 7733 365063
Minna Leikas, Giunti Labs, +39 348939912
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405