Expected Project Results

The main final result of the project will be a Web site published on the Internet in 7 European languages. The target group represented by WBT will find here:

• A comprehensive directory of best practices used in Web-based learning across Europe, gathering information from different countries, types and levels of education; it will include pedagogical approaches, methods and, of course, specific results obtained.
• Two packages of on-line courses (16 titles) just tailor made on the specific needs of the target group, with the following characteristics:
  • The topics will cover 2 set of competences: technical (aiming at developing skills for using Internet as a pedagogical tool) and pedagogical (aiming at developing skills for using best pedagogical approaches and methods for web-based courses);
  • There will be taken into consideration 3 degrees of complexity (basic, intermediate and advanced). There will be covered both the background information of the topic and exercises for skills improvement;
  • The courses will be modular and will include on-line evaluation questionnaires, at the beginning and at the end of the course, as well as after every module. For each course, the trainees will have the possibility to download in electronic format a handout for future reference;
  • The necessary time to go through every module will be no longer than 2 hours, in order to maintain the flexible character and the time limit pressure-free of the learning process;
  • A self-administered on-line questionnaire meant to help the WBT to evaluate their competencies, to discover their strengths and weaknesses, and to act consequently; several courses will be recommended in order to satisfy the specific needs.
• The WBT WORLD site will be completed by:
  • A section containing policies and successful initiatives in web-based learning from different European countries, that could bring together and share experiences and good practices among WBT;
  • A section of articles, news, books reviews, events, on the topic of Web-based ODL development on open submission (anyone in the world with a good article might publish in this section) ;
  • A continuously updated database of web-based educational software (demo, freeware or shareware versions), on open submission, as well ;
  • A newsletter server, in order to provide an effective dissemination of the results and information related to the project. There will be a free subscription for everyone who is interested on these specific issues;
  • Other Internet facilities that will help the WBT community cohesion (forum, IRC etc.).

The WBT impact is expected to be extremely high, even from its launch. The eagerness for information as well as the desire for learning are essential conditioners for the WBT practitioners. And that even more with the continuous development of the field and the permanent state of growth and dynamic of the Internet-based course system, partly due to the ODL development. This way, the project impact will continuously grow during the whole project lifecycle, and is expected to grow further beyond its end.

On the short term:

The presence of the WBT in the European system of vocational training will certainly stimulate the quality enhancement of the courses build on the Internet; the web-based trainers will be motivated to take into consideration the quality criteria set by the European institutions and to respect the designing procedures of this courses, according a higher importance to the effective correlation between the pedagogical approaches and the technical solutions offered by the ICT.

Access to an updated informational support, from different EU countries, will provide a real help to WBT in understanding the users' real needs for instruction, and that will determine the improvement of the Internet-based courses, encouraging the competitiveness and, consequently, the raising of the WBT number.

The European approaches of the WBT, will allow them to benefit from sharing the experiences and the good practices from different countries.

On the medium and long term

Through WBT will be created a true testing portal of new products and services in eLearning; the WBT will place their materials and training demo courses, aiming not only at promoting, but especially at testing and evaluating them.

A very good dissemination of the WBT project results will contribute at forming and enlarging the community of web-based trainers that will promote their professional interests and their competences development according to the new technologies and changes in eLearning. Very import is also the fact that WBT develops an active resource that will be open to a broader community, reaching beyond the European borders by attracting users from other parts of the world, enabling this way the exchange of experience and, consequently, the achievement of competences at high levels.

Last, but not least, the project results will offer to policy makers form European countries a working model for developing similar systems for other target groups.

		Note: Based on their large experience in field, partners estimate the DIRECT impact in 3 years from projects ending, at: over 2.000.000 persons accessing the site through Internet; over 30.000 trainees benefiting from interactive training courses developed on platform; over 3.000 software in demo, freeware, shareware versions being posted on platform database and many of them will be valorised into web-based courses;

Transfer and dissemination of the intermediary and final results as well as the information concerning the project WBT WORLD will be regarded as priority activity through entire project lifecycle. Therefore, trans-national partners will take into consideration the use of combined strategies for maximum efficiency. As media for dissemination will be used mainly the Internet, but also printed materials, events and personal contacts.

Here are some of the strategies that will be implemented during the project lifecycle:

• Publishing on each partner's site the information on the project, including aims, expected results, partnership, and others. This information will be updated during the development of the project with the results and the stages of its developments
• The active promotion of the Internet site as a direct result of the project's development, applying the following main strategies:
  • Subscription of the site address on the main search engines from Europe and in the main portals containing relevant information for the target group;
  • Placement of banners on the partners' sites to facilitate the access of the interested persons to the multimedia site developed in the project;
  • Placing a newsletter server on the site, so that the subscribers can receive through e-mail news and information on the project's development. The subscriber's list will contain persons and institutions which are in direct connection with the target group, local and national mass-media, and also Web-surfers interested in the project's development who will subscribe their e-mail on the server;
• Editing and printing an informative brochure in the terminal phase, which will be published in the mother tongues of the partners and distributed by each partner.
• Producing a promotional CD, including a demo course, also distributed by each partner.

In addition, all partners have specific channels for dissemination - some of them own magazines, organizing (inter)national fairs and exhibitions, have close contacts with mass media, etc.