Epprobate

The international quality label for elearning courseware

Self-paced eLearning products and services are mainly based on courseware. Already now, the worldwide market reached $32.1 billion - with a five-year compound annual growth rate of 9.2% according to Ambient Insight!
In short: There is already a huge provision of eLearning courseware out there, and every day different kind of new material like Web Based Training (WBT), Computer Based Training (CBT), Game Based Learning (GBL), Videos, Open Educational Resources (OER), Mobile Learning Apps etc. are added. For the learner it becomes very difficult to distinguish what is of good quality and worth buying.
epprobate (from the Latin 'approbare', to approve) is the first international quality label for eLearning courseware. This quality label is an initiative of three organisations: The Learning Agency Network (LANETO), the Agence Wallonne des Télécommunication (AWT) and the e-Learning Quality Service Center (eLQSC). We are currently represented in around  30 countries.

Quality is becoming more and more important for individuals, and the market is growing very fast. The hard issues today is not to find information and resources, the hard issues are about quality, trust, confidence and to see and learn what´s in it for me.

I am now a Certified Head Reviewer at epprobate and  a national expert on quality for elearning courseware.

Ebba Ossiannilsson, Lund University, Sweden
www.epprobate.com
se@epprobate.com

My blog will be on reflections of the increasingly digitized society and digitized human beings and life in general. The blog will also reflect innovation, quality, the "e"  development  as such, serendipity and rhizome phenomenon. As individuals we are always related to ourselves and to others, either physical or virtual in a social environment and context. We have relations to few or several, one at a time or several at the same time. We are connected in many different ways and for different purposes, as  described in the theory of connectivism. We are also connected in a rhizome way. 

   The desire for search and connections in digital networks leads to the epistemology based on processes called serendipity. Serendipity, with the meaning to find something that was not expected to find but often lead to new connections and new insights, often never ending. The concept has  nothing to do with chance or randomness. Serendipity has to do with attention and about holism. Serendipity helps to make sense and is a general process. The concept can be seen as a connector between non-digital and digital life. Internet and social media allows us to do everything faster, more efficient. Everything, also people are often just a click away. Probably it is faster and more efficient. Probably also time matter and time to reflect and be thoughtful. This is  a quality indicator as well. Are there probably needs and desires for balance and harmony?
     Quality and innovation in the "e" world maybe depends...

It depends on why, who, when, what and how, like the five beloved names, of the elephants children.
When it comes to learning and education in the  21 st century quality may be seen more from the users perspectives.
 
How to use powerful technical resources and for creating good things and innovative things, like insights, inspiration, knowledge, learning, motivation, research, understanding of oneself, relations and life in general and as such are thoughts I will like to reflect on and share in my blog.

                                                  

                         Illustration of rhizome, photo from San Diego, 2011©Ossiannilsson 2011