European Distance and E-learning Network

"EDEN" redirects here. For other uses, see Eden (disambiguation).

The European Distance and E-Learning Network, abbreviated EDEN and originally named the European Distance Education Network - established in 1991, is an international educational association open to institutions and individuals dealing with e-learning, Open education, and distance education. EDEN is a not-for-profit organisation, registered as a limited Company under English law.

Being a membership organisation with 200 institutions and 1200 individuals from different levels of education and training, EDEN assists a wide range of organisations, networks and experts to collaborate. We share knowledge, develop understanding amongst professionals in distance and e-learning and promote policies in Europe. EDEN is instrumental in the promotion of networking, international co-operation and professional development. EDEN organises annual European conferences, releases academic publications, offers information services and plays useful role in a wide range of European projects. Bi-annual Research Workshops and the Open Classroom Conferences increase the impact. From 1995, EDEN runs the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning (EURODL). EDEN’s key asset has been the strong and active membership. By joining EDEN you become part of a developing innovative community of academics and practitioners, representing 58 countries and 420 institutions.

Since 1997 the Secretariat of the Association has been hosted by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary.

Activities

social online and face-to-face networking,
organisation of European annual and bi-annual thematic conferences,
publications and information services with regular Newsflashes to members, and irregular news to non-members,
active role in a wide range of important EU projects,
thematic hubs such as the Open Classroom Working Group (school level distance education),
promoting ‘cutting edge’ research in the field,
the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning (EURODL)'s rolling online and free rolling issue,
linking European initiatives and institutions with international peers in other continents.

Members

Members' benefits:

Belonging to the largest, respected and active professional community in open, distance and e-learning in Europe
Access to EDEN’s database of institutional and individual members and partners
Delegating up to 30 individuals by member institutions in the NAP
Attending conferences at reduced fees
Establishing partnerships and exploring projects
Free access to electronic versions of EDEN conference proceedings
Use EDEN logo as reference on websites, blogs, electronic correspondence
Receiving regular, relevant electronic newsflashes
Purchase EDEN publications at 50% discount
Access to the Online Bulletin Board for efficient distribution of information

Network of Academics and Professionals

The EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP) supports networking of individual members by providing meeting and communication forum. NAP has a functional autonomy and is co-ordinated by its own Steering Committee elected by a ballot of NAP members, its Chair is ex officio member of the EDEN Board. The Members' Portal: The Members’ Area is the online community of members. EDEN Fellows: Award for professional excellence To express acknowledgement of professional merit, the EDEN Fellow and Senior Fellow title may be awarded to members who have demonstrated excellence in professional practice, contributed to the development of open, distance and e-learning in Europe and supported the evolution and progress of EDEN.

Promoting Research

The Association supports good quality research into open, distance and e-learning by means of its conferences and bi-annual research workshops as well as by providing a high-quality peer-reviewed online journal for publication of research results and best practices from all around the world. Publications related to the conferences and workshops are disseminated via the associations's public webpage and its social online network, the NAP Member Area. This is vital in a field where change is constant and new innovations arise on a daily basis.

Best Research Paper Award

In collaboration with the UB Foundation, a distinguished Jury decide each year on the EDEN Best Research Paper Award related to Annual Conferences and the bi-annual esearch Workshops. A robust selection process guarantees the high-standing of these awards for contributions to the field of open, distance and e-learning. Papers are evaluated against the following criteria:

contributes convincingly to the theme(s) of the conference;
deals with a research question of relevance for conference participants;
rigorous examination/research methods are applied;
findings, results and outcomes are convincingly presented and critically examined;
conclusions are thoroughly discussed (including aspects like applicability, transferability, and/or further research);
literature is reviewed against the state of art.

In addition, authors need to confirm that at least 30% of their paper is originated for the actual conference. All Best Research Papers are published on the website of the association.

European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning

EDEN has actively been supporting the online European Journal of Open and Distance Learning. EURODL publishes accounts of research, development and teaching for Europe, presents scholarly work and solid information about open, distance and e-learning. The journal is free to readers and contributes to the Open Content movement with over 4000 subscribers.

Conferences

EDEN's mission includes the exchange of academic and professional experience, to promote effective navigation in the field, and improve quality of information. EDEN conferences are major academic and professional events in Europe, supporting international exchange of expertise, are gatherings where comprehensive contributions are presented by outstanding experts, are based on collecting best practice – papers presented and selected with publication in the ‘proceedings’, as resources, have a genuine community feel to them, where working relationships strengthen and deepen, where new partnerships are formed. An integrated approach is employed which is crucial to ensure effective knowledge share within interdisciplinary fields of ICT and education. It helps to create and consolidate the international community of professionals. The conferences capitalise on the knowledge of key stakeholders and provide a wealth of valuable resources to practitioners. Social online activities enhance networking, conference sessions’ webcasts are published on the web. Conferences are featured in the Members’portal and Facebook groups, in Twitter discussions and on LinkedIn.

Annual Conferences

Latest Annual Conference: 2014 – Zagreb, Croatia

To cater for different needs, EDEN organises Annual Conferences and thematic workshops. Best Research Paper Awards are announced at the Conference Dinner each year. An exhibition of products and projects accompany the official programme. Prior participation, online registration is required. Special participation rates:

EDEN Member institutions/individuals
Authors of accepted papers who present their papers/workshops/posters receive a discount upon registration
Young researchers
Group rate for participants from the same institutions

The Research Workshop series

Upcoming Research Workshop: 8th Research Workshop, Oxford in collaboration with The Open University, UK

Research on open, distance and e-learning is vital in a field where change and innovation is constant. The Workshops provide important information to assist scholars, decision makers, practitioners enhance project development, and help to ensure the viability of products and services. Research Workshops take place usually in the autumn.

In 2012, the 'Seventh Research Workshop takes place in Leuven, Belgium. Best Research Paper Award is announced during the event. Authors of accepted papers who present their papers/workshops/posters receive a discount upon registration.

The Open Classroom Conferences support the Open Classroom initiative in school level education and training, mapping and exchange of information about initiatives, and the transfer of ideas from the more traditional areas of ODL to the school sector. OC Conferences are smaller in number of participants, welcome teachers, school stakeholders, researchers, experts equally.

European Projects

EDEN’s reputation has been acknowledged by its involvement in dozens of projects. The Network plays significant role in initiatives with extensive experience and wide range of communication channels. In the last 20 years, the Network was involved in cca 100 projects with 200 partners organisations. Project involvement is based on invitation by EDEN member organisations who benefit from the association's services in supporting project implementation (dissemination, networking, communication, valorisation, and evaluation). These projects are always related to learning and technology-enhanced learning in different ways and their results reach EDEN members and other partners through various communication channels. Currently running projects:

ARMAZEG: Developing tools for lifelong learning in Transcaucasus region: e-Learning Tempus IV, Joint Projects / Structural Measures E-SOLVE: E-learning SOLutions for VEt LLP Centralised - Leonardo da Vinci; Accompanying measures

LACE: Learning Analytics Community Exchange FP7-ICT-2013-11, Objective ICT-2013.8.2 Technology-enhanced learning, d) Support for organising competitions (CSA) LeHo: Learning at Home and in the hospital LLP KA3-ICT; Multilateral networks

VM-Pass: Implementing Recognition of Virtual Mobility and OER Learning through a Learning Passport LLP Erasmus; Multilateral projects

TALOE: Time to Assess Learning Outcomes in E-learning LLP Centralised - KA3 Multilateral projects

ProM: Building skills for educational mobility Lifelong Learning Programme - Leonardo da Vinci

EMPORT - Improve employability and enhance European competitiveness through the acquisition of language and cultural competences in Portuguese Lifelong Learning ProgrammeKey Activity 2 – Languages; Multilateral projects

Students Guidance at University for Inclusion (STAY IN) Lifelong Learning Programme - Erasmus; Multilateral projects

DigiSkills Lifelong Learning Programme - Erasmus; Multilateral projects

I-TUTOR - Intelligent Tutoring for Life Long Learning Lifelong Learning Programme - Key Activity 3; Multilateral projects

CARER+ CIP-ICT PSP-2011-5, Theme 3: ICT for Health, Ageing Well and Inclusion, Objective 3.2: Digital competences and social inclusion

Open Discovery Space: A socially‐powered and multilingual open learning infrastructure to boost the adoption of eLearning resources (ODS) CIP-ICT PSP-2011-5, Pilot Type B, Objective 2.4: eLearning eLene2learn Lifelong Learning Programme - Key Activity 3 – ICT; Network

Network of Staff and Teachers in childcare services (NEST) Lifelong Learning Programme - COMENIUS; Network VIsion, Scenarios, Insights and Recommendations on how ICT may help making lifelong learning a reality for all (VISIR) Lifelong Learning Programme - KA3-ICT; Multilateral networks

Policies for OER uptake (POERUP) Lifelong Learning Programme - Key Activity 3 - ICT; Multilateral projects

Publications

EURODL, the European Journal of Open and Distance Learning is an electronic, multi-media journal on distance and e-learning distributed on the Internet. It publishes the accounts of research, development and teaching for Europe in its most inclusive definition, exploring the potential of electronic publishing. EURODL presents scholarly work and solid information and is peer reviewed. It is free to readers and contributes to the Open Content movement.

For the EDEN Conferences, electronic Proceedings and printed Book of Abstracts are produced. Members have free online access to the archive of Proceedings with over 2000 full papers. A detailed list of publications as well as downloadable videocasts and slideshows of conference keynote presentations are available on the EDEN web.

Presentations of the keynote speakers are collected online from 2006 on, as well as the papers awarded with the Best Research Paper Awards are published in PDF at the official website.

The EDEN Newsflash is a monthly news service delivered to EDEN Members via e-mail. All Newsflashes are stored on the organisations's members' social online community called NAP Members' Area.

European Policy

Strategic contributions on a European level

Members and senior officers of EDEN have frequently been contributing to policy initiatives, important publications, comprehensive European actions during the past years. A selection of relevant achievements can be read below.

The book "E-Learning in Europe – Learning Europe: How new media contributed to the development of higher education?", published in 2005 in the series "Medien in der Wissenschaft" gives a survey about the past present and future of e-learning in twelve European countries. EDEN representatives have contributed with different chapters, including the concluding one about "European E-learning from Supranational Perspectives", by Claudio Dondi, Andras Szucs and Erwin Wagner.

The developments in different European countries were discussed at the conference "New Educational Benefits of ICT in Higher Education", in Rotterdam in 2002. The national cases were included in the book "The Use of ICT in Higher Education – A Mirror of Europe". EDEN contributed with a thought-provoking paper on the expectations, opportunities, achievements and realities regarding ICT, e-learning and ODL in Central and Eastern Europe.

The 2004 Annual Conference in Budapest "New Challenges and Partnerships in an Enlarged European Union" put in focus the issue of efficient and beneficial European integration and the core question: how distance and e-learning can best play a role in capacity building and support modernisation.

The topic of the Third EDEN Research Workshop in Oldenburg, in 2004, inspired the publication on "Learner Support in Open distance and Online Learning Environments", in the ASF Series on Distance Education, addressing the latest in theory, practice, research and evaluation in the field.

The Second EDEN Research Workshop, organised in Hildesheim in 2002, was entitled "Research and Policy in Open and Distance Learning". The Workshop dealt with the relation of research and comprehensive aspects of Open and Distance Learning and e-learning, focusing on policy and strategy issues.

An interesting collaboration with UNESCO Information Society Division resulted the project, entitled "Higher Education Open and Distance Learning Knowledge Base for Decision Makers". EDEN has also taken an active part in the Socrates Minerva ODL project "How to build up European ODL Networks", a comparative analysis of the different distance education networks in the European countries.

In co-operation with EADTU, a well-received study was prepared, entitled "The Role of Advanced Information Technology in the Development of Distance Education Networks in Central and Eastern Europe".

EDEN representatives were invited to co-ordinate two important policy studies: The Relationship between Distance and Mainstream Education, for the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century (UNESCO), and a Policy Paper on Open and Distance Learning. Feasibility studies were realised by EDEN for Distance Education in the Czech and Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and an important paper on the Development of a Regional Distance Education Network in Central and Eastern Europe, using TEMPUS and PHARE funds, and in co-operation with EADTU.

References

External links

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