Facilitate access, usage and exploitation of digital educational content related to Organic Agriculture

26 April 2010. Montpellier. Nikos Palavitsinis (GRNET) explained at the IAALD XIIIth World Congress, organized by Agropolis International on 26-29 April 2010, Montpellier, France
how Organis Edunet is trying to open access to multilingual, high quality content on organic agriculture and agroecology. 


Organic.Edunet aims to facilitate access, usage and exploitation of digital educational content related to Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology. It deployed a multilingual online federation of learning repositories, populated with quality content from various content producers. In addition, it deployed a multilingual online environment (the Organic.Edunet Web portal) that facilitates end-users’ search, retrieval, access and use of the content in the learning repositories.

The project studies educational scenarios that introduced the use of the Organic.Edunet portal and content to support teaching of topics related to OA and Agroecology in two cases of formal educational systems, i.e., high-schools and agricultural universities. Furthermore, it evaluated project results in the context of pilot demonstrators in pilot educational institutions, as well as through open validation events where external interested stakeholders have been invited.

Organic.Edunet focused on achieving interoperability between the digital collections of OA and Agroecology content that producers in various EU countries have developed, as well as facilitating publication, access, and use of this content in multilingual learning contexts through a single European reference point. In this way, digital content that can be used to educate European Youth about the benefits of OA and Agroecology, will become easily accessible, usable and exploitable.


Background:
Funded by the European Commission: eContentplus Programme

• started in October 2007
• duration 36 months
• co-funded by EC
• Overall budget: 4.800.000 euros

Partners:

Greece

• Greek Research & Technology Network S.A. (GRNET) - Project Coordinator
• Agricultural University of Athens (AUA)
• Ellinogermaniki Agogi Scholi Panagea-Savva S.A. (EA)

Spain

• Universidad de Alcalá (UAH)

Sweden

• Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)

Norway

• Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB)

Austria

• Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur (BM: UKK)
• Bundesgymnasium and Bundesrealgymnasium Schwechat (BGS)
• Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft (BMLFUW)

Estonia

• OU Miksike (Miksike)
• Estonian University of Life Sciences (EULS)

United Kingdom

• University of Nottingham (Intute)

Hungary

• Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem (BCE)
• Magyar Ökológiai Gazdálkodásért Egyesület (MOGERT)

Romania

• Universitatea de Stiinte Agronomice si Medicina Veterinara Bucuresti (USAMVB-FA)

Germany

• University Duisburg-Essen (UDE)

International

• World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
• United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
• Mongolian Organic Farmers Association - MOFA
• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Knowledge Exchange & Capacity Building Division
• AgNIC, USDA / National Agricultural Library
• Digital Green, Microsoft Research India