EU - APOSDLE - Advanced Process-Oriented Self-Directed Learning Environment

Lifelong Learning has become an essential ingredient for success within our knowledge society. The EU project APOSDLE develops a software platform and tools to support you to learn @ work: Learn within the context of your immediate work and within your current work environment. The new Advanced Process-Oriented Self-Directed Learning Environment will provide you with practical guidance, learning content and expert advice when you need it and where you need it.
APOSDLE offers individual learning support to people working with information and contributing new content to an organisations knowledge pool. These knowledge workers may include e.g. engineers, researchers, software developers, consultants, or designers. It follows a learn @ work approach meaning that learning takes place in the users immediate work environment and context.
The key distinction to traditional eLearning systems is that APOSDLE provides integrated technological support for all three roles a knowledge worker fills at the workplace: the role of the worker, the role of the learner, and the role of the expert.

In a world of rapid change and continuous technological innovation the economy of the European Union relies heavily on the ability of their knowledge workers to learn efficiently and especially to apply new knowledge effectively within their work processes. The goal of the project is to enhance knowledge worker productivity by supporting informal learning activities in the context of knowledge workers' everyday work processes and within their work environments. The key distinction of the APOSDLE approach as to more traditional (e)Learning approaches is that APOSDLE will provide integrated ICT support for the three roles a knowledge worker fills at the professional workplace: the role of Learner, the role of Expert, and the role of Worker. As far as possible, this support will be provided within the work environment, and not in a separate learning environment. It exploits synergies between learning and knowledge management by reusing content not originally intended for learning. Finally, it will be based on sources available within an organizatin - specifically business space, (e)Learning systems, and knowledge management - and not require a switch to a new system. The outcome of APOSDLE will be a methodology and reference architecture for workplace learning. In order to ensure the general applicability of this outcome we will use an application-driven approach to cover the needs of three different organizations: a network of SMEs, a public organization, and a large corporation. The prime deliverables of the APOSDLE project will be de domain-specific APSODLE Environements embedded into theapplication partner organizations. Using these environments, we aim to demonstrate and evaluate the benefits of seamless integration of learning and working in the professional workplace. In addition to the reference architecture, we will deliver domain-independent tool frameworks which allow for the rapid creation of domain-specific environments.