In my previous posting I have listed a number of questions. With these questions I want to examine, to what extent the recent years have been been characterised by a change in the European cooperation climate in the field of vocational education and training (VET).

What has “European dimension” meant at different points of time?

In particular, I want to make it transparent what has happened to the role of VET research and to the European cooperation culture. However, the main interest in this exercise is not merely to give an interpretation on, what has happened. The key point is to consider, what implications the changing perspectives have had on VET-related knowledge develipment. This leads to the question, how the VET researchers have been involved in the changes and how they can possibly influence the future developments.

From this point of view it is essential to consider the changing views on “European dimension” at different evolutionary stages of European educational cooperation and European research cooperation. To me, the period 1995-2000 and the period after 2000 are characterised by different expectations on European cooperation. Below, I try to give a picture how these different expectations have been shaped by the EU programmes, by the Member States and by researchers and educationalists participating European cooperation.

The period 1995-2000 (the early Leonardo da Vinci and the era of ‘subsidiarity’)

Looking back at this relatively early period of European educational cooperation it strikes me that the involvement of EU in the field of education and training was justified from the perspective of subsidiarity. Thus, the primary task of European cooperation programmes was to support national governments and stakeholders to improve the national education and training systems (or the decentralised VET provisions). Moreover, the representatives of Member States and of Social Partners were making a stong point on their ‘ownership’ or co-participation rights.

At this period the European VET researchers and educationalists joined in European projects as representatives of the national VET cultures (and of related research approaches). To some extent this was linked to advocacy for the relative strengths of one’s own culture – but on the other hand there was genuine openness for self-criticism. This stimulated a climate of learning from each other and of understanding each others’ positions. Of course this was coupled with conceptual difficulties, gaps of understanding and competition between different positions. Yet, the most ambitious projects tried to create European group pictures that made it possible identify cultural clusters in European VET landscape and main strategies in reform approaches. Also, it was possible to identify culturally specific patterns for involving research in VET-related innovations (and to reflect upon the lack of such patterns).

Regarding European cooperation this period was characterised by enabling measures that opened new opportunities to cross traditional boundaries. Regarding European knowledge development this period made it possible raise new questions and to start new forms of cooperation – without certainty, what is to be found at the end of the journey. Yet, there was a positively open expectation on “European added value”.

The period after 2000 (The Lisbon follow-up processes and the era of compatibility)

After Lisbon Summit 2000 the cooperation culture started to change gradually. Whilst the previous period had referred to subsidiarity, the newer period of cooperation was linked to the Lisbon goal-settings for the year 2010. In the field of education and training this was linked to the new educational framework processes (the Bologna process for higher education and the Copenhagen process for VET). In this context the national governments and Social Partners have adopted new roles as godfathers and godmothers of inter-governmental agreements and of follow-up processes.

This has also had an impact on the European educationsal cooperation programmes (which nowadays are under the umbrealla of the integrated LLP programme). In the selection processes for the new cooperation programmes the contribution to Lisbon follow-up and the compatibility with current EU policies play a more significant role than earlier.

Regarding the cooperation activities ths has brought up new priority areas:

– the experts’ work for new European instruments (European Qualification Framework, European Credit Transfer, Europass etc.)

– the piloting with the new instruments and adjusting the institutional patterns to the given frameworks (e.g. the Tuning project in the Higher Education).

Alongside these priority areas there are certain ‘niche areas’ that are clearly beyond the reach of the framework processes (e.g. the projects for specific target groups for VET and Adult Education). Also, for these areas there is a certain expectation on working towards European framework processes or for creating common European instruments.

Changing perspectives on European added vale?

So far I have only given a brief account on the changing boundary conditions for European cooperation and on the different priorities that have been promoted. In what respect can this be called as ‘change of cooperation climate’. I try to give a brief answer with the help of an old slogan.

In the mid-1990s European cooperation was advertised with the slogan: “Learning from Europe – learning for Europe”. To me the first part of the slogan referred to the complementary role of European cooperation and to readiness for mutual learning. The latter part referred to interest in creating mutual awareness and to promote transfer of ideas between different VET cultures.

From 2000 onwards the European cooperation climate can be characterised by a reverse formulation: “Learning for Europe – learning from Europe”. To me the first part refers ti the primacy of European fremework processes and instruments as the common starting point. The latter part refers to the secondary role of national and sectoral VET contexts for making use of the of the common tools and instruments.

It is also possible to make use of lingual analogies. The earlier period of European cooperation can be understood as a phase of emerging ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘multilingualism’ in European VET research and in practical VET-related cooperation. The latter period can be characterised as a phase of emerging ‘mono-culturalism’ and ‘conceptual esperantism’ in European VET research and in practical VET-related cooperation. As a consequence, the earlier heritage of mutual awareness (and learning from each other) has been replaced by positioning vis-à-vis European frameworks (and learning to use common instruments).

What is the nature of ‘European dimension’ after the Lisbon follow-up?

Obviously, the picture that I have given above is only a rough caricature. Of course, the real life is more complex and the real practice in European cooperation is not only guided by the programmatic statements on ‘European dimension’. Yet, the above presented characterisation (of the changes in the European cooperation climate) gives rise to questions like:

• What kind of policies for European cooperation will be pursued after the Lisbon follow-up?
• How can the VET researchers contribute to the ‘post-Lisbon’ understanding on ‘European dimension’?

I have some thoughts on this but I would not like to continue this discussion on such an abstract level. Therefore, I prefer to proceed to the other postings that update the big picture of European VET research. We need to discuss issues like ‘interdisciplinarity’, ‘innovations’, ‘contextuality’,’networks’ and ‘e-resources’ in order to clarify where we stand at the moment and which ways we want to follow in the coming times.

In my previous posting I promised that I would continue my reflections on the big picture of European research on vocational education and training (VET) with questions instead of presenting lengthy monologues. This is also easier to me: I do not need to have the answers – we have to find them together. This, of course raises the question: Who is interested in finding out what is happening to the European VET research?

Some colleagues may find it strange that I keep looking back at the earlier periods of European cooperation in VET research and the cultural changes that have happened in the recent times. Some colleagues may also find the the expression “change of cooperation climate” is rather strong. Why should I/we worry about the big picture? Or – to put it more stronger: why couldn’t we just keep on going with the day-to-day practice and move on to new challenges if something doesn’t work?

Somehow I cannot leave it at that. If we are going through a change in the European cooperation climate, this is not merely a matter of policy frameworks and programme structures to which we contribute. This is also a matter of our own practice – what kind of knowledge we are producing, with wshom and for what purpose. And, thinking about the role of European research communities and networks – what is their role in VET-related knowledge development?

Let us consider for the moment some recent developments in the European VET research. I take the liberty of using some of the catchwords of the “i-Europe” agenda but in a somewhat modified way. For the moment I am not proposing a common agenda based on allegedly shared research interests. Instead, I want to invite my colleagues to consider, what has happened with the interests of knowledge and related goal-settings in European VET research.

For this examination I propose the following key themes and related critical questions:

1. European integration: Has the interest to participate in European cooperation maintained its popularity among European VET researchers? Or are there new dividing lines that lead to a segmentation between different forms of European participation and between related knowledge processes?

2. Interdisciplinarity: Has the readiness to cross disciplinary boundaries and to work with interdisciplinary concepts and methodologies maintained its popularity across different project generations? Or do we experience new tendencies that strengthen academic core disciplines and push interdisciplinary wort in VET-related research to the margins?

3. Innovations: To what extent is VET research addressing the need for new innovations and studying emerging initiatives in the field of VET? Or has the interest to study new innovations led to shift of emphasis from the field of VET to slightly different areas of innovative practice (e.g. the strudies on personal learning environments or e-portfolios)?

4. Contextuality and intercultural exchanges: Is the cooperation of European VET researchers characterised by awareness of one’s own VET culture and readiness to learn from other cultures? Or are there new dividing lines that reduce the willingness to reflect upon one’s own VET culture and to familiarise with other VET cultures? Or are there new patterns of internationalisation that blur the culturally specific concepts in the field of VET in such a way that ‘learning from each other’ appears as anachronism?

5. Communities and networking: Are the experiences of VET researchers on European cooperation leading to stronger European research communities? Has the EU-funding for networks helped the VET researchers to overcome periods of discuontinuity and to promote the renewal of knowledge production? Or are there new dividing lines that reduce the interest in European community development and in VET-related European networking?

6. Interactivity and knowledge sharing via e-resources: Have the earlier pilot activities to promote interactive use of web and development of joint web-based knowledge resources led to sustainable practice? Has the familiarisation of VET researchers with Open Educational Resources (OER) and with Open Educational Contents (OEC) led to new forms cooperation between VET researchers and practitioners in the field of VET? Or are there cultural dividing lines that have not yet been overcome and therefore slow down the progress with interactivity and new media in the field of VET?

I think that I have posed enough questions for the moment. I am aware that the themes and the questions are rather abstract. Therefore, when examining the key themes in the light of questions I have give some examples that cast some light on my initial question: What has happened earlier and what is happening now? I wonder, when I will find the time to proceed. Maybe someone else has views on these issues …

This is a question which has bothered me for some time as I am involved in developmental projects for both e-Portfolios and Personal Learning Environments. And it could well be that there is little difference, depending on how both applications (or better put, learnng processes) are defined. Of course, if e-Portfolios are seen primarily as a vehicle for assessment then the differences are clear. Simililarly if the e-Portfolio is owned by an institution or course. But if the e-Portfolio is seen as being owned by the learner, is intended to record all learning and is seen as a tool for formative self evaluation and for reflection then the differnces become more fuzzy.

I have had a number of interesting discussions about this issue recently – with Jenny Hughes, Cristina Costa and Mark van Harmelen. Jenny (who loves working with words) talked about the difference between presenting knowledge and representing knowledge. I think this is a valuable distinction. An e-Portfolo is a` place for reflection, for  recognising learning and presneting that learning. A PLE may be seen as a tool (or set of tools) for not only presenting learning  but for also (individually or collectively) developing a representation of wider knowledge sets (ontologies?).

Of course it could be possible to develop a tool set which supports both tasks. But there are different sets of tools involved in those different prcesses and in the interests of si8mplicity and usability it may be better to develop environments which allow flexible access to such different tools or tool sets for different purposes.

Why am i wrestling with such obscure ideas? Pontydysgu is a partner in the EU funded Mature project. Part of our tasks is to research the ‘state of the art’ on these issues and to develop and test PLEs as a process for developing and sharing knowledge. Its going to be interesting.

I am not particularly good at ‘live’ blogging. But I thought I would practice with a couple of posts from my travels this week. At the moment I am in Karlsruhe in the South of Germany at the kickoff meeting of the EC mature project.

Most of today has been taken up with partner presentations but the last horu has been more interesting. There are a lot of talents between the partners and a reasonable repositopry of tools and applications that the different techncial developesr have brought to the table.

On the one hand it would appear useful to develop mock ups of the different tools – or at leasts some mash up some of the outputs an services. But on the other hand we need to take the learners into account – and our aim of user based knowledge aggregation – not just aggregate technology and tools. Bringing those processes together is not so easy. Can we really work out use cases before users have accessed and tested the tools? More tomorrow.

I’m back on the road this week.

Tomorrow I head off to Karlsruhe for the launch of a new research project called Mature. “MATURE conceives individual learning processes to be interlinked (the output of a learning process is input to others) in a knowledge-maturing process in which knowledge changes in nature. This knowledge can take the form of classical content in varying degrees of maturity, but also involves tasks & processes or semantic structures. The goal of MATURE is to understand this maturing process better, based on empirical studies, and to build tools and services to reduce maturing barriers.”

I will be working on how Perosnal Learning Environments can be used as part of the knowledge maturing process. Could be a lot of fun.

And on Friday I head off to Pesero in Italy. On Saturday I will be running a workshop on social software, PLEs and e-Portfolios. The workshop is the last day of a five day course on Open and Distance Learning. There are five tutors on the course. We had a skype meeting to discuss what platforms we would use and as might be expected we all had different ideas. The first two days of the course are to be run using Dokeos. I had a try at setting up materials in this system. There is nothing wrong with Dokeos. I is a perfectly respectable Open Source Learning management System. But I just can’t get along with such systems. I guess I just find it too difficult to think in LMS structures. So, along with Cristina Costa, who is also teaching on the course, I set up a PBwiki, I was much happer with this. It is quick and flexible. And Cristina has extended it to include several Pageflakes mash-up pages.

I like this and will use the wiki for support material for presentations and workshops in the future. I will also use the wiki as part of the workshop for recording processes and outcomes. Everything is licensed under Creative Commons. So, if you want to reuse materials please feel free.

I guess I won’t have so much time for blogging this week. But I will try to post a couple of progress reports from the road.

I hoped I would never have to write the word ‘Blackboard’ on this blog again. But the news that Blackboard have won their US court case claiming patent infringement against the Canadian D2L platform cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed. For readers new to the blogoshere, Blackboard, the once market leading e-learning vendor, some one and a half years ago obtained a patent claiming they had invented the use of computers for learning (and just about everything else). That the patent is patently 🙂 absurd is of no matter, nether that it is being challenged. As Stephen Downes reports: “The East Texas jury managed to wrap up deliberations in an afternoon and get away for the weekend with a judgement of $3.1 million in favour of Blackboard. The reaction across the web was generally one of dismay, though there were some mitigating factors: first, the settlement was much less than Blackboard as wasking, second, the verdict did not include an injunction against sales of Desire2Learn software, and third, the patent is still under review by the U.S. ”

The issue of patents is not going to go away, even if the review subsequently revokes the Blackboard patent. Ofc ourse as Stephen says the USA uses patent laws to “supplement tariffs and trade restrictions” whilst preaching open trade when it suits them. And it is not just Blackabord that is doing this – in fact it is perhaps surprising no major e-learningc ompany has tried it on before. Only this week Apple applied for a patent for automatically creating customized podcast mashups from various podcasts. The patent filed talks of: “Improved techniques to facilitate generation, management and delivery of personalized media items for users are disclosed. Users are able to influence or control content within a media item being personalized. In one embodiment, personalized media items are podcasts. Users are able to influence or control the content in or with a podcast. In other words, a podcast can be created in accordance with a user’s needs or specifications so that the content within a podcast is customized or personalized for the user.” How the hell can Apple claim a patent for audio mash ups.

And on Friday the Guardian newspaper reported the UK government “is to consult on legislation to punish internet service providers if they fail to take action against the illegal downloading of music, films and TV programmes.

The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, made the proposal to crack down on illegal downloading today as part of a wide-ranging strategy paper designed to support the UK’s creative industries.”

Writing in the same newspaper a day earlier Cory Doctorow explains ” the phrase “intellectual property” is, at root, a dangerous euphemism that leads us to all sorts of faulty reasoning about knowledge. Faulty ideas about knowledge are troublesome at the best of times, but they’re deadly to any country trying to make a transition to a “knowledge economy”.Fundamentally, the stuff we call “intellectual property” is just knowledge – ideas, words, tunes, blueprints, identifiers, secrets, databases. ”

Doctorow goes on to say: “Copyright – with all its quirks, exceptions and carve outs – was, for centuries, a legal regime that attempted to address the unique characteristics of knowledge, rather than pretending to be just another set of rules for the governance of property. The legacy of 40 years of “property talk” is an endless war between intractable positions of ownership, theft and fair dealing.

If we’re going to achieve a lasting peace in the knowledge wars, it’s time to set property aside, time to start recognising that knowledge – valuable, precious, expensive knowledge – isn’t owned. Can’t be owned. The state should regulate our relative interests in the ephemeral realm of thought, but that regulation must be about knowledge, not a clumsy remake of the property system.”

I am not so sure how the state is able to do this. One thing is for sure. All the legislation in the world is not going to pursude young people that music is just a commodity to be bought and sold according tot he rules of copyright. And the ISPs know it. My take – which I have probably written on this blog before – is that capitalism is trying to extend the notion of provate goods into the sphere of ideas. Just as technology makes it easier for us to express ourselves and to make things for oursleves, capitalism tries ot take that right away – and if they can’t stop it happening – they are dammed sure they want a curt of the action.

The Blackboard affair is just another round in this fight. It ultimately represents an attempt to privatise our rights to education and our rights to learning, to turn the means an tools for developing knowledge into a private commodity.

I’m doing a presentation on Tuesday on Learning and Knowledge Maturing. It is a bit of a mash up – some older slides from me plus some slides from Steven Downes. And it comes with full audio – I used slidecast for the first time. So trun up your speakers and press the green button (warning – about 20 minutes long). A longer post about making this will follow.

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Little did I know – when starting my personal blog – that I would get caught in a slow motion picture. I thought it would be a relatively simple thing to cast a quick look back at the issues of 2003 and then zoom back to the present date. As it often happens, these things need more reflection – and time … and energy.

Anyway, here I am, back with the re-examination of some critical issues for the European research in vocational education and training (here referred to as “European VET research”). And, since some time has passed sinsce my previous postings, I need to explain why I am still struggling with the “I-Europe” approach that I was drafting for the common discussions of European VET researchers some time ago.

European VET researchers and open futures

To me the main point of interest in the European cooperation of VET researchers in the years 1995-2000 was the readiness to face new challenges and open futures. In this respect the European projects of that period were looking beyond the boundaries that wasknown on the basis od simple country-specific information. Some projects were looking for new ways to link general qualifications and vocational learning arrangements – without knowing who would prove to be champions and who would need to learn more from others. In a similar way some projects were looking into new ways of developing education and training for VET professionals (in the interface areas of school-based learning and workplace learning). All this required readiness for new solutions and readiness to admit that all the building blocks were not there at the beginning of the projects. Moreover, the common awareness that the starting points were incomplete, gave a push for joint European knowledge development. The participants understood that they were contributing to knowledge enrichment and creative search processes at the level of trans-cultural dialogue. Furtthermore, the participants were eager to leartn from each other within the projects and on common European arenas that brought several projects in dialogue with each other. This, latterly, gave rise to European umbrella-networks (like the “Forum” network) or knowledge sharing infrastructures (like the “REM” and “CEDRA” infrastructures) to support joint knowledge development across European VET research.

From this point of view the current picture of European cooperation has become far more monotonous. Somehow, during the recent years there has been less expectation to find something strikingly new and (as a consequence) less interest to learn from each other.

European framework processes and the loss of open futures

At the same time the perspective towards “the European dimension” or towards “the European added value” has been narrowed down to the policy priorities of the European framework processes. Therefore, there doesn’t seem to be any room for discussion on different cultural perceptions on vocational qualifications – the perspective of “European Qualification Frameworks (EQF)” is already there. In a similar way there is less grounded discussion on pedagogic innovations in VET – the related policy priorities have been shifted to ‘e-learning’ or ‘accreditation of prior and experiential learning’ some time ago. Yet, there is – as there has always been – some interest in research on social inclusion and/or on socio-cultular integration of young people with migrant backgrounds. However, these issues tend to become pocketed to their own special interest areas.

Regarding these developments the “I-Europe” document tried to raise critical awareness of European VET researchers on the fact that

a) the European cooperation in VET could be richer than implementation of intergovernmental agreements on European Qualification Frameworks,

b) that pedagogic cooperation at the European level could be wider than the pedagogic annexes of intergovernmental priority lists,

c) that research and development on the issues ‘intercultural understanding’ and ‘social inclusion’ could go beyond language learning and special schemes for ‘target groups’.

VET research and rediscovering open futures

To me, the present phase of the European integration should require a new conceptual for open futures regarding the development of education, training and the labour markets:

a) The developments in the European labour markets are much more closely linked to global developments and to developments between Europe and border regions. Therefore, there are different movements of capital and labour force that are note easily catered for by European macro-policies on qualification frameworks.

b) The developments in the newer learning environments provide new opportunities for linked and networked learning arrangements. These can influence technical, vocational and work-related learning environments across institutional and organisational boundaries and create new hubs for ‘learning regions’. On the other hand, if previously innovative learning environments become self-satisfied, they may lose their attractivity and become repitive with their alleged ‘innovativeness’.

c) The newer European mobility has brought into picture different contextual images and different challenges for socio-cultural integration. Often the education and training policies tend to tackle these issues with a remedial treatment that is addressed to isolated ‘target groups’ or ‘target organisations’ or ‘target regions’. However, as we look at the newer developments, the consequences of the new European mobility have much wider community-related consequences and a deeper impact on the community-related identities. Therefore, issues like ‘qualifications’, ‘education’ or ‘training’ cannot be brought into picture as stand-alone measures without looking at the social reality in which they are expected to function. And if we are talking of the new movement migrant labour force to the old EU countries or of the new movement of job opportunities to new EU countries (or to the border regions), there are plenty of old and new issues related to the socio-cultural development of old and new migrant communities.

d) Finally, the idea of European cooperation between VET researchers has so far been based on the assumption that they would serve as analysts and interpreters of their own (national) VET systems or VET cultures. At the same time there has been a corollary assumption that European researchers would have a common interest in making a European group picture and in identifying their respective cultures as parts of the ‘whole European house’. However, as things stand now, it appears that the the education and training cultures are becoming more influenced by internationalisation and by trans-national cooperation. Therefore, the role of VET researchers at the national and European level has become somewhat blurred. Thus, the prospects for joint knowledge development are overshadowed by new questions.

European VET research and rethinking “I-Europe”

In the light of the abovethe “I-Europe” document tried to raise some points for an alternative European VET research agenda that would be characterised by a strong “grassroot relevance”. However, as has been indicated, it has been difficult to launch a lively discussion on such a research agenda. In the beginning it seemed to be easy to draft a tentative list of the critical issues (‘integrative’, ‘innovative’, ‘intercultural’ and ‘inclusive’ developments in European VET). However, when going beyond the headings, it appeared that it was no longer that easy to bring common research interests, related research methodologies and potential funding opportunities under a common umbrella. Even if this would have been feasible for some researchers and some countries, there was no real possibility for a wider cooperation arrangement.

Thus, it appeared that the European VET researchers were challenged to find new ways to cooperate with each other while looking for their individual or institute-specific survival strategies. In this respect the draft manifesto of joint research interests was of little help. Yet, in the light of newer (and emerging) European VET-related issues it is worthwile to have a second look how the critical issues of the “I-Europe” approach could be addressed in the present phase of European integration and trans-national cooperation.

I think this is enough for the moment. In the next posting I will discuss the conceptual starting points of European VET research (and the implications for European VET research).

Pekka Kämäräinen

I started my blog by looking back to the year 2003 and to my discussion paper “I-Europe”. I wanted to have a fresh look at my earlier effort to stimulate discussion on integrative, innovative, intercultural and inclusive developments in voctional education and training (VET). Also, I wanted draw attention to a critical turining point in the development of the European cooperation programmes and in European VET research communities. And I promised to continue the story to present date and ‘back to future’.

Unfortunately I did not find the time to continue the story immediately. Yet, I think it is worth to have a look at the changing preconditions for European cooperation and the related dynamics in European research networks.

European cooperation climates and European added value

In this blog entry I will concentrate on how the views on European cooperation have changed in the transition from the earlier European programmes (mid -90s to 2000) to the current European framework processes and newer programmes.

From my perspective it is important to remind that the earlier European programmes emphasised strongly the principle of ‘subsidiarity’. The European cooperation activities in education and training were launched to support the development of national VET systems and related initiatives. The expectations on ‘European added value’ were linked to the perspective that European comparisons, network activities and pilot projects would promote a climate of mutual learning.

In this context there was a willingness to promote knowledge enrichment between parallel projects and complementary programmes. This was especially the case between the Leonardo projects and the special support programme for “targeted socio-economic research’. Moreover, there was a positive climate regarding ‘networking the networks’ with the help of European seminars and joint researcher-initiated portals.

Yet, shortly after the Lisbon summit 2000 the cooperation climate started to change. Gradually the Lisbon goals (“Making Europe the leading innovative reagion by 2010)” were transformed into follow-up agendas (such as “Education and training 2010”) and linked to intergovernmental framework processes (e.g. the Bologna process and the Copenhagen process). Thus, the idea of ‘Europan dimension’ was increasingly derived from the European policy frameworks and policy processes – no longer from the perspective of mutual learning or rom joint knowledge enrichment.

Alongside this development the European cooperation programmes in education and training were brought closer to the European framework processes and related policy priorities. At the same time the European research funding was promoted with an emphasis on ‘high sience’ and ‘critical mass’. In this respect there was less talk of complementary relations between different programmes. Furthermore, there was less interest in research-based knowledge development with the help of seminars, open spaces and thematic portals. Instead, the emphasis was shifted towards technical working groups and follow-up studies that were closely linked to the framework processes.

European VET research communities and the search for new cooperation models

Therefore, the Open Meeting of the VETNET network during the ECER 2003 (see my previous blog) took place in the middle of a change in the European cooperation climate. Looking back, it is easy to see that the two initiatives that were presented there (Alan Brown’s initiative to promote networking across national research programmes and my initiative to launch researcher-led knowledge development on the basis of a joint strategy paper) did not pave the way for sustainable cooperation.

On the one hand these initiatives were raising hopes that the national programmes could provide sufficiently strong backing for trans-national cooperation measures (and for related knowledge development). On the other hand these initiatives were based on the expectation that the existing research networks and thematic research communities would be strong enough to create new research agendas and working concepts. In both respects the development after 2003 has been characterised by a low tide in European VET-related research cooperation:

a) The enlargement of European Union had broadened the basis for European cooperation and the previous concepts for comparing countries and country clusters were insufficient.

b) The reforms and policy changes at the national level were becoming less transparent and there was less interest to learn from constant updates.

c) The earlier thematic networks or ‘container networks’ had reached the point of saturation and the individual members were shifting towards new research themes.

d) The efforts to develop web-based infrastructures for European research communities were either suffering from infant diseases (like the REM communication forum or the CEDRA portal) or streamlined into externally controlled services (like the Cedefop ‘virtual communities’).

Indeed, after 2003 it seems that the European framework prcesses and the European cooperation programmes have started to create a mechanism of questioning and answering that feeds itself (see the diverse technical working groups, specific policy-relaed tenders and follow-up studies). Alongside these developments there is less interest on, what European lessons VET researchers have learned from the cooperation experiences that have a longer history than the current European policies.

Of course, the VETNET network of European VET researchers has tried several times to launch a new debate on researchers’ own initiatives (see http://www.vet-research.net):

• at ECER 2004 the VETNET Opening Colloquium debate on “VET PISA” (as an alternative for the current PISA studies in general education),
• at ECER 2005 the workshop on “Communities, networking and web-based support”,
• at ECER 2006 the VETNET Forum on “European Qualification Framework” and
• at ECER 2007 the VETNET Forum on the 10-year history of VETNET activities at the ECER conferences.

However, as the experience has shown, it has been relatively easy to start a common discussion at a conference platform. Yet, it has been very difficult to organise pratical follow-up process that gets proper funding when the ideas are fresh. Therefore, one may ask the question, what is it worth to look back at the old “I-Europe” document and the Sisyphos work that was done to promote European research dialogue at that time. Doesn’t the development in the recent years show that there is no room for such self-initiated debates.

As far as I am concerned, I think this would be a very nearsighted conclusion and a very bad misreading of the history of European VET research. To me, the key issue is not what the present European cooperation climate appears to be (in the light of the policy frameworks). To me there is a reason to go deeper into such developments (in VET and in work-related learning) that are not addressed by intergovernmental agreements, framework processes and programme priorities. Therefore, there may be a reason to have a new look at the “I-Europe” framework from the perspective of ‘going back to future’.

I think this is enough for the moment. In the next posting I will discuss the issue of alternative futures for VET and for VET-related research.

Pekka Kämäräinen

It is already time for another edition of Sounds of the Bazaar.

This issue features a round table discussion with Jaan Netzow, from IBM Germany, Gareth Greenwood, IBM UK, and Bert de Coutere, IBM Belgium. All are involved in one way or another with the development, sales and support of software for collaboration – particularly in the workplace. Can IBM applications replace Facebook as a ‘managed social network?’ Should managers have the right to change employees’ personal profiles. All this and more in this round table.

The Sound of the Bazaar interview is with Rebecca Stromeyer. Rebecca has been involved with organising Online Educa Berlin since the start – in 1994. In the interview she tells of the origins of the conference and talks about what she enjoys about it all.

Website of the Month features the European Collaboration for Innovation project. And – this is a little embarassing – just at the moment we don’t have the url for the project to hand. But if you do want the url please visit us again when we have updated this page.

As ever thanks to Dirk Stieglitz – from stray hints in emails I gather that I made a mess of recording this issue and he had a bit of a technical struggle. And thanks to Beate Kleessen from ICWE for help in planning SoB this autumn and to Agnes Breitkopf from IBM for setting up the round table

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