Communities+(WP3)

=Portal and Communities (WP3)=

The portal, community tools and services will be developed in WP3, populated with relevant content and information resulting in a dynamic and interactive online **reference point for peer learning** that is sustainable over the long term.

The portal should promote and support the concept of peer learning as an effective approach for change. It will include a toolkit for schools and others in eTwinning, Comenius projects, etc. for self-review and to develop their effective use of ICT in institutional development, collaborative projects and professional development. This reference point should be outward looking and take into account work on quality by EFQUEL and others and be populated by other projects as well as P2P outputs. Where possible content and tools will be translated into other languages than English.

The internet and web will be extensively used and existing channels and services will be improved and extended. Peer review activities for policy and practice call for the development of web-based content access and activities starting from the Insight portal for policy makers, practitioners, researchers and technical experts:

Already well-used and respected as an authoritative and impartial hub for eLearning, the Insight portal ([|//http//:insight.eun.org//]) focuses on observation, analysis and forecasting of e-learning in the school sector, its use and its likely evolution, providing relevant information for policy making and for European education stakeholders. The observation actions will systematically obtain and disseminate high quality, relevant information concerning ongoing e-learning activities in Europe. The Insight knowledge database will be developed to store the indexed raw materials of the project: school portraits, good policies, analytical papers, scenarios, studies of school change and research. New tools will be developed for information access and diffusion, (news services, targeted mailing, tools for asynchronous and synchronous communication) to enable Insight to be the online platform for dialogue and collaboration between policy-makers and practitioners at all levels across Europe.

A Knowledge Management system will be further refined to enable users to search for information and assemble the modules as a continuous paper, or view the information in different ways on screen. Links to similar observatories globally, e.g. Canadian Schoolnet, Education Network Australia, Consortium for Schools Networking, USA, will be developed to share data and experience on a broader scale.

MyInsight services will be developed and validated as a special network-building tool for experts in education to help them communicate with each other, contribute to the portal and gain access to the full text of insight's country reports. The network of registered users will be strengthened, so they can find colleagues with the same interest and contact them using directly a messaging system. New services will be added and implemented such as RSS feeds of relevant articles selected by the Insight team according to the user preferences (Policy, Interoperability, School Innovation RSS).

Deliverables
D3.2: P2V Website [|Portal]