The scope of the eLearn Accredit conference is still developing, and will continue to do so through the conference itself, but is likely to include the following key areas:

Accreditation of eLearning (including monitoring of learning, quality of learning opportunities, assessment of learning and progress, exit assessments and value added; whether the nature/quality/detail of what has been learned, or the way it has been learned, on-line is intrinsically different to the same subject matter learned off-line);
Accreditation of eTeaching (including teacher qualifications, the nature of student-teacher interaction, supervision and monitoring of learners, course content and aims);
Accreditation of eLearning providers (including technical standards, standards for suppliers, codes of practice, and some linkage to the previous two areas);

For each of these areas, eLearn Accredit brings together all the different education sectors from across the world, so that ideas and expertise are exchanged, and so that the wheel is not re-invented at every turn. This means that there will be strands focusing on areas such as:

Higher/Further Education
(English) Language Teaching
Business Education
Lifelong Learning
Schools (Primary and Secondary)

Clearly, one single cycle of conferences will not establish universally agreed standards which can be monitored in the way of a full accreditation scheme. However, the process of building consumer confidence in eLearning across the globe needs to be started sooner rather than later.

The first conference cycle will establish a direction towards developing clear, agreed standards and targets. One important outcome which we hope the first conference cycle will be able to provide is to clarify whether a direct accreditation scheme, or a meta-accreditation scheme (accrediting the accrediters) is the likely way forwards. The aim of the conference cycle is that we would be closer to an agreed definition of what the accreditation of eLearning would be like, what it would achieve, and perhaps how it would be realised. This would almost certainly have to include some degree of publicity of the standards to the end user.

You can download the programme for the conference from the Conferences area. Please be aware that we will be adding further presentations as the conference develops, so do check the programme from time to time, to avoid missing out on any key papers.

The 2002 eLearn Accredit Virtual Conference is deliberately designed to be very low tech. This is to ensure that no one will be excluded from the discussions through a lack of bandwidth, connection reliability, sophistication of computers, or lack of special conferencing software. We have also put in procedures to ensure that no one will be excluded through language or time zone difficulties, from participating anywhere in the world. Please see the Welcome Presentation, by the Director of eLearn Accredit, Andrew Brown, (which you can download from the Conferences area) for further details about how the Virtual Conference has been designed to ensure that everyone can take part.

Dates and Times

The inaugural Virtual Conference took place throughout the month of November 2002, with staged discussions in different specialist discussion strands.
The Physical Conference was held on19 and 20 May 2003, in Lisbon (Portugal) attached to the World Education Market, in partnership with the SEEL (Supporting Excellence in E-Learning) project.
There will be a follow up conference in May 2004, once more held with the SEEL project. For further details, please visit www.seelnet.org.

Outcomes

The aim of the conference would be that we would be closer to an agreed definition of what the accreditation of eLearning would be like, what it would achieve, and perhaps how it would be realised. This would almost certainly have to include some degree of publicity of the standards to the end user.

Your ideas are very important to this process. The eLearn Accredit project is about bringing the best ideas together. If you have any suggestions to make, any ideas to add, any people who you think ought to be included, please Contact Us.