Project of the Month February 2003

The Educational Portal for North Denmark Project Ask your Virtual Councelor about Education

Are you looking for preparatory and advanced education, adult education and supplementary training in North Denmark? Then you've got help right at hand on a new regional educational portal that is soon to be launched. However, the Educational Portal of North Jutland, www.uddannelsenord.dk, which is the result of a DDN project, is not just targeting the coming students. It is also a powerful tool to the student counsellors.

By Naia Bang / Texthuset Aalborg - Various websites are already available to students on courses of further education – but none acommodating such large amounts of factual information on preparatory and advanced education, adult education and supplementary training. And existing sites are not featuring the Interactive Study Council, explains Thomas Munch, project manager with Logimatic Software A/S. And he continues: - There are such vast amounts of information out there, and the ordeal is to make them clear and organised for the user to get an overview fairly quickly. So we have really put in a great effort to simplify navigating the information. Bjarne Andersen, Systems Consultant of Logimatic, has contributed to the developing of the website. He adds: - We have made a fixed categorisation with counselling guides to the preparatory and advanced education, adult education and supplementary training, respectively, to enable targeted queries within the specific area relevant to your needs. Broad Cooperation on the Project The Educational Portal for the North Denmark project was created in collaboration between Logimatic and a wide range of partners within the labour market and educational area of the region: The Study Counselling Committee, The AMU, Labour Market Education,The Employment Service, Nordjysk Erhvervsakademi -The Industrial Academy of North Denmark, The County of North Jutland, Aalborg University, The Center for Information on Advanced Studies, Aalborg Socialpædagogiske Seminarium - The Socioeducational Training Centre of Aalborg, and the EUC-Nord The project group appointed a task group consisting of counsellors of the educational institutions and representatives of Logimatic. This was the VUF-group (Vejlednings- og UddannelsesFaglig Gruppe) who laid down the criteria for an educational institution to be included in the educational portal. VUF was also the body to list requirements to features and capabilities of the educational portal – for example in relation to study counceling. It all resulted in a requirements specifikation, instrumental to the technicians of Logimatic in their work. Includes Almost Every Education In order to be represented on the Educational Portal of North Denmark the educational institutions must meet specific requirements. For example the education in question must be at a post elementary school level and approved by public educational authorities. Adding to this it must be qualifying – and entitle students to receive study grants from the State Education Fund. - We are in contact with around 100 educational institutions located in North Denmark. Enlisting is free of charge to the institutions, and right now we are calling the schools around the clock to make sure they are uploading udated information to the website. For it is the task of each educational institution to make sure that information on educations etc. is maintained and updated – using a password – explains Bjarne Andersen: - Adding to this we hired an editor, Maria Bærentsen to be in charge of updating the portal. All required information on the individual educations – for example terms of admission etc. are included on the portal. Also it features a calendar holding important information, for example time-limits for enlistment via the Coordinated Enlistment. And there is a news section and a job section on the portal. Interactive Study Counceling New educations are cropping up all the time. So it can be quite an ordeal for anyone who is about to decide on a future career, to get an overview of the types of education available: What are my options, what are the durations – and where are they located? But the project group behind www.uddannelsenord.dk anticipated this and created a special Interactive Study Counselling Service. For example you can submit yourself to a test of your interests. Here you are presented to a long range of various questions related to your interests. The result of the test of interests distills into an interest profile, and based on your personal profile the portal presents the educations matching your desires. You can also list a range of criteria related to the ideal education. For example one's educational background, interests, the duration of the educational course and where you would want to study in North Denmark. This can be supplemented by the interest profile, and the portal will now point to a range of relevant educations.
Bjarne Andersen, Systems consultant (left) and Thomas Munch, Project manager of Logimatic, are performing the final revision of the Educational Portal, and they are looking forward to presenting it to a large scale public. Photo: PF Ajs Nielsen
A Tool for Study Counselors - But actually the study counselors count among our primary target groups, emphasises Thomas Munch. Adding to an overview of all study counselors of the educational institutions the portal has a long range of useful features requested by the study counselors in the VUF-group, and hence targeting the study counselors. Thomas Munch emphasises the library part among others for example, with relevant literature available. Information on the labour market and careers is available, and there is a toolbox with tips on conversational technique . Study counselors can also discuss and share experience with colleagues in the debating forum. - To the study counselors using he portal will come in natural in counseling situations where they can put its comprehensive bulk of information on the educations and educational institutions to use as a practical tool, explains Thomas Munch. And when granted write access, study counselors can access and edit information uploaded to the portal. For example they can add a new education, change a telephone number or rephrase a text. To Be a County Portal A range of study counselors together with present and future students in North Denmark are testing the www.uddannelsenord.dk site. Feed-back from the test panel is used for last minute corrections before the portal goes live around March 1rst. The presentation of the Portal to the public will also mark the conclusion of the project period, upon which the intention is to transfer the portal address to the county of North Jutland. Here they have made sure that an editor is in future charge of the portal. Also Logimatic will continue to support the portal once the project has ceased to be a DDN project. One person who is monitoring the work on www.uddannelsenord.dk with a keen interest is Ulla Tørnæs, the Minister of Education. For the Government's Bill on Counseling Related to Choice of Education and Profession envisions a virtual educational portal. So it is far from inconceivable that experience made with the Educational Portal for North Denmark could make its contribution to the basis for a new nationwide educational portal! As mentioned above the www.uddannelsenord.dk is made available to the public on March 1rst. In the meantime learn more about the project on www.thedigitalnorthdenmark. On the DDN website you will also find a Short Video describing the project.
	The www.uddannelsenord.dk is more than just an overview of educations in North Denmark. This is an example from the Interactive Study Counseling Service where visitors will find answers to questions concerning eg. economy and terms of admission.

To the top