Giunti Labs, a leading global vendor of learning content management solutions (learn eXact LCMS) and digital repository platforms (HarvestRoad Hive), is leading a consortium of companies appointed to re-engineer the learning content production and delivery infrastructure of Training Innovation Research and (job) Orientation (TRIO), the Web Learning System of the Tuscan Region. Many people believe that TRIO is Europe’s largest work-related e-learning regional initiative – delivering lifelong learning materials to the citizens of Tuscany, Italy, among others.
The web portal offers a wide range of learning products, with a catalogue of over 1,400 work-skills related e-learning courses. To date, some 542,000 such courses have been delivered to over 140,000 users since TRIO’s inception in 2002.
These materials are being delivered via a web portal – known as TRIO – in an innovative approach to providing continuing professional development opportunities for public and private sector organisations, as well as for all the citizens in the Tuscan Region and in the world. In this, the project contributes to the implementation of European policies on lifelong learning.
The TRIO project consortium, under Giunti Labs’ leadership, has introduced an extended implementation of Moodle to be the core of the new TRIO platform. This is being integrated with HarvestRoad Hive, a federated digital repository System (FDRS) developed by Giunti Labs that manages any form of content such as SCORM/AICC courseware, learning objects, digital assets, e-books and podcasts.
By adding the HarvestRoad Hive DR infrastructure to Moodle, TRIO managers will be able to unbundle their content offering from any specific delivery platform. This enables this content to interoperate with any kind of third party learning or course management system and to interchange standard content catalogues with other public administration in Italy, Europe and worldwide – thus fostering maximum reuse and sharing of the produced work-based curricula.
TRIO is already integrated with several commonly used course management systems, authoring and content assembly tools. Moreover, the final catalogue has already been shared with several local government administrations in Italy, Spain and beyond.
In the new TRIO architecture, Moodle functionality is complemented by information services (KCMF), virtual classroom services (DimDim), collaborative social networking services for sharing knowledge and experiences (Elgg) as well as experimental mobile services via mobile learning modules offered by the HarvestRoad Hive DR add-on.
“TRIO represents ‘excellence’ in the world of e-learning because it addresses the continuous evolution of training needs successfully,” explained Gianfranco Simoncini, Regional Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Labour of the Tuscany Region. “It meets the growing demand for training, providing opportunities for re-training, knowledge increase or re-orientation, to ensure the business skills needed to succeed.”
In 2006, the European Commission awarded the TRIO project the European Label for language teaching through innovation and effective teaching practices.
