"ORION", a LEONARDO DA VINCI is a Pilot Project which aims to create a  'Virtual' Marine Environment Department which can deliver Open and Distance Learning (ODL) courses in a variety of languages.  ORION can be visited at www.orionnet.info.

The 6th Newsletter reports the progress and developments of ORION - for details on its objectives, please see the  first ORION Newsletter. The interim progress reports are covered in the complete series of newsletters which can be visited by going to this linked page.

ORION MEETINGS and PROGRESS

The final meeting of the ORION LDV project was held,  in Crete once more, on 25th-28th October, the last date on which it was possible to hold such a meeting within the project.
The most important part of the meeting concerned the External Evaluations, the presentation of the results of the serious dissemination efforts which had taken place since the last meeting, and discussion as to how to find a viable way forward.
This is the right time to present a short resume of the project, a genuine effort to show the many positive results from what has proved to be a very tough experience for most of the partners.

Meeting Minutes

Rationale

A pilot project is in fact just that: an attempt to verify whether a specific idea, theory or methodology is feasible. Sometimes pilot projects merely show that however tempting and attractive an idea is, it is unworkable in practice. It was clear to all of us that this was not the case with ORION.

Within a very short time scale, the project team has been able to produce the individual ORION deliverables, and as a result, the whole concept of the Virtual Marine Science Department had been shown to be attainable. The ORION notion of Virtual support, from the online Library Resources, stocked with multi-lingual glossaries and works of reference, to the attractively laid-out multi-lingual language modules, and the share and re-use course modules within the distributed restricted network, were accessible and user-friendly.

The ORION tool had a real potential to host more than one set of courses, and to cope with many student users from different locations, and in addition, the ORION software tool was very much cheaper than commercial counterparts.

It was also clear that the ORION tool still had  some rough edges that needed some further development work and that the language modules, for instance, would benefit from an audio component.

Impact

All external evaluations have been positive, detailed and very helpful in their grasp of the concept itself. At all the Dissemination events that had taken place, there has been a great deal of interest, even in fields that did not seem to have much in common with the project.

Future Development

However, to move beyond the project phase to implementation on a wider scale requires more than blind faith; a development strategy must be established and the way ahead needs to be planned with clear objectives and transparent procedures.

Nevertheless, some important conclusions have been made during the course of this final meeting and decisions to implement them needed to be taken, if the ORION project were to continue to be developed as hoped.

ORION has 4 distinct features which are capable of further development:

• Website tools - capability to design courses online
• Courses - the courses that will be on the ORION website
• Language sections (self-tuition, least-widely spoken)
• Glossary (4-language)

How should ORION be further developed?

This question can only be answered by responding to several further questions.

What is the ultimate aim of ORION?

• An educational tool - course development, courses, glossary, language tools

The focus is on the tool

• A marine (environmental) educational portal

The focus is on the courses themselves

• A multi-lingual educational tool

The focus is on the language sections

The answer is that ORION can cover all these possibilities but that it is also prudent to see how other users would like to use it. Already the project has aroused interest because of its capacity to house multi-lingual course modules, and thus seems suited for use in courses such as transnational courses, such as the European Joint Masters courses.

Its capacity to handle parallel courses in different languages is also an attractive option for some academic users. The language-learning possibilities are also a useful aid in the context of student mobility, noting that such mobility is an essential part of a joint European degree.

How do we want to use the course section?

• Use it as a tool, Users to have copyright ownership of their material

All were interested in this possibility.

What are the possible applications/markets? Who should use it?

• Universities, training companies, etc.

There have already been expressions of interest from these two areas, and with some targeted promotion, there could very well be considerably more interest.

What fields will it be applied to?

• marine, environmental, aquaculture/fisheries
• Any field that wants to use it

ORION is almost ready for use in the marine, environmental, aquaculture/fisheries fields. It will require quite a lot of work for it to be used with the same degree of cohesion in another area. However, this possibility should not be discounted entirely, for example, if funding were to be made available.

How will the glossary, language sections, etc. fit in with the things we want to do with the course section?

Will the glossary/language sections be used to support the course sections?

• The glossary/language sections will be developed in conjunction with courses

Glossary/language packs will be developed as required by either the users or as part of EU funding.

How (i.e. funding) will the glossary/language sections be expanded?

• Develop glossary/language sections using EU funding, develop courses by application to different users?

AMC Ltd has already submitted a preproposal via Ireland to develop the language content in Spanish, Norwegian and Hungarian, on a related aquaculture area.

Action Plan

It has been decided by the project team that work on ORION will not stop once the Final Report is submitted, but will continue until the Final Report is accepted, a position that will probably take up to 6 months, if past experience is anything to go by. To further this decision, an Action Plan was drawn up for access by interested parties.