Flexbase
Target users:
- Bakery trainees
- Dutch Bakery Centre employees
- Vocational Training Centres
Flexbase, supporting vocational training in the Dutch bakery sector, is a competency driven and context model driven learning concept based on Giunti Labs’ learn eXact eLearning suite, including the eXact Skills and eXact Portfolio modules. Flexbase organises student oriented learning programs to support the training of bakery students. Flexbase learning paths match the training capacities offered by both the schools and the industry and are adapted to the level of the individual learner.
The project takes a holistic learning process-oriented approach involving students, teachers, tutors, competency coaches and training companies, engaged first in the creation and then in the delivery of the appropriate learning materials proposed by the gap analysis done on the students’ competency profiles.
Every activity done by the students within Learn eXact, e.g. fruition of learning materials, execution of tests, assessments for the competencies gap analysis, should be able to update the “competencies matrix” (that is to say the snap shot of the possessed competencies).
The personal results of the students are imported in the form of acquired competencies in an integrated ePortfolio Management System, thereby establishing a workable link with public employment services. The Flexbase concept of automatic competency acquisition can be implemented in any other vocational sector in the Netherlands and beyond.
Flexbase is one of the Reference projects of the Dutch KennisNet BVE Metadata project, which has defined the IEEE LOM metadata standard application profile for Dutch vocational education.
The Flexbase project started in January 2004 and aims at implementing a competency driven learning L©MS infrastructure, supporting the bakery vocational training. The Dutch Bakery Center (NBC), together with 16 Regional Education Centres (ROCs) has developed the Flexbase concept in close collaboration with Giunti Labs’ value added partner, Synergetics, and with MicroWebEdu.
Flexbase is complemented by the EC funded CODRIVE® project (2004-2007), in which a generic Context Ontology is being developed to be then re-used by multiple semantic applications: vocational competencies defined by means of IMS RDCEO standard for instance can be formally contextualised using this ontology, learning material can be better classified (using the LOM taxonpath metadata field), etc.