History
Historically, ElCoP is the successor to the e-Learning Developers’ Task Force (EDTF), which was created in 2006 to develop a network of European e-learning developers involved in ANS training.
This group had the tasks of developing best practices in e-learning development and a platform which would enable users to share digital learning assets.
Even though EDTF finished these tasks in 2008, its members believed that there was added value in keeping a community of practice alive which would enable participants to learn from each other, to share best practices and to develop common deliverables. They suggested ElCoP.
ElCoP started work in the first quarter of 2009.
Situated learning is a theory that explains an individual's acquisition of professional skills and includes research on apprenticeship into how legitimate peripheral participation leads to membership in a community of practice. Situated learning "takes as its focus the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs".
A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to alternatives because it tends to produce superior results. Best practices are used to achieve quality as an alternative to mandatory standards. Best practices can be based on self-assessment or benchmarking. Best practice is a feature of accredited management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14001.
ENAIRE is the air navigation manager in Spain, certified for the provision of enroute, approach and aerodrome control services. As a public corporate entity attached to the Spanish Ministry of Public Works, it is responsible for air traffic control, aeronautical information and the communication, navigation and surveillance networks so air companies and their aircraft can fly safely and in an organised format within Spanish airspace.
The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, commonly known as Eurocontrol, is an international organisation working to achieve safe and seamless air traffic management across Europe. Founded in 1963, Eurocontrol currently has 42 member states with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It has several local sites as well, including an Innovation Hub in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, the Aviation Learning Centre (ALC) in Luxembourg, and the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The organisation employs approximately two thousand people, and operates with an annual budget in excess of half a billion euros.
A software factory is a structured collection of related software assets that aids in producing computer software applications or software components according to specific, externally defined end-user requirements through an assembly process. A software factory applies manufacturing techniques and principles to software development to mimic the benefits of traditional manufacturing. Software factories are generally involved with outsourced software creation.
An air navigation service provider (ANSP) is a public or a private legal entity providing Air Navigation Services. It manages air traffic on behalf of a company, region or country. Depending on the specific mandate, an ANSP provides one or more of the following services to airspace users:
Beacon Status was a progressive educational initiative that the United Kingdom implemented based on the idea that organizational learning could be advanced through a competitive process of identifying successful organizations and recruiting them to disseminate their good practices. The beacon status initiative was launched by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) in partnership with the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 1998 and ran through to August 2005 for primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. Beacon Status was for providers funded by the Learning and Skills Council, which are mainly Further Education colleges. The Learning and Skills Improvement Service was still awarding Beacon Status in 2011.
Estonian Aviation Academy is a state-owned institution educating and training personnel for Estonian aviation enterprises and organizations. The academy is situated near the Tartu Airport. Instruction at the Estonian Aviation Academy meets the curricular requirements of the country's Ministry of Education and Research, as well as international agencies.
A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger in their 1991 book Situated Learning. Wenger significantly expanded on this concept in his 1998 book Communities of Practice.
The American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography (ARDMS), incorporated in June 1975, is an independent nonprofit organization that administers examinations and awards credentials in the areas of diagnostic medical sonography, diagnostic cardiac sonography, vascular technology, physicians’ vascular interpretation, musculoskeletal sonography and midwifery ultrasound. ARDMS has over 90,000 certified individuals in the U.S., Canada and throughout the world. ARDMS provides certifications, resources, and career information to healthcare practitioners and students practicing medical sonography.
Knowledge and Human Development Authority(KHDA) (Arabic: هيئة المعرفة والتنمية البشرية) is the educational quality assurance and regulatory authority of the Government of Dubai, United Arab Emirates which is responsible for evaluation and accreditation of higher educational institutions and universities in the Emirate of Dubai. Established in 2006 by the country's Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, it is the main body that oversees the growth of private education sector in the emirate, including early childhood education centers and schools.
The Single European Sky ATM Research 3 Joint Undertaking is an institutionalised European public-private partnership, established in 2021, to accelerate through research and development the delivery of the Digital European Sky, as part of the SESAR project. Initiated in 2004, the SESAR project is the technological arm of the EU's Single European Sky initiative to integrate EU Member States' ATM systems. Bringing together the EU, Eurocontrol, and more than 50 organisations covering the entire aviation value chain, including drones, this European partnership is investing more than EUR 1.6 billion between now and 2030 to accelerate, through research and innovation, the delivery of an inclusive, resilient and sustainable Digital European Sky.
OER Commons is a freely accessible online library that allows teachers and others to search and discover open educational resources (OER) and other freely available instructional materials.
Tango was an augmented reality computing platform, developed and authored by the Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP), a skunkworks division of Google. It used computer vision to enable mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to detect their position relative to the world around them without using GPS or other external signals. This allowed application developers to create user experiences that include indoor navigation, 3D mapping, physical space measurement, environmental recognition, augmented reality, and windows into a virtual world.
Cloud robotics is a field of robotics that attempts to invoke cloud technologies such as cloud computing, cloud storage, and other Internet technologies centered on the benefits of converged infrastructure and shared services for robotics. When connected to the cloud, robots can benefit from the powerful computation, storage, and communication resources of modern data center in the cloud, which can process and share information from various robots or agent. Humans can also delegate tasks to robots remotely through networks. Cloud computing technologies enable robot systems to be endowed with powerful capability whilst reducing costs through cloud technologies. Thus, it is possible to build lightweight, low-cost, smarter robots with an intelligent "brain" in the cloud. The "brain" consists of data center, knowledge base, task planners, deep learning, information processing, environment models, communication support, etc.
Estonian Air Navigation Services, abbreviated as EANS, is a modern, rapidly developing company operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of the Republic of Estonia. It is a business entity, the major function of which is to provide services to air traffic in accordance with international standards as well as to ensure flight safety in Tallinn Flight Information Region. The sole owner of the company shares is the Republic of Estonia.
English Language Proficiency for Aeronautical Communication Test (ELPAC) is a EUROCONTROL test for aeronautical communication designed to assess ICAO English Language Proficiency for pilots and air traffic controllers, and reflects the range of tasks undertaken in air traffic control and pilot communications. The test focuses on language proficiency, not operational procedures.
Jan Klas is a Czech aviation expert and Director General of the state-owned enterprise Air Navigation Services of the Czech Republic.
D4Science is a Data Infrastructure offering services by community-driven virtual research environments. In particular, it supports communities of practice willing to implement open science practices. The infrastructure follows the system of systems approach, where the constituent systems offer “resources” assembled together to implement the overall set of D4Science services. In particular, D4Science aggregates “domain agnostic” service providers as well as community-specific ones to build a unifying space where the aggregated resources can be exploited via Virtual research Environments and their services.
