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Any structured educational initiative is based on a function of didactic mediation that teachers, tutors, community, materials etc. perform in filling the gap between learners and new knowledge. In this perspective, learning objects (LOs) can be considered just one component of the mix of agents that play this mediation role: LOs are resources the designer of a learning environment can rely on. Far from being the only source of learning, LOs can constitute part of a wider learning strategy, together and in synergy with other resources. Starting from these premises, our contribution explores a variety of aspects of the relationship between LOs and collaborative learning; more specifically, the following questions are addressed: what design strategies can be adopted to properly integrate LOs in Constructivistic-type learning processes? How can the formal characterization of LOs be extended to encompass such elements as the instructional function performed, the granularity of the material, etc.?, Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, Vol 1, No 1 (2005): Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society

Teacher Education (TE) is a dynamic, lifelong process that needs to fully embrace innovation and assume a broader European perspective. The ECfunded Share.TEC project aims to provide enhanced, culturally-aware access to TE-related resources across Europe by means of a federated resource brokerage system whose semantic core is the proposed Teacher Education Ontology (TEO). This paper describes the rationale for an ontology-driven approach, gives an overview of TEO’s multi-layered structure for addressing multicultural and multilinguistic issues, and presents some aspects of the TEO implementation that allow for language-independent conceptualization and multidimensional hierarchal searching and filtering Other TEO features are also discussed, including the support for dynamically generated user interface and system stability against ontology modifications.

One of the main advantages of the LO paradigm is to allow the availability of good quality, shareable learning material through the Web. The effectiveness of the retrieval process requires a formal description of the resources (metadata) that closely fits the user-s search criteria; in spite of the huge international efforts in this field, educational metadata schemata often fail to fulfil this requirement. This work aims to improve the situation, by the definition of a metadata model capturing specific didactic features of shareable learning resources. It classifies LOs into "teacher-oriented" and "student-oriented" categories, in order to describe the role a LO is to play when it is integrated into the educational process. This article describes the model and a first experimental validation process that has been carried out in a controlled environment.

People in need of care, chronic or acute, often present problematic food intake and special nutritional needs. Integrated, person-centred and pro-active food and nutritional care delivery has been proven effective for people in health care. However, skills mismatches have been reported in different professions involved, which also applies to the role of chefs in healthcare. The EU funded project NECTAR aims at closing this gap by creating a new job profile, called Chef Gastro-Engineering (CGE). The current publication summarizes the status quo in hospitals and gives a perspective on the future role of chefs in integrated healthcare delivery.

Ageing populations represent a challenge to the sustainability of current healthcare systems. The need to balance these demographic changes with gains in healthy life years and quality of life (QoL) constitutes an additional challenge. Aware of this, the European Commission (EC) launched the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIPonAHA) in 2012. The EIPonAHA is an interdisciplinary and cross-sector initiative involving more than 3000 partners with two specific objectives: to increase the healthy life expectancy of Europeans by two years by 2020, while increasing their QoL. The initiatives of the EIPonAHA have been organized according to six thematic action groups (AGs), with the A3 group targeting areas relating to the prevention of functional decline and frailty. In addition to the good practices of partners, there are several on-going collaborative works. The involvement of the EC includes support through an elaborated research programme in which the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) and the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) are the main funding bodies. Screening approaches and preventive interventions constitute most of the initiatives within the A3 AG. Partners are distributed across five sub-groups according to good practices: i) cognitive decline, ii) food and nutrition, iii) physical activity, iv) caregivers, and v) frailty and functional decline. Regular updates of the progression of both good practices and collaborative works are presented in A3 AG meetings. The 2017 meeting in Valencia, Spain, showcased in this paper, provides an up-to-date overview of the current status of A3 activities. Frailty management Optimisation through EIPAHA Commitments and Utilisation of Stakeholders input (FOCUS) project; Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (CHAFEA) [664367]