Basis for the discussion on-line at the Oxford-meeting
Tuesday , May 23
Background
STC has used the ICDT-platform since December 1999 in Export Trainee – training projects in
Sweden as well as in multinational training projects – The Global Executive MBA - where
participants come from different countries, where the seminars are taking place in different
countries and the whole project administrated through the STC office in Brussels using the
ICDT- virtual learning platform.
The TRIM – Project (Leonardo da Vinci)
The TRIM-project aims at implementing an International Trade Management Concept (ITMConcept) in 7 European countries through Trade organisations. The first step is to arrange a
“Pan European Export Trainee Training ” during May - October 2006. This will be a blend of
local seminars in each partner country and international seminars in 4 different countries
with altogether 41 SME´s and representatives from Trade organisations. The countries are
Hungary, Greece, Slovenia, Lithuania, Norway, Iceland and Sweden.
Each country will administrate their local seminars. STC as the originator of this concept
will administrate the International seminars to show and transfer how to administrate the
training using this ICDT Virtual Learning Platform.
In the future it will only be possible to run similar pan-European projects where the
administration from each country only could be possible to co-ordinate through a Virtual
Learning Platform.
After fullfilling the training each participant will be part of an Alumni Virtual Learning Network
using the ICDT- platform. Each participant will learn how to contribute and exchange ideas
during the training which is a necessity to create an interactive network afterwards.
This joint Pan European Export Trainee Training will demonstrate how to run a multi
international training and how to transfer the knowledge how to do it thorough the ICDTplatform.
STC experience and obervations
STC has more than 7 years of experience to administrate similar projects where participants
come from different countries where the seminars are taking place in different countries and the
whole project administrated through the STC office in Brussels using the ICDT Virtual Learning
Platform.
Our observations are:
There are 3 main users: the administrator of multinational projects, the content providers
"professor, teacher" and the participants to be trained "end user".
B2B
Administrator
B2C
Content
Provider
Participants
”end user”
If you commercialise/implement a Virtual Learning Platform like this into other organisations it
will be obvious that you have to deal with “Business to Business” as well as “Business to
Consumer”. In the first run the customer is an organisations/company, then you have to face
the content providers – when this is in place you will have to take care of the “end user”.
Priority 1 is to make the Virtual Learning Platform efficient and convenient for the
administrator to make it possible to cut administrative costs by creating a well planned structure
and useful administrative tools on the platform. To gain from this is only the organization that
administrate, not the “end user”.
Examples :
 Cloning from one community to another to shorten the set-up time for new
projects/cources
 E-mail announcing new documents on the platform
 Easy way to add members to e-mail groups
 Find the optimal structure on the platform for each project
 News should be exposed/look like a home-page with pictures to create interest
 Easy to move documents between Information, Conversation, Documentation and
Transaction.
 Pictures should be resized automatically when added.
STC did cut administrative costs/time by 50 percent when introducing this ICDT-platform in
1999 in existing training projects.
Priority 2 to make it efficient and convenient and efficient for the content providers to
administrate their own content directly on the platform (place documents, exams, reading
instructions, schedules etc) in stead of using the administrator as a middle man. The
professors has a total control of what has been given the participants and also have access to
their personal profiles on line. Self-managed professors save costs/time for the administrator
and using a Virtual Learning Platform also make it possible to attract professors located around
the globe.
Examples:
 Easy to use Transaction – space for exams.
 Easy to create a home-page for each content provider, so they only have to place their
documents in one place and only have links on the platform.

STC has experience from professors who has managed themselves and this has also reduced
costs for our administration and created convenience for the professors.
Priority 3 .Only after the above priorities have been solved you can start to introduce new and
interesting features for the end users. No features will be allowed if they raise the cost for
administration if this is not covered for what you can charge for the added value for the
customer.
STC experience is that a successful Virtual Learning Platform must have a very simple
design for the participants “end user” and for the content provider. There should also be
an Advanced button where everything that is possible to do apart from basic things
should be placed. The Administrator will have access to all features, and some only for
the Administrator.
STC conclusion
As the main customer for Virtual Learning Platforms is the organization who administrate the
training projects we must focus on the ICDT-platform as an administrative tool to save time
and cost for administration and also make it possible to run complicated multinational projects.
Stockholm 2006-05-15
Hasse Karlsson