Towards the Learning Grid: Advances in Human Learning Services

There is a paradigm shift in Informatics in general and in technologies enhancing human learning in particular. The debate between the "evolutionaries" - those that wish to optimize and refine current approaches - and the "revolutionaries" - those that support a fundamental change of approach - is quite actual. Within the Internet communities, the debate is hidden behind the words "semantic WEB" versus "semantic Grid"; within educational technologists between "content/resource centered" and "conversation centered" e-learning, or either between "teaching" and "pedagogy" on the one side, and "learning" and "communities of practice" on the other. In general, in Informatics, the shift from a product-page oriented to a service-conversation oriented view may possibly impact most if not all the foreseen applications, in e-learning, but also in e-science, e-democracy, e-commerce, e-health, etc. Part A of the book is dedicated to Position papers: visions about what to do and why to do it in the next years. The remaining parts (B to D) offer partial answers to "how" to do it. Part B concerns what we called: Content-centered services, i.e.: a vision of learning systems that privileges knowledge and its structures, standards and their interoperability, storage and retrieval services. The subsequent part C has been called: Holistic services to refer to more mature and integrated solutions that address not only content but more generally the creation and management of human Virtual Communities connected on the Grid in order to offer and consume different services facilitating and enhancing human learning. Finally part D is concerned with new directions in learning services.