Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung (BIBB)

The ELKOnet pilot project - Results

The three-year ELKOnet pilot project ended in the spring of 2004. Hallmarks of the new ELKOnet network that was set up during the project:

Technical infrastructure
ELKOnet offers a hardware network that remains stable and provides high availability even during peak utilization. ELKOnet's http://www.elkonet.de/ Internet platform is a powerful and highly flexible vehicle for presenting joint training courses and informing experts and end consumers. The Tele-Service-Center set up at bfe in Oldenburg answers all questions pertaining to the training offered through ELKOnet. The Virtual Project Management Office makes it possible to manage even complex projects online.

Content infrastructure
The partners obtained extensive network management experience and developed an operating plan for the network during the ELKOnet project. A marketing strategy was developed and a marketing organization was set up as part of the marketing system created for ELKOnet. An ELKOnet qualification and certification system was developed to harmonize the partners' training and organizational structures.

New training courses developed using new media and innovative methodological/didactic methods
Instruction modules for inter-company vocational training were revised or developed during the project. This opened the door not only to their systematic, multimedia-based implementation through an online platform but also to process-based instruction. The training for Meister (master craftsman) certification uses modern media (CBT/WBT) and methods (project-based learning) to enable a high degree of independent learning. Besides establishing e-learning - in the form of blended learning - in the marketplace, the ELKOnet partners also received numerous awards for their training programs. 

History of ELKOnet Betreiber GbR
As the ELKOnet pilot project - which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour and the respective state ministries - was drawing to a close in the spring of 2004, the partners bfe, BZL and etz were faced with deciding how they wanted to continue offering the education and training options developed in the course of the project and the infrastructure they had set up together. Their decision also had to take into account the partners' wish to ensure the sustainability that the offices providing the funding called for.

The partners agreed on a solution that is probably the first of its kind to be initiated in this form: It was decided early on to have an "operating company" continue the activities initiated by the pilot project. This could not however be realized under the type of cooperation that was common up to that time. It became clear as the concept for the "operating company" was developed and the company was set up that this undertaking would involve not only liability and tax issues but also issues pertaining to grant law and the company's non-profit-making character.

Once these questions had been answered to everyone's satisfaction, the three centres took the first step and founded the ELKOnet Betreiber GbR immediately upon the conclusion of the pilot project. In addition to a comprehensive set of agreements, a budget plan with corresponding formulas for allocating costs and proceeds was developed for the individual partners that took into account not only the respective partner's ability to pay but also the additional benefits each would receive through ELKOnet. The group of ELKOnet operators  was expanded to six partners as of 1 January 2005.

ELKOnet Betreiber GbR's two primary tasks are to ensure the operation of the jointly procured / developed education and Internet infrastructures and to market the education and training courses the partners developed together. The marketing plan offers a picture of how the network is structured and works. The ELKOnet marketing concept