The main content describing these communities lives on our sister site Open for Learning, which KnowNet maintains as part of its commitment to the e-compete Project. Follow the links below to see more information on each community at the Open for Learning site.

Guidance-Research

The National Guidance Research Forum (NGRF) is an online resource for guidance practitioners and researchers in the UK, developed by KnowNet and the University or Warwick Institute for Employment Research in alliance with the Centre for Guidance Studies at the University of Derby. It contains extensive materials in two main areas: Future Trends in Labour Markets, and Making Guidance Effective, the latter having been developed collaboratively in an intensive process involving teams drawn from the communities of interest in online and face to face knowledge development exercises. It integrates closely with the National Library Resource for Guidance at Derby.

The NGRF site also provides an online focus and platform for discussion and knowledg development concerning guidance research practice and policy. The online knowledge development features and exercises within the NGRF will be intensively developed in late 2004 through to March 2005.

VET-NET

VETNET is a European Research Network in vocational education and training and is part of t e European Education Research Association (EERA). VETNET organizes an annual conference and s shortly to publish a journal in conjunction with UNEVO

The vet-research.net site is designed to provide news and information about VETNET activities and to form the basis for a community of practice in VET research in Europe.

The site provided extensive support for the ECER 2004 conference held in September 2004 i Crete. A community platform was put in place to elicit and host details and content for all th sessions and papers in the run-up to the conference, and to provide very fine-grained opportunitie for discussing the content delivered.

SIGOSSEE / Join

ossite is the Open Source Software in Education website, developed by the EC sponsored SIGOSSEE and JOIN projects. The projects aim to provide information, advice, guidance and research on the use of open source software in education for the education community, for policy makers and planners and for educational software developers.

SIGOSSEE supports a Special Interest Group on open source software in education, and provides access to publications, discussions and collaborative activitie

The SIGOSSEE and JOIN projects are co-funded by the European Union in the programme 'Preparatory and innovative actions - eLearning Initiative.

Evaluate-Europe

The Evaluate-Europe site is a resource and platform for a network of european projects and researchers concerned with evaluation research and practice, and improvements or innovations in evaluation methodology.

Evaluation has become increasingly important in the last few years, partly because of a cultur l change towards demonstration of effectiveness and cost efficiency, but also because evaluation s useful for investigating innovation particularly in the context programmes and projects that seek o research and instigate change. The heightened focus on evaluation has led to the development of n w tools and processes and to increasing research in the are

The Evaluate Europe web site is intended as an action space for innovation and research n evaluation practice and theory. The site will both report on and be an organizing platform f r research and projects - national and European and will also promote the newly formed Europe n Interest Group on evaluation.

sme-learning

The sme-learning website has been developed to support the ICT & SMEs european research project. Sponsered by the Leonardo programme of the EC, this project is spearheading new research, policy development and technical innovation for the use of Information and Communication Technology for learning in Small to Medium Enterprises. The site contains up-to-date versions of the research reports, case studies and policy interviews undertaken by participants in the ICT & SMEs project.

Smelearning.org is developed and maintained by Knownet Ltd and intends to provide informatio , discussion, resources, research, and current news and events for both the project and the wider research and development community.