Using technology for knowledge transfer between academia and enterprises

Purpose - Advanced web technology offers possibilities for blending two complementary sources of knowledge, academic and entrepreneurial, within a single web-based framework. The main goal of our project is to establish an open educational resources (OER) platform and network for fostering technology enhanced learning (TEL) within HE institutions and enterprises in the Western Balkans. Another objective is to provide training for members of universities and enterprises for production of OER materials. The third objective is to produce materials in various languages, in video, audio and textual format, supported by electronic terminological resources, services, and functionalities for searching and browsing. Design/methodology/approach - The TEL platform consists of tools and resources: learning, language and implementation resources. Among the tools some are available open source and commercial tools, some are in-house tools developed by the University of Belgrade Human Language Technology Group. Learning resources are both academic: course planning materials, video lectures, thematic content, and entrepreneurial: case studies, best practice examples, expert presentations and software demonstrations. Language resources supporting the multilinguality of the platform, terminology and its search and browse functions are lexical and textual resources and grammars. Implementation resources consists of best practice design principles and licensing tools to promote OER. Originality/value - Designing usable, effective and interactive TEL environments is a demanding task, which requires creativity and a significant amount of expertise. Especially when knowledge is elicited from two essentially different environments, the academia and the enterprises. The need for multilinguality of OER is a consequence of the novel holistic approach that takes into account all the languages a learner may use. Hence the language support system within our TEL platform, which provides for OER in different languages and allows learners in a specific domain to get acquainted with domain terminology both in their mother tongue and in other languages. Practical implications - The proposed TEL platform opens a new dimension in OER by blending two major sources of knowledge: the academia and the enterprise. It thus contributes to the important task of preparing university students for their future jobs, but also enables them to improve their academic knowledge after graduating, by offering them a live-long learning opportunity. Finally, it supports mastering of educationalmaterials and expert terminology in different languages, in contrast to more traditional approaches that look at one language at a time.