A University Online Portal for Enterprise Learning Communities

This paper describes the Programme for University Industry Interface Semantic Web Portal project that supports the efforts in enterprise training units to upskill the employee in the company and facilitates the creation and reuse of knowledge in online communities. The main purpose of this project is to support on-line learning communities and monitor the changing needs and skills of the work force in enterprise environments. The development of the new PUII Semantic Web Portal has been motivated by the growing demand for formalised semantic representation of online resources to improve search results in online documents and the lack of interoperability between resources of communities of practice. Both areas are challenging research fields that build on each other and at the same time are pre-requisites for a novel view of and approach towards collaborative online knowledge communities. Web-based on-line communities, supported by educational institutions, can act as a platform to bring together distributed actors and secure quality of learning through reviewed expert community communication. The goal of the project is to make explicit and formalised knowledge that is created in the community accessible to all members of that community in a personalised fashion. Furthermore, this shared environment enables members to link resources in order to create new relationships between users, documents and concepts. The focus is on educating and developing the individual from within the company. The motivation is to create an environment that bridges the gap between learning and work in the organisation and learning and work in the community; an environment that meets the learning needs of the individual and provides economic value for the organisation.