Skills Council takes smartcard route to web-based learning

Sector Skills Council, Cogent is to employ the contactless smartcard technology used for Transport for London's Oystercard to provide secure, web-based learning for employees in the chemicals, pharmaceuticals, nuclear, oil and gas, petroleum and polymers sectors.

Cogent has commissioned learning technology provider MyKnowledgeMap (MKM) to produce a passport and upskilling platform that records personal learning and development.

A joint initiative with personal identity card supplier Payne Security sees Payne integrating the same technology used on behalf of Transport for London with MKM's Multi-Port e-portfolio system.

Launched at the first Human Capital and Social Innovation Technology Summit (HCSIT) in Maastricht, Holland this October (2007), Multi-Port is a flexible e-portfolio designed to easily manage all aspects of assessment and evidence-based reflective learning.

Modular in design, it can be extended and customised to provide the features required of user curriculum, from formal competency-based assessments to online spaces, where learners can reflect informally on their experiences.

The product suite constitutes three core elements, targeted to different assessment styles and learning methods that work seamlessly together or stand-alone.

Thought-Port is a blog-like reflection space for learners to keep a log of their learning and experiences, chat about them with other centre members, and map experiences against a
qualification framework.

Skills-Port enables learners to manage formal assessments. Evidence of learning can be mapped to structured requirements, whether NVQ, a Foundation Degree, or a particular set
of work-based competencies.

Centre-Port offers remote tutor and assessor support, online, allowing staff to keep in touch with learners whether in or remote from the workplace.
MKM is well placed to contribute to the long-term success of Cogent’s upskilling infrastructure implementation.

The York-based company has broad experience of working with Sector Skills Councils, primarily as a provider of virtual academy platforms for managing skills and competencies across industry sectors including food & drink manufacturing, sport & active leisure, care, and retail.

More information at http://www.myknowledgemap.com/2_B_academies.asp

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NOTES TO EDITORS

MKM Multi-Port – origins
Multi-Port is a development of the work-based and competency-based assessment systems for qualifications created by MKM with partners including Foundation Degree Forward (the UK government agency for Foundation Degrees), leading Higher Education institutions and sector skills bodies developing NVQs.

MKM Multi-Port - the future
Taking advantage of the leading-edge technologies being developed in its labs, MKM is extending and adapting Multi-Port during 2008 with additional releases including:
Mobile-Port - enabling assessments to be created online, and then delivered direct to learners’ smartphones or PDAs.
Card-Port - integrating Multi-Port with a skills passport-type smartcard system, this enables learners to carry a secure record of their learning and achievement that can be read straight in to a desktop or workstation using a contact-less card reader, and that can easily be integrated with personal ID systems.

About MyKnowledgeMap
Founded in 2000, MyKnowledgeMap (often known as MKM) is a dynamic company delivering web-based knowledge systems designed by individuals, for the individual.
Operating in the corporate, public and education sectors, MKM's range of products and services includes:
• Academies: MKM is the UK's leading supplier of infrastructure systems for national skill academies, including those in the UK for food & drink manufacturing, sport & active leisure, care, and retail. MKM's e-academy infrastructure helps learners and people with a stake in a particular skill to progress from entry to degree level. Working with the UK's national Sector Skills Councils (MKM's clients include Skillsmart Retail, Improve and SkillsActive), MKM has pioneered online academies that can help people with everything from day-to-day productivity to discovering and achieving relevant qualifications. MKM also offers e-academies tailored to the needs of organisations in the private and local government sectors.
• Skills diagnostics: MKM's Skills Diagnostic suite allows clients to build their own system of skills diagnosis and training regimens. Its sophisticated software tools are designed to meet clients' specific needs, and to facilitate, not impose, the required solutions.
• Learning: MKM's e-learning solutions, including e-learning content, delivery systems and teaching aids, are used by a worldwide and growing range of organisations from Lloyds TSB to the RSPB; from manufacturing to retailing; from the police to local authorities; from the University of York to colleges in Delhi, Bahrain and Nairobi. MKM produces inventive and versatile applications that are can be shaped and contextualised by their users to meet the rapidly-changing needs of contemporary work and training, either for use within an e-Academy environment or as stand-alone products.

About Cogent
Cogent SSC is the Sector Skills Council (SSC) for the Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Oil and Gas, Nuclear, Petroleum and Polymer Industries. It is one of 25 SSCs which, together with the Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA), form the Skills for Business Network (SfBN).
It is licensed by the Government to provide employers in its sector with the opportunity for coherent leadership and strategic action to meet their skills needs.
Its key national objectives are to:
• reduce the sector’s skills gaps and shortages and anticipate future needs in the Cogent industries;
• improve productivity and business performance through specific strategic actions, based on its analysis of sector priorities;
• increase opportunities to develop the productivity of the sector’s workforce;
• improve learning supply, including the development of apprenticeships, higher education and of national occupational standards.
More information at www.cogent-ssc.com

Further Information from:
Rob Arntsen / Tom Holland, MyKnowledgeMap 00 44 (0) 1904 659465