Successful conclusion of European TENCompetence project

In February 2010 the final TENCompetence review has taken place. The reviewers concluded that the project was very successful and all recommendations were accepted. The four-year TENCompetence project, funded by the EC, developed infrastructure for lifelong competence development in Europe. CELSTEC was one of the 15 European partners and coordinator of the TENCompetence project. The final activity report gives an overview on its most important results with regard to realized software, scientific publications, dissertations, dissemination and training events and the TENCompetence Foundation.

Project Outcomes
TENCompetence has resulted in the following outcomes:

• Software: The Personal Competence Manager (PCM) has been created, tested and validated in pilots and business demonstrators. In the final production release 14 portlets were integrated into the open source LifeRay portal (PCM, Personal Competence Manager) as well as 5 stand-alone tools (some desktop, some are also available as a portlet). The PCM is now being used by the Empower Limburg Consortium and by the Open Universiteit.
• Scientific publications, a research network of PhD students and learning technology specifications, that have advanced state of the art:
  - 277 scientific publications in international, peer reviewed journals and peer-reviewed books
  - 421 different TENCompetence contributors including 283 different authors of the scientific publications
  - 7 special issues of scientific journals
  - 9 conference/workshop proceedings
  - a Springer Book about Learning Networks Services
  - 6 Ph.D. Thesis and another 4 that will be defended in  2010 (+ number of thesis with other partners)
  - 4 Best Paper Awards to TENC papers/researchers
• Dissemination and training events: TENCompetence provided keynotes, was an active participant and often co-organiser of over 250 national and international conferences, seminars and training events.
• The TENCompetence Foundation to carry on the PCM evolution. On the Foundation website information is available on personal competence development, eLearning and knowledge management.

Contribution to lifelong competence development
TENCompetence supported lifelong competence development with the following achievements:

• a Learning Network per occupation/domain of expertise
• a competence framework for each learning network to specify effective performance in the field
• formal and informal Competence Development Programmes that are aimed at the attainment of proficiency for one or more competences in the competence framework
• informal & formal learning activities/ courses that are available/shared in the network and are the building blocks of the competence development programmes
• knowledge resources that are available/shared in the network and are used in the learning activities and units of learning

TENCompetence
TENCompetence was funded by the European Commission through the IST Programme with 15 partners from throughout Europe. It developed and used infrastructure to support individuals, groups and organizations in lifelong competence development. SURFfoundation, Open Universiteit (CELSTEC) and the Universiteit van Amsterdam were the Dutch partners of the European TENCompetence project. CELSTEC coordinated the project.
The TENCompetence project ran for four years from December 2005 until December 2009. The budget was 13.8 million euro. 421 scientific staff members were involved, plus additional support staff.

All output of the TENCompetence project can be found on DSpace.