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Using online tools and repositories in University courses of Organic
Agriculture and Agroecology
Ch. Z. Patrikakis1, V.E. Protonotarios2, M. Koukouli2, A. B. Sideridis2 and
G. Papadopoulos3.
1 Dept. of Electronics Engineering, Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus, Greece, bpatr@teipir.gr
2 Informatics Laboratory, Dept. of Science, Agricultural University of Athens
75 Iera Odos str., Botanikos, GR-118 55, Athens, Greece, vprot@aua.gr
3 Informatics Laboratory, Dept. of Science, Agricultural University of Athens
75 Iera Odos str., Botanikos, GR-118 55, Athens, Greece, gpapadop@aua.gr
Abstract
In this paper, a survey on the use of ICT technologies for supporting university courses of Organic Agriculture
and Agroecology is presented. The survey has been performed in the context of the European eContent Plus
project Organic.Edunet. It has been focused in Europe and the questions used have been selected in order to
identify mainly the opinion of educators and researchers of European Universities as regards the use of ICT in
existing or new courses related to Organic Agriculture and Agroecology issues. The results of the survey have
been used for the provision of a comprehensive set of educational tools including a data repository and are
presented in this paper. The corresponding analysis and conclusions, as regards the use of ICT, Internet and the
design and provision of electronic tools and online repositories for Oa and AE courses, are also presented and
discussed in this paper.
Keywords: ICT, survey, agricultural education, educational platform, organic agriculture
Introduction
It is more than obvious that education is currently in a transitional phase, moving from the conventional to the
digital era. A great percentage of the existing knowledge has already been transformed into digital form and the
rest is either being transformed with quick steps or is directly entered in digital form and stored in online digital
libraries and repositories (Rowley and Hartley, 2008; Zschocke and Beniest, 2007). The main advantages of
digitized knowledge include easier creation, registration, research and use of data (Hanna, 1998).
This transition requires the corresponding training of the stakeholders, in regards of creating, searching and
facilitating digital forms of knowledge. When this is achieved, a wealth of indexed information will be available,
with enhanced accessibility and convenience, low cost and in a common format. Therefore, it is really crucial to
emphasize the advantages of this transition, so as to attract the attention of the interested parties and initiate the
process Rowley and Hartley, 2008, Hanna, 1998).
Organic Agriculture (OA) and AgroEcology (AE) are probably the most rapidly developing areas of the
agricultural sector, since they attract a great amount of attention from both the farmers and the consumers. This
is mainly due to their environmentally-friendly approach (Willer et al. 2008). As a consequence, the quantity of
the available digitized information on OA and AE is already significant and is updated and enriched with high
rates (Zschocke,T. and Beniest, 2007). However, this information is scattered in libraries, repositories and other
relevant places, making it difficult to retrieve and access. A possible and convenient solution would be the
implementation of an educational platform, which would combine several sources of information and an
indexing system. This educational platform could be used as a teaching aid, if it has been well-designed, taking
into account the opinions of both the academic staff and the students. However, in order for this platform to be a
valuable educational tool, it needs to comply with the particular requirements of the educators of the particular
scientific fields and to emphasize on the deployment of tools and functionalities that best match their needs.
In order to identify the framework in which the design and implementation of such a platform, a survey
discussing various aspects of the use of ICT in supporting education on OA and AE topics was conducted. The
survey and the corresponding results as regards teaching of OA and AE in Universities are presented in this
paper. The survey took place in the context of the eContent Plus project Organic.Edunet as part of the user
requirements capturing task of the project.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: First the survey framework is presented, including the setup and
evaluation framework. Following, the results are given and an analysis follows. The paper closes with
conclusions on the survey findings.
The survey framework
Survey setup
The survey was based on questionnaires with questions related to the knowledge and familiarization with
ICT technologies for the teaching of OA and AE topics In order to be able to collect as much information as
possible from all partners, the questionnaires were first setup in English, which was the agreed common
language, and then in the following project partners’ languages: Estonian, German, Greek, Hungarian and
Romanian.
An online implementation of the survey followed, together with the necessary adaptations in order to meet
the needs for an on line survey performed over the internet. The survey was implemented using a comprehensive
online survey system for social sciences, called EFS Survey System (EFS Survey System, 2008).
The survey has been conducted in two phases: The initial phase lasted from March 2008 until July 2008, and a
second phase from November 2008 until January 2009. The total of answers received during both phases was
used for the analysis presented in this paper. At this point, it should be noted that the full, detailed analysis of
results with respect to the actual implementation of a multilingual educational platform can be found in
Organic.Edunet Deliverable D2.1 “OA and Agroecology Awareness & Expectations in Organic.Edunet User
Groups” (Pilv et al. 2008).
Evaluation methodology
In order to filter the collected information, after a thorough examination of the total of answers received, we
have concluded that the participants of the survey could be grouped into four distinct categories:
1. The participants that have seen the survey but have simply browsed through it, without in fact providing
any valuable information. These participants have mainly browsed through the questionnaire, and in the
best of cases have completed one or two questions (randomly) which cannot be used in order to produce
any valuable statistic result.
2. The participants that started to fill it, but in fact just completed only some parts, mainly regarding the
first question. The majority of these users have completed the first question and some of the following
questions (mainly these that did not require a lot of time in order to be answered). Again, input from this
category again provides no valuable information and has been disregarded.
3. The participants that have completed only up to question 2 (see later in the text), which required an
extensive reply, in order to capture the profile of the participants regarding their approach towards OA
& AE. Therefore, though the input from this category may be valuable for identifying the profile of the
participants related to the concepts of OA & AE, the answers from this category do not provide valuable
input as regards the identification of user requirements for an educational platform, since the
corresponding questions were not completed. Therefore, these participants have also been excluded
from the processing of results in the context of this deliverable.
4. The third category are the rest of the participants who have completed the questionnaire beyond
question 2, proceeding with answering the rest of the questions (not necessarily all of them). These
participants hold a very high percentage, and their input is useful for conclusions regarding the use of
ICT in the educational process of OA & AE issues. It is the input from this category that is used for the
analysis that follows in this paper.
Based on the above, we proceed with the analysis of the results, starting from the evaluation of the valid answers
received, over which all calculations as regards the survey results have been performed. A further processing of
the results follows, trying to identify the (possible) link between the opinions and attitude of the participants of
the survey as regards the teaching of Organic Agriculture (OA) and Agroecology (AE) issues and their interest in
internet and internet technologies was performed. For this reason, two separate groups for cross evaluation test
were selected:
1. The first group examines the importance of internet technologies and how these affect the opinion of
the participants as regards the use of an on online environment for teaching purposes. This is a
more general group of evaluation aiming at capturing the background of the participants in the
survey and their general opinion regarding the use of internet and internet technologies in their
teaching.
2. The second group examines the importance of internet technologies and how they affect the use of
particular resources as means of supporting the participants’ courses. Here attention has been given
in the particular resources that can be used for web based training and the opinion of the
participants for each resource, compared their corresponding opinion about the importance of
internet technologies.
For each group, a selection of questions that were subsequently correlated in order to produce results and the
corresponding evaluation has taken place according to the level of confidence with which we can associate the
two questions. The results are characterised according to the following:
When we are confident that there is no association at all, the value “NO” is used.
When there is no safe assumption about the association of the two questions (low level of confidence),
the value “LOW” is used.
When we can assume that there is an association of the two questions (medium level of confidence), the
value “MEDIUM” is used.
When we can safely assume that there is an association of the two questions (high level of confidence),
the value “HIGH” is used.
When we can assume with certainty that there is an association of the two questions (very high level of
confidence), the value “VERY HIGH” is used.
It should be noted that in this paper, only the results and conclusions of the evaluation of the survey results are
presented, while the complete description and analysis of the evaluation work and methodology used can be
found in (Patrikakis 2010).
Number of respondents and distribution of results
The processing of the results for the first phase revealed that a percentage of 51% of those who decided to
participate in the survey have completed it at a level that provides valuable input. This corresponds to a number
of 452 completed questionnaires (at an adequate level) in the total of 683 that have been collected. It should be
noted that the percentage of valuable answers was rather high (66,1%). This number is considered adequate for
producing valuable results for the user requirements. The results of the collected information processing as well
as the classification per language are displayed in the following table.
Table 1: Answers received per language
Language
Answers for academic questionnaire
Valid answers for academic questionnaire
English
269
168
Estonian
80
61
German
48
34
Greek
140
110
Hungarian
107
52
Romanian
39
27
Total
683
452
The final percentages, as regards the valuable answers received, have been improved during the second phase
(62% and 43% respectively), indicating that the second round of the survey has been more successful in
providing results (in fact, nearly all new participants in the survey have provided valuable input). This should be
attributed to the progress made in the Organic.Edunet project, which has managed to create more interest and to
disseminate information about OA and AE in faculty members and researchers.
Survey profile and contribution per specialization
In order to have a clear image of the area of speciality of the survey participants, a classification according to
four categories was selected: A) Agriculture/ecology, animals and insects, B) Information and Communications
technologies, C) Economics, and, D) Other (including mainly general science topics such as Chemistry or
Physics).
According to the results, the vast majority of the participants (about 76%) belong to the Agricultural / Ecological
field, or is a veterinarian. Also, a noticeable percentage corresponds to the ICT experts (about 10%), while the
economics category occupies a 6% and the rest 10% includes the rest of specialities. The results are shown in
Table 2.
Table 2: Most popular areas of specialization
Subjects responder topic of specialisation
Percentage
Agriculture, environment, animals/insects
76%
Information and Communication Technologies
10%
Economics
4%
Other
10%
Demographics
Regarding the gender of the participants, a 60-40 percentage of men and women respectively has participated,
which is about balanced. Taking into account that the number of men that are occupied in the Academic and
Research related professions is higher than that of women (70 percent men, 30 percent women according to the
latest statistics in focus released by Eurostat in “Statistics in focus: Women employed in science and technology”
(Eurostat Science and Technology, 2005), the above rate indicates that on the survey, the opinion of women
researchers has been taken seriously under consideration.
Regarding the level of education of the participants, the survey results showed that the vast majority of the
participants hold a PhD (63%) with the MSc holders being 21% of the total participants. This indicates that the
majority of the participants belong to the categories of Professors and/or Senior Researchers.
Questions of the survey and answers received
In the following paragraphs, the questions of the survey, together with a brief description of each one are given.
Following that, the results and findings of the survey are given for each question.
Q1: Student knowledge about OA & AE: This question was used to clarify the basic knowledge of the
participants on topics of OA & AE.
Here, the results of the survey indicate that it is limited at the undergraduate level, reaching up to about 33% for
the students that have at least a good knowledge of the subjects. In the case of the postgraduates, the percentage
reaches 50%. However, there is still need for education and training.
Q2: Student interest in OA & AE: This question was used to see whether this area of Agriculture is of any
interest among the participating students.
Here, a percentage surpassing 80% makes clear that in general the interest remains the same for undergraduate
and postgraduate students. However, the distribution between excellent/very good and good indicates that the
interest is increased in the postgraduate level. Combined with the results of the previous question, we come to
the conclusion that knowledge in the areas of OA & AE creates interest.
Q3: Incorporating OA & AE topics into current courses: This question was related to the interest in
incorporating courses on OA &AE into the existing academic program.
A big interest in incorporating OA & AE topics at both undergraduate and postgraduate level is worth noticing.
Regarding the level of education, the results of the survey indicate that specialized knowledge is preferred, and
in the case of undergraduate, the difference of preference between basic and advanced information is significant.
Q4: Factors that could impede the incorporation of OA & AE topics: Continuing from the previous question,
the answers to this one would identify the factors that could prevent the successful incorporation of these topics
in the current academic program.
In an attempt to identify the factors that could impede the incorporation of OA & AE issues in the current
courses, we can consider the lack of supporting framework (people and resources), as well as the availability of
time as the most important factors. This finding is considered very important, since an educational platform
could compensate for both the lack of supporting framework (it will provide the resources, and also in a mode
that can be accessed individually by the students/researchers and tutors, without the need for supporting staff).
Furthermore, the ability of access from everywhere and at any time will assist in the problem of time
unavailability. In terms of requirements this can be translated to the following: the interface for accessing
educational information on the educational platform should allow access to users with heterogeneous
background and knowledge of ICT technologies, from different devices and networks, and should therefore be
inspired by simplicity in user interface, and different browser compatibility.
Regarding other factors that may impede the introduction of OA & AE courses, the participants in the
questionnaire also reported some extra factors (each reported by only one or two individuals) such as “failure to
be accepted by the Faculty/University”, “Lack of time”, “Lack of support from peers and superiors”, “Education
in OA topics is considered too easy to be included as a course in the curriculum” and “Lack of uniform
nomenclature”.
Q5: Relevance of OA & AE topics to subjects taught: Here the participants were asked to evaluate the
relevance of OA & AE topics with the existing teaching subjects.
The participants’ answers showed that topics related to financial / market / consumer issues are considered the
most irrelevant, while on the other hand, more general issues (such as environment/ecology, sustainable
agriculture, biodiversity, nature conservation and renewable resources) are considered the most relevant. It is
therefore important to categorise the information in different (more abstract) description levels, so that tutors can
easily identify the topics that they could use. Regarding extra OA & AE subjects related to the topics taught, the
participants provided only a few extra topics, which in all cases are very general, and can be applied in all fields
of agriculture. These include Agricultural politics, Applications of Statistics in all the OA and EA subjects,
Resource for school-learning and therapy, Consumers awareness about high value of organic products and
organic foods, Entrepreneurship, Ethics of science and ecology, Farm management and farm economy,
Informatics, Internet sources, Natural resources management, Quality, Systems thinking & holism, Social issues
and Systems Approaches & learning.
Q6: Relativity of courses taught to OA & AE topics: Here the participants were asked to evaluate the
relativity of the existing academic courses with the topics on OA & AE.
This question is important in order to understand the demographics of the people that have participated in the
survey, and if the topics of their teaching are indeed related to OA & AE. The answers indicate that indeed, the
majority – at least about 70% – is indeed involved in teaching courses that are related to OA & AE.
Q7: Easiness of introduction of digital / electronic resources in courses taught: This is a really important
question, as it discusses the usage of digitized means of education and their potential role.
This question provides information on the attitude of the participants in the survey towards the use of
digital/electronic resources in the courses taught. In general, it seems that the participants feel comfortable with
the use of electronic media in their courses, with the percentage of people considering the use of digital and
electronic tools at least easy, reaching about 80%.
Q8: Importance of Internet technologies for courses taught: This question was on the efficiency of the
Internet technologies on the existing educational courses.
Continuing the search of familiarity and attitude towards ICT and internet technologies, this question comes to
verify that not only there is familiarity with electronic and digital media as tools for the educational process, but
also the belief that the use of internet technologies, is important for their taught courses. The percentage (77%) is
similar to the previous 79% that considers that the introduction of digital and electronic resources is easy to be
performed.
Q9: Preference in use of digital / electronic teaching resources: This question was included in order to reveal
how willing the stakeholders were in engaging digital means in the teaching procedure.
Coming to the type of resources that the participants of the survey consider important, to be used in
digital/electronic format, the results showed that there is clear preference to the transformation of traditional
resources (available in the past in paper form) to a digital form (Figure 1). In details, the use of papers, articles,
presentation, case studies and lectures demonstrate the highest percentage of preference. Of course the same
applies with the traditionally internet based resources such as web resources. As a corresponding requirement,
we could conclude that an educational platform on OA and AE issues should give emphasis to the support of
educational material in the form of papers, articles, presentation, case studies and lectures, since this will
constitute the major part of the contributed content of the platform.
Q10: Convenience in use of different formats: This question targeted at identifying the flexibility of the
participants in using educational materials in different formats.
Regarding the format, two types seem to have higher preferences than the rest; Documents and websites. Taking
into account the results of the previous question, this should have been expected.
Q11: Use of a web portal in assisting teaching of a course: This question aimed at capturing the participants’
opinion in using web portals as an aid in the teaching procedure mainly as the means to accessing knowledge,
enhancing the ease of use as well as the wealth of information.
The answers in this question indicate that the teachers have a tendency not to closely relate their teaching process
to the use of electronic resources, but rather use the latter as an added value tool, which is mainly focused to
providing assistance to students through search mechanisms. This is indicative that there will be high
expectations from the search for resources mechanism of the educational platform.
Figure 1: Preference in use of digital/electronic teaching resources
Q12: Extra input provided by users: Users here were asked to describe anything that was not covered by the
previous questions of the questionnaire, in their opinion.
The participants were requested to provide some extra answers in the fields regarding extra categories. There is
no particular answer (additional to the existing selections) that has received more than a couple of votes. This
indicates that the questionnaire design has fully covered the participants in the survey. Furthermore, there is no
deviation from the overall trend in a specific language.
For this, though the results from the collection of extra categories proposed by users have been reported in the
previous sections, they do not change the quantitative or qualitative characteristics of the results.
Finally, one question in which direct input from users was requested refers to the type of lesson/course taught.
Here, that the answers received can be grouped in three major categories: Lecture, Seminar and Exercise in
Laboratory. In many cases more that one of the above categories were reported.
Detailed information on these questions can be found in the Deliverable D2.1 “OA and Agroecology Awareness
& Expectations in Organic.Edunet User Groups” (Pilv et al. 2008).
Relation between the importance of ICT and the attitude of respondents towards the use of
electronic and online resources
Following the above presentation of results, a processing of the answers in pairs of questions, trying to identify
the link between:
the importance of internet technologies in general and the use of an online environment,
the importance of internet technologies for specific courses and the use of electronic resources,
has been performed. In order to reach the conclusions about the above, two-way tables showing the frequency of
occurrence of unique pairs of values for the two questions evaluated were created in each case. Based on this
contingency table for the data a chi-square test for independence between rows and columns has been followed.
According to this, a hypothesis test to determine whether or not to reject the idea that the row and column
classifications are independent was performed. Four cases were used here:
1. The corresponding P-value is equal or greater than 0.1, which leads to the conclusion that rows and
columns cannot be safely associated.
2. The corresponding P-value is less than 0.1, which leads to the conclusion that we can reject the
hypothesis that rows and columns are independent at the 90% confidence (fair association).
3. The corresponding P-value is less than 0.05, which leads to the conclusion that we can reject the
hypothesis that rows and columns are independent at the 95% confidence (strong association).
4. The corresponding P-value is less than 0.01, which leads to the conclusion that we can reject the
hypothesis that rows and columns are independent at the 99% confidence (very strong association).
Following the above analysis, a conclusion based on the interpretation of the results follows:
As regards the importance of internet technologies in general and use of an online environment, from the results
of the evaluation, we compile the subsequent table.
Table 3: Importance of Internet Technologies and Relation to the Use of an on Online Environment
Use of internet technologies…
Importance
…for helping students find online papers
Medium
…in the implementation of online reference point for case studies
Low
…for online sharing the results of exercises / experiments
Medium
…as a tool to upload and share audiovisual content from experiential learning activities
Medium
…from students to search online for successful field tour strategies
Low
…for finding online in-class learning methods that other tutors use to teach such topics
Low
…for sharing class notes and lecture slides online
Low
…to prepare and publish online the design of student group projects
Low
From the above table we see that in general, there seems to be little correlation between the importance of use of
internet technologies and the corresponding level of use of these technologies for doing on line related tasks. The
answers indicate that there is no doubt about the close relation between the use of internet technologies and the
supporting of online tasks. It should be noted however, that in two of the cases where we see a medium level of
confidence as regards the association between the importance of use of internet technologies and the
corresponding tasks (sharing results of exercises and sharing AV content from experimental activities) the
differentiation from the expected attitude could be attributed to the fact that these tasks require the support of
rich interfaces, so that they could adequately cover the multimodality of information included here. Personal
presentations and personal contact still is considered as the best interface, even though a set of powerful tools for
online collaboration and rich multimedia interaction are available. This should be an issue for further
investigation.
As regards the importance of internet technologies for specific courses and the use of electronic resources, from
the results of the evaluation, we compile the subsequent table.
Table 3: Importance of ICT for Courses Taught and Relation to the Use of Electronic Resources
Importance of…
Importance
…application related electronic resources in the context of these courses
Very high
…assessment related electronic resources in the context of these courses
Very high
…case study related electronic resources in the context of these courses
High
…demonstration related electronic resources in the context of these courses
High
…educational games related electronic resources in the context of these courses
High
…enquiry-oriented activities related electronic resources in the context of these courses
Very high
…exam related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
High
…experiment related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
High
…glossary related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
High
…lecture related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Very high
…narrative text related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Medium
…open activity related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Low
…paper/article related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Low
…presentation related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Low
…role play related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
Low
…simulation related electronic resources use in the context of these courses
High
…web resources use in the context of these courses
Very High
…relevance of OA and AE with these courses
Very High
From the summary presented in the table above, we see that in general the level of confidence for associating the
pairs of questions is high or very high. This indicates that in general, the acceptance of internet technologies and
their corresponding use for supporting the teaching process through a variety of ways is high among the
participants. The cases where this correlation are low is observed there where personal involvement of students
and tutors is expected such as presentations, delivery of exercise e.a. Here we can identify a reluctance of the
participants to trust internet technologies for the support of tasks that demand enhanced interactivity. This could
be attributed to the lack of tools or better the lack of awareness regarding such tools and should be taken under
consideration as regards extension of the survey in order to focus on such issues with the parallel support of
demos and prototypes demonstrating high end, multimodal prototypes.
Conclusions
The following section is an attempt to summarise the results of the survey into concrete directives as regards the
implementation of an educational platform supported by a knowledge repository to be used for the teaching of
OA and AE topics in Universities. The analysis of results per question of the survey resulted in the following
conclusions:
Information included in the use scenarios of the educational platform should be very carefully selected so as
not to be considered as trivial.
The interface for accessing educational information on the educational platform should allow access to users
with heterogeneous background and knowledge of ICT technologies, from different devices and networks,
and should therefore be inspired by simplicity in user interface, and different browser compatibility.
Information categorization to different description levels in terms of specialization is necessary.
The educational platform should give emphasis to the support of educational material in the form of papers,
articles, presentation, case studies and lectures, since this will constitute the major part of the contributed
content.
Special attention should be given in the efficient management of documents and web links, as this is
expected to be the dominant format of the content in the platform.
The survey shows that the interest for the topics of OA & AE is greater than the common knowledge of the field.
This goes for undergraduates as for postgraduates as well, although the postgraduates have a higher knowledge
in general. The results show a clear need for more information and learning materials for all levels of higher
education. However, the interest for OA/AE, and the relevance of these topics in existing courses are higher in
the higher educational levels (MsC and PhD). It seems like a higher knowledge of the field gives way for a
higher interest for the field.
The relevance of digital resources is regarded as high among the participants of the survey. The results show that
both the easiness of implementing digital resources, as well as the importance of this action, is high. However,
the use of digital resources is mostly facilitated as an added tool in the existing teaching process. The participants
of the survey found it most interesting to use the portal as a tool to help students find relevant and updated
materials on OA & AE topics, in forms like articles, case studies, best practices etc.
The same results did the public workshops show. There was in general high interest in more information about
OA & AE practices and scientific material on Organic Agriculture. The participants also emphasized the
importance of updated and relevant material for educational purposes. Such material could be:
differences between Organic Agriculture and conventional agriculture (comparative information)
best practices in different agricultural fields
results from trials and experiments
Results from the workshops showed a need for digital resources which open for self-studying and student’s
interaction. Type of resources could be quizzes, educational games or test-exams and educational videos.
Concluding the paper and trying to summarize the results and conclusions of the survey, we can say that a higher
obligation exists to set some key directions for the future: move toward more experiential education, elevate
status of all participants in the network to active contributors and full participants, challenge current teaching and
content in OA & AE and how it could be improved, address global population and food security, unveil the
current overemphasis on activities that detract from food security investments, nationalism, military
expenditures, ultra-globalization of organic and other foods, among other issues. There is a wide range of
expressed interests and needs, and a challenge for every educational platform to meet these needs. An open issue
for potential exploration would be studying ways to influence the way OA & AE education can be delivered in
the future.
Closing this concluding section of the paper, we will present guidelives for the design of online educational tools
functionality and selection of repositories content, as these emerge out of the prossesing of the above results and
the general experience gained throughout the Organic. Edunet project. It should be noted that the results are
specialized as regards the use in Universities and Schools, since the level of expertise and expectations of
students differs for these two cases:
Search functionality is considered important by all people, regardless of their views about the
importance and use of internet technologies.
There should be provision for quality review mechanisms that could guarantee the corresponding
educational quality level, especially for content targeted to University students and tutors.
Application related electronic resources should be included in the repository at the best possible extend,
especially for material targeted to Schools students.
Resources for University students and resources targeted to people with good experience in the use of
internet and internet applications are expected to include assessment related material.
Inclusion of case studies related electronic resources should be foreseen, especially for schools and for
target students that have a better knowledge and experience in ICT technologies.
Inclusion of demonstration related electronic resources should be foreseen, especially for schools and
for target students that have a better knowledge and experience in ICT technologies.
Inclusion of games related electronic resources should be pursued for content targeted especially to
School students.
Inclusion of enquiry oriented activities related electronic resources should be pursued for content
targeted especially to School students.
Inclusion of exam related electronic resources should be pursued for content targeted especially to
School students.
Inclusion of resources related to experiments that do not require sophisticated or specialized
infrastructure in order to be used could benefit larger numbers of students and tutors. Therefore, use of
standard, open and easy to be installed and used platforms for experiment related resources should be
adopted by resources contributors.
Inclusion of narrative text related electronic resources should be targeted mostly for School use.
Open activity related resources should be targeted to be used in Schools, while they should be easily
understood and used by students and teachers with not great expertise in ICT technologies.
Paper/article related electronic resources targeted to be used in Schools should be easily understood and
used by students and teachers with not great expertise in ICT technologies.
Need for presentation related electronic resources are higher for the case of Schools than for
Universities.
There is no great expectation for role play related electronic resources.
Acknowledgments
The authors of this paper would like to thank all partners of the eContent Plus project Organic.Edunet for their
support and ideas that helped in the preparation of this paper and to acknowledge their contribution to the ideas,
conclusions and results presented in the paper.
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