EDEN Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP)

1. The preparation of the EDEN 2005 Annual Conference to take place in Helsinki, 20-23 June is progressing well. There have been over 210 papers submitted and from among them for the final programme 145 presentations are accepted. There will be 12 workshops in frames of the programme and two organised as pre-conference ones. The conference proceedings will include over 125 papers. The registration is open until 10 June. We are delighted to inform that already more than four hundred delegates registered for the event.

2. EDEN President, Ingeborg Bo attended the "First Wiesbaden Conference on Lifelong Learning" organised by the State of Hessen, opened by Commissioner Jan Figel, on 25th May. The purpose of the Conference was to exchange best practice at European level on how to implement Lifelong Learning Strategies. Ingeborg Bo had the opportunity to consult with the Commissioner and introduce EDEN to him.

3. The European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning has invited EDEN to join as a founding member to the initiative. The EDEN Executive Committee appreciated the invitation and found relevant for EDEN to join. The Foundation is supported by the European Commission and by CEDEFOP and it is built on long experience and expertise in the field of quality development in European e-learning. It approaches quality in e-learning from different and complementary perspectives and develops full-scale services for all educational fields, regional contexts and target groups. EDEN members will be continuously informed on the developments of the initiative.

4. The European Foundation for Management Development invited EDEN to join the CEL, Certification of e-Learning Advisory Board. The Executive Committee of EDEN agreed to take part as institutional member in the Board. The EDEN Executive has acknowledged the importance to support this initiative rooting in the business education field. As EDEN is involved in other e-learning quality certification initiatives, we look for the ways of establishing synergies, for the benefit of the European professional community.

5. The Fifth Open Classroom Conference of EDEN will take place in Poitiers - Futuroscope, France, 5-7 October 2005. The event title: "Teachers' Professional Development", organised in co-operation with CNED, Centre National d'Enseignement a Distance - will address the main theme in search for innovation and quality in school education and for new, more effective school structures further broader challenges that societies are facing in their way towards what has been identified as the knowledge economy. Paper submission deadline is 11 July 2005. For details, see: www.eden-online.org/eden.php?menuId=255

6. The Open Classroom Working Group, having an overall responsibility in the thematic preparation of the Open Classroom Conferences and in general the school level education activities within EDEN, has been relaunched. The composition of the group has been approved by the EDEN Executive Committee at their last meeting in April. Members are:

Nikitas Kastis Chair, Lambrakis Research Foundation
Carl Holmberg, Swedish Agency for Flexible Learning
Walter Kugemann, FIM - New Learning
Eileen Brennan-Freeman, EENet - European Experts' Network for Education and Technology
Harald Gapski, EENet - European Experts' Network for Education and Technology

7. During their last virtual meeting the Regional Associate Editors of the EURODL Editorial Board have decided to change the name of the journal to European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning. The proposal of Alan Tait, Chief Editor of EURODL, was to respond to the trends in the field of distance education and involve the word "e-learning" in the name of the online journal. While the Board has unanimously agreed to keep the prestigeous acronym of EURODL, they found it important to reflect the broadening spectrum of themes addressed in the journal.

8. At the EUCEN Conference "from Bologna … to Bergen ... and beyond" held in Bergen 28-30 April EDEN has substantially contributed to the e-Learning track of the event. Carl Holmberg, member of the Executive Committee held a presentation: "Evolving Infrastructures around Learners - Open and Distance Learning in a Changing Landscape". Ingeborg Bo, Ulrich Bernath, Claudio Dondi were invited to contribute to the event by addressing in depth the issue of Open and Distance Learning/eLearning and by chairing group works in which recommendations to policy makers for further actions were formulated.

9. The Policy Paper of the European ODL Liaison Committee "Distance Learning and E-Learning in European Policy and Practice: The Vision and the Reality" is continuing its successful impact in the European high level professional and policy circles. The EDEN Secretariat, acting as the Secretariat of the Liaison Committee, has sent the document with a personal approaching letter to 70 leading politicians of the European Commission and the Parliament. The Policy Paper was excessively quoted in the introduction of the eLearning Conference "Towards a Learning Society" organised by the European Commission, for details please visit: www.elearningconference.org

10. We are pleased to draw your attention to the latest issue (Vol. IX issue 1/2005) of the journal LLinE – Lifelong Learning in Europe, titled: e-Learning – Promises and Doubts. The editorial: "Collaboration and development within the field of e-learning", reflecting also the Policy Paper of the European ODL Liaison Committee, is written by Ingeborg Bo, President of EDEN. The article written by Andras Szucs, Secretary General of EDEN "A Snapshot of New EU Member Countries. Distance Education and e-Learning" is also published in the above issue.

11. Oldenburg University's ASF Series on distance education (www.uni-oldenburg.de/zef/mde/series) announces the latest editions:
- Boerje Holmberg on The Evolution, Principles and Practices of Distance Education, which replaces his legendary Theory and Practice from 1995;
- the 4th and extended edition of Otto Peters' "Distance Education in Transition...";
- Michael Beaudoin's Reflections on Research, Faculty and Leadership in Distance Education, which won the Charles A. Wedemeyer Award in 2005 sponsored by the University Continuing
Education Association (UCEA); and
- the post-EDEN Research Workshop volume by Jane Brindley et.al. on Learner Support in Open, Distance and Online Learning Environments.