The TRAILER software is an innovative ICT-based service working in two (complementary) environments: learners and employers (in a professional context) or teachers (in an academic context). It allows learners to identify evidences of informal learning and link them with competences under development.
Learners are able to decide what they would like to share with their employer/teacher. Employers and teachers can use this information in order to support knowledge management, curricula management and finding the best person suited for a certain task. Another advantage is that it makes rediscovering competences within the company/team possible.
The first stage task for learner when working within the TRAILER service is to identify, collect the evidences of Informal Learning Activity (ILA). The next stage is taking the learner to another component of the toolset which is called Portfolio where learner need to describe, tag and associate the evidence with the required competences. The learner can choose the competences from the general list which has already defined by the institution or create own competency in order to match better to the kind of chosen informal learning activity ( if the competency is not already provided in the competency catalogue).
The second essential function of the TRAILER ICT based service is the “peer recommender” option which gives the tool the collaborative and social scope. Peer recommender option is promoting social learning by enables learners to find and select the people with similar competences to the ones defined by the learner. This feature is most useful to find people with whom the learner can somehow collaborate with. This can be used for creating teams dedicated to project-based work. Additionally, by using the TRAILER tool, the learner can benefit from organizing and registering informal learning in a way he sees as most convenient.
Showcase manager is the component which is useful for learners and can be helpful from an institutional point of view as well. This option enables the learner to organize the informal learning experiences/evidences/ competences in the showcase form by creating the online individual informal learning portfolio – ePortfolio.
Using the TRAILER toolset within the institution and company will facilitate with a range of decision making. Inbuilt in institutional environment the Decision Support System with search option make possible to look for the learners/employees with concrete required competences is supporting the decision making process within the company in the knowledge and HR management context. The system allows institution to have better, wider and up to date insight about the competences that learners/employees posses ( support the knowledge management processes), facilitate the internal and external recruitment processes as well as the promotion possibilities of the employees, support the decision making processes within the institutions about the training gaps and demands, give better insight about employees skills to be able to make sustained decisions on embracing a new challenge or project/ have a view of the company/institution/team know-how.
Read more about project: www.trailerproject.eu
Download the demo version of the TRAILER software: HERE
See the tutorial video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=I-QSpdjKjAk