In the era where the people and their know-how has become the most valuable asset in the labor market as well as within companies and institutions, informal learning has often become much more valued by the educational and business environment than outcomes of traditional education.

In the European Union there is increasing value put on recognizing learners’ knowledge, skills, competences gained in the informal learning context outside the traditional educational systems. Acquiring the knowledge and competences in an informal way emphasizes the necessity to validate those learning experiences and to make them visible and recognized in all of Europe, and makes them usable for further personal development.

That is why recognizing, organizing, monitoring and validating the informal learning process is such an important issue for employees and employers, students and teachers. Informal learning experiences, outcomes recognition and validation are crucial factor for creating a learning society and knowledge-based European economy.

It is very difficult to identify, collect, track, categorize, recognize, validate and make visible to others the informal learning outcomes which otherwise can be forgotten and lost. The TRAILER project is addressing this problem by providing the solution for keeping the informal learning outcomes alive, available, easy to update for learners and visible for institution.

More information about the recognition and validation practice in EU: http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/publications/5059.aspx
More about the TRAILER project: www.trailerproject.eu