OpenScout

OpenScout stands for "Skill based scouting of open user-generated and community-improved content for management education and training". OpenScout has been co-funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus Programme as a Targeted Project in the area of Educational Content (Grant ECP 2008 EDU 428016). OpenScout has been a three year project, running from September 2009 until August 2012. OpenScout's activities are now continued the Special Interest Group (SIG) Open Content for Business and Management.

OpenScout provides education services in the internet that enable users to easily find, access, use and exchange open content for management education and training.

OpenScout can be used by learners directly but also by training and education institutions that search for learning content to be integrated into their learning offerings.

Main Achievements of OpenScout

The management education market is largely diversified, training topics range from general management and leadership to very specific issues like managing risks in banking industry. This results in a growing need for management education and content. With OpenScout  the potential of already existing open learning materials can now be fully exploited, both in the business sector and in SMEs where the need for lifelong learning is even greater.

Within its portal OpenScout offers easy-to-use competence-based federated search and retrieval web services, provides an openly accessible tool library for improvement and re-publishing of open contents and establishes an open user community that opens up their content and adopts OpenScout web services in real contexts of use. Additionally, OpenScout provides a number of extensions and plug-ins that allow users to seamlessly integrate OpenScout search functionalities in their favourite learning environment like Learning Management Systems, Social Networks or mobile devices.

In partnership with the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL) the OpenScout project has created the Special Interest Group (SIG) Open Content for Business and Management  in September 2012. The main goal of the SIG is to drive and promote Open Education for the Business and Management domain also after the project's formal end. The SIG maintains and extends the successful portal, user community and services of OpenScout and aims at being the single access point for people engaged in this field.