LearnIT

The programme

The following text is taken from the programme declaration for which the executive of The Knowledge Foundation granted funding on 9th December 1999.

Aim

The Knowledge Foundation's research programme Learning and IT (LearnIT) aims in the long-term to build up a body of knowledge in the area where learning meets information and communication technology. The programme is limited to an eight-year term, 2000-2007. After this period the themes that the programme has developed should be so well established and have such good representatives that they will have good standing in the universities, with the bodies that fund research and in society at large.

The aim is:

• to contribute to deeper understanding of the effects and consequences of the areas where The Knowledge Foundation has been active, and to see that this knowledge is spread in the community,

• to initiate and carry out research on issues associated with learning, competence development, and life at work and in society in those areas where the development of information and communication technology is an important component.

In other words, the intention is for the programme to have a two-fold structure involving, on the one hand, the analysis of existing activities and dissemination of information about them, and, on the other hand, the stimulation and carrying out of new research and development on learning and IT. This mission is not limited to school and formal education; it concerns to an equal degree issues of learning and further education in the workforce as we move towards new technology and new ways of working.

An assumption for the programme is that knowledge and competence are key features of economic and social development in the knowledge society. At the centre of the programme is learning in society in the broad sense (in production, in school and in other environments).

Background

Seen internationally, The Knowledge Foundation's venture is in many respects unique. As a major Swedish actor, the foundation has taken on the task of supporting and developing the usage of IT in various sectors, with the purpose of easing the transition, both for individuals and organisations, to the forms of work that are necessary for the knowledge society that is more and more clearly becoming a reality. The areas that The Knowledge Foundation has supported and which are relevant for LearnIT include IT-developments in the school system, production of teaching materials, university-industry research consortia, research and development education in the new universities (IT lyftet), research schools directed at sectors of business and industry, adult education, IT and special needs, IT in the healthcare sectors, and IT at work and in education.

There are few areas of public life today that are more central and debated than learning and competence related to changes in technology. The developments do not constitute a simply delimited field of technology, merely concerning techniques and products; the structure and orientation of industry has gone through extensive change, and with it the nature of working life and the demands and conditions of the labour market. What is being developed at the moment can be called a competence economy, where knowledge is taking on a more significant role as a factor in production. This affects individuals, organisations and society as a whole; it is a drastic transformation of society, a challenge to the forms and content of work and education, and in consequence a challenge to living conditions and ways of life.

Even if historical comparisons can be misleading, it is nevertheless in its place to point to similarities between the changes we are going through now and those that took place at the end of the 19th century, when modern society was being shaped. Then as now, issues of learning, knowledge and competence came into focus. The difference is that knowledge and competence then concerned industrial production. The knowledge and competence that is now needed is related to production in a global society, which is technologically more advanced, and hence more demanding of knowledge.

Principles for the future

The programme is to have a clear thematic organisation. The questions to be researched should follow the different levels outlined above: school and school development, possibilities for handicapped and marginalised groups; adult education and trade union work. These are the areas which for the moment we find to be most urgent for the programme, which will initially be organised at the three levels of society, organisations and individuals. Examples of issues at the three levels might be thus:

IT, learning and the development of society
At an overall structural level we can identify issues that are related to changes in democracy, including ethics. The ownership and control of information and knowledge implies power. The ways in which knowledge is distributed, and on whose conditions this happens, are decisive for understanding the main streams of current development of society.

IT and organisational learning
At the second level we can identify issues concerning the ways organisations change with the developments, and the consequent changes in what is done at work and how it is organised. Analysis of educational support in different operations (production, trade, the administrative functions of businesses and public services, and so on) at the point of change from traditional manual production to solutions that exploit modern information technology is essential.

IT and individual competence development
The third level for the programme aims to identify basic issues concerned with how the structure and content of learning changes with information technology. It thereby also concerns how the structure and content of the learner's knowledge is changed by the exploitation of the resources available through information technology. Issues of memory and the structure of memory are also included. A concrete example of research, which is called for, is the study of how IT-based teaching material and teaching environments affect the processes of learning.

For more detailed information, please contact the executive group.

Activities

A national virtual research school
The national virtual research school is an unusual construct which aims to bring together doctoral students from different fields (computer science, information science, media and communication, cognitive science, educational research and others) in order to increase the collaboration between research specialisations and between universities. The field of learning and IT is rather limited in Sweden as a whole and the various research environments at the colleges, universities and institutes of engineering are small, often comprising no more than a couple of people. By linking these environments together and facilitating collaborative work, a valuable national community of some weight will be created. Today there are some twenty doctoral students working within the research school.

The research school organises a programme of courses at research level in the area Learning and IT which are also open to other students at that level from throughout the country.

National and international conferences and seminars
The programme also takes initiatives to hold and participate in national and international conferences and seminars around its central areas of knowledge interest, with the aim of co-ordinating research and development and disseminating results. We work together with organisations in the areas of youth and adult education, trades unions and employers organisations, and others.

We have contact with similar initiatives in the Scandinavian countries and the rest of the world. Grants will be made available, mainly for the expenses of Swedish doctoral students and post-docs to work abroad (on the understanding that salaries are found elsewhere) and for foreign researchers to spend time in Sweden (which probably means covering salaries as well as living expenses).