Christian M. Stracke Is the New Chair of CEN TC 353
Essen (GER), July 2010 - Mike Collett of Great Britain, Chair of the European Standardisation Body for eLearning (CEN TC 353), has gone into retirement. Under his leadership, the standardization committee for eLearning has produced considerable results in only three years.
His long-term colleague Christian M. Stracke emphasizes, "Mike Collett decisively influenced eLearning worldwide, and from the beginning onward, led and collaboratively shaped eLearning standardization both in the European arena and internationally." Stracke was officially elected Mr. Collett's successor as Chair of the CEN TC 353 at the last plenary meeting.
"From the the beginning, Mike Collett guided the CEN TC 353 and provided for a wonderful success story", says the new Chair, pointing out Collett's special role. Currently, over thirty national delegations cooperate in the CEN TC 353 committee and are responsible for the first successes with European eLearning norms.
Mike Collett was also personally active in eLearning and standardization. Before taking the reins at the CEN TC 353, he co-founded and led the European CEN Workshop for eLearning (CEN WS-LT), was active in ISO and IEEE, and developed countless European and international standards and specifications.
The new Chair plans to continue this success story. The national delegates of Europe elected him unanimously through a secret ballot; they also elected Cleo Sgouropoulou from Greece as Vice-Chair.
Together with increased dedication to practical users, Mr. Stracke named the continuation of the "European Learner Mobility" (ELM) Standards as the most important objective. The first part of this effort, called the "General Framework" and adopted a short time ago, aims to harmonize and integrate existing European guidelines and specifications like EQF, Europass, ECTS/ECVET and EQAVET. The second part will be concerned with the harmonization and standardization of learning outcomes and competences. Work on a competence model will be taken up soon.
The European standardization committee CEN TC 353 was established in Milan in May 2007. Its main objective and impact has been the development of European Norms (EN), which will automatically lead to the withdrawal of all national standards in Europe. It is organized through the Italian secretariat UNINFO, and all national delegations meet every six months.
The last session, during which the new chairperson was named, took place on 20 April 2010 in Brussels. The next plenary meeting will meet on 06 October 2010 in Helsinki, again one day after the CEN Workshop "Learning Technologies".
