'The overall aim of SOCRATES is to help improve the quality and relevance of education for children, young people and adults, by enhancing European cooperation and increasing access to the range of learning opportunities available across the Union. It seeks to provide learners of all ages and social groups with insights into the European dimension of the subjects which they are studying, to increase opportunities for personal experience of other European countries, to develop a stronger sense of sharing a European identity, and to foster the ability to shape and adapt to changes in the economic and social environment.'

SOCRATES supports activities in seven sectors:

Open and distance learning (ODL)

Within SOCRATES, ODL is used to mean:

There are four key objectives:

SOCRATES' priorities are to strengthen cooperation between relevant European organisations and the dissemination of good practice and know-how.

The SOCRATES programme seeks to stimulate European cooperation in:

SHARP's contribution to SOCRATES' goals

Consistency with the objectives of SOCRATES in promoting ODL

SHARP is a European Partnership Project in the ODL sector of SOCRATES. It supports the first objective of SOCRATES ODL by providing a pedagogical framework for an important class of ICT-based open and distance learning: the use of asynchronous multimedia conferencing (AMC ) to facilitate the acquisition of complex skills. It supports the second objective of SOCRATES ODL by showing how AMC systems can be organised to maximise the usability and value of the services provided to learners, tutors, enterprises and practitioners. By providing dissemination workshops, guidelines and 'training the trainers' materials relevant to this application area, it supports the third objective of SOCRATES ODL. The project is fundamentally concerned with identifying good practice and disseminating pedagogical and organisational knowledge about the use of AMC in universities and other tertiary institutions which are attempting to provide vocationally-relevant training to learners both on-campus and at a distance.

Improving the situation in Europe

A primary purpose of SHARP is to focus attention on the value of AMC as a vocationally-relevant educational tool and to support a well-designed and high-profile programme of dissemination capable of effecting change in educational practices. We believe that AMC is a neglected and little understood form of support for ODL in Europe and that it can have a substantial impact on skill acquisition at all levels and in all areas of knowledge and work.

Needs of disadvantaged people: combating social exclusion

AMC, like other forms of networked ODL, brings with it considerable benefits of flexibility in terms of time and space constraints. The loosening of spatial constraints clearly reduces the relative disadvantage of learners, teachers and employers who are geographically remote from the main urban centres, or who are in the outer regions of Europe. Concern for such users is a key issue for all the partners in the project, but especially for the Norwegian, Greek and Irish partners and for A Priori, since it is primarily a rural-based teleworking SME.

In addition, networked ODL (including AMC) is of special benefit to users with limited mobility, including many physically disabled and elderly people.

Finally, studies of participation in networked ODL (which may transfer to AMC, if well implemented) show that people with language difficulties who have problems getting the full benefits of participation in face-to-face group learning activities can operate more effectively (and with greater confidence and enjoyment) in asynchronous conferencing situations. For example, the greater control they have over the timing of their interventions allows them to prepare what they want to say more thoroughly and to edit out any slips. This makes the medium particularly useful for people living, working and learning in countries other than that in which they acquired their mother tongue and can be a useful aid in combating the social exclusion of such people (e.g. Steeples et al, 1992; 1994).

It should not be forgotten that access to AMC now depends on access to ICT and that this discriminates against those who cannot afford such access. We assume that the ever-decreasing costs of ICT mean that eventually the costs of ICT-based ODL will be lower than those for conventional learning. The current project is therefore located on a path which leads to improved access to educational opportunity for those who are currently among the 'information-poor' lower socio-economic groups.

Equal opportunities

Research, and experience within the project team, also shows that women who are seeking to return to higher education and/or the labour force (after a period of child rearing for example) can benefit from ICT-based ODL, through the greater flexibility it gives them over the location and timing of their participation (e.g. Goodyear & Steeples, 1993). We will seek to ensure, within the project, that opportunities for maximising such benefits are exploited.