SEOUL, KOREA — At the IMS Learning Impact Awards 2012 (LIA 2012), held in Toronto, Canada on May 14, Online Career Development Center “Dream-wings” (www.dream.go.kr), run by the Gyeonggi Women’s Development Center (www.womenpro.or.kr), was named the winner of the 2012 IMS Learning Impact Platinum Award by IMS GLS (Global Learning Consortium), which is a global, nonprofit, member organization that strives to promote global e-learning technology in the education and corporate learning sectors. Thus, Gyeonggi-do (the most populous province in South Korea) has become Korea’s first self-governing body to receive the prestigious honor of the IMS Learning Impact Platinum Award. The IMS Learning Impact Awards 2012 (LIA 2012) had an attendance of more than 400 people from public institutions and private companies worldwide involved in education and training sectors.
a professor at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)) explained, “Online Career Development Center “Dream-wings” is an e-learning service specifically designed to assist women who have undergone a long time period between careers owing to marriages or childbirth. Last year alone, 81,000 people took advantage of online job training services. Dream-wings took home the top honor (a platinum medal) as a result of their efforts to encourage re-entry into the job market by women who had to end their careers prematurely owing to marriage or childbirth. This service has been deemed to have a substantial impact on society.”
Since 2007, the IMS LIA, has annually discovered and awarded excellent e-learning products and services which are considered to have made a great impact on the world’s education and training sector. The award itself is designed to recognize the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning and implementation (as this stood originally it was too long). First of all, entries are divided into the “research”, “new” and “established” competition categories. The first round of the IMS LIA is a regional preliminary competition held in each continent (a paper-based selection process). The second round is held to pick the finalists for the IMS LIA. Next, award winners are selected among the finalists who receive the platinum, gold, silver and bronze medals. The handpicked finalists are allowed to run their promotional booths to promote their chance of winning IMS LIA. LIA’s panel of judges consists of global e-learning experts.
GWDC is not the first Korean institution that was named by the IMS GLC as a platinum medalist in the Learning Impact Awards; the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) was announced as the winner of IMS Learning Impact Platinum Award in 2007, and Sigong Media (a Korean digital contents developer and service provider) received the award in 2010. In addition, Dunet won the IMS Learning Impact Silver Award in 2008 and both Central Officials Training Institute (COTI) and Seoul Cyber University also received the same awards in 2010.
Korea’s E-Learning Service Is Different.
“Dream-wings” is a free, online learning portal, run by GWDC. Women’s career development initiatives, including finding a job or starting a new business, is being supported by online services offered by Dream-wings. The name “Dream-wings” connotes attaching wings to the dreams of female job seekers who wish to re-enter the job market. Though Dream-wings was primarily focused on IT education during the first year of its operation in 2004, it is now offering over 300 e-learning courses including deskwork, healthcare, social welfare, IT, foreign languages, the certificates of qualifications and hobbies, amongst others. On top of this, since the educational costs are borne by the Korean government, any Korean national can enjoy free access to Dream-wings’ high-quality services.
In the competition featuring the “established” category, Dream-wings and the US’s Desire2Learn and NY DOE (Desire2Learn in the big Apple) jointly won the 2012 IMS Learning Impact Platinum Awards. At the final round of the IMS LIA 2012, Dream-wings competed against a total of 26 formidable finalists including Desire2Learn in the Big Apple (Desire2Learn and NY DOE (USA)), Online Courses for Business Education (from Harvard Business Publishing (USA)), Course Connect™ (from Pearson and Temple College (USA)) and Digital Media Services in CPS (from Chicago Public Schools and Safari Montage (USA)). Announcing the winner of the 2012 IMS Learning Impact Platinum Award, a LIA spokesperson said, “Our thorough examination of Dream-wings revealed that Dream wings was more than just an online e-learning portal that replaces off-line education. The organization charted new territory by linking online education to real jobs. It is an unprecedented, an excellent e-learning system from a global standard.”
Dr, Hwang explained, “Since Dream-wings has moved beyond simply offering e-learning services and has subsequently created offline opportunities for attaining a job, it has differentiated itself from other e-learning services. In that sense, Dream-wings stood out among finalists and we felt its social impact was huge.”
“IMS GLC Suggests the World’s E-Learning Industry Standard.”
IMS GLC, established in 1997, is a global non-profit institution that is committed to developing international e-learning standards. It was created to lead the formation and growth of e-learning industries; develop and promote de-facto e-learning standards; and conduct studies on best practices and implementation guides.
In fact, IMS GLC, a global consortium of leading organizations from industry, academia and the R&D sector, owes its existence to the IMS (Instructional Management System) Project, carried out by EDUCAUSE’s National Learning Infrastructure Initiative (NLII).
IMS GLC is now globally recognized as a predominant organization that studies and develops international e-learning standards. The international e-learning standard developer, IMS GLC, is setting standards by carrying out IMS conference calls and involving voting and review activities.
On top of that, IMS GLC is coordinating a project group that consists of global e-learning experts from industry, academia and the R&D sector.
Major members of IMS GLC include the University of Cambridge, Open University in the UK and Spain, Pearson, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in Australia and the Ministry of Education in the UK.
IMS Forum Korea Will Support the Globalization of Korea’s E-Learning Purveyors
As management strategies which are adopted by nations and companies around the world gradually alter their focus to securing interoperability for e-learning standards and market dominance, IMS GLC felt the need to expand its organization, thereby establishing the IMS Forum Korea in 2008. At that time, urgency was felt for IMS GLC to lay the foundation by making swift, systemic responses to changes in international e-learning standards, brought about by growing demands for sophisticated e-learning services.
Dr. Hwang pointed out, “The development of Korea’s e-learning services revolved around a government-backed education program, designed for the career development of both the employed and unemployed, thereby separating the domestic e-learning market from the international e-learning market. Such a two-fold approach makes it difficult for Korea to meet international standards of e-learning services.”
Dr. Hwang said, “IMS Forum Korea will help Korean companies and educational institutions mount a systemic response to IMS GLC’s initiative for standardized development so as to make IMS GLC have a substantial impact in Korea’s e-learning environment through the process of its standard development.” He feels that cooperation with IMS GLC can turn the process of developing an international standard into an opportunity to perform product and service planning. IMS Forum Korea has set a goal of ramping up the globalization of Korea’s e-learning services and the competitiveness of relevant industries by encouraging Korea’s e-learning models and standards to rise up and meet the international standard.
As prosumers, Korean members (universities and institutions) of IMS GLC are currently taking part in the development of an established international e-learning standard. Korean members include SKKU, Samsung Electronics, SK C&C, KERIS as well as many others. In the future, IMS GLS members in Korea are expected to take their global competitiveness to new heights by benchmarking advanced e-learning service models and sharing knowhow on e-learning services in collaboration with other IMS GLS members. Once IMS GLC members in Korea join forces with global e-learning leaders to conduct studies on business models in key e-learning service areas and set up channels for mutual cooperation and information exchanges with other IMS GLC members, Korea’s e-learning services will have an opportunity to be exported to the e-learning markets in North America and the EU, as well as the Asian e-learning market.
