<< >> Up Title Contents

K.I.T.E. JITOL


JITOL is the product of a like-named project within the European Commission 3rd Framework Programme DELTA which ended in 1995[27]. JITOL involves the use of a "four-window" computer environment for distance learning and working. One window is dedicated to an evolving knowledge base. The second is used for electronic debates, the third for e-mail exchange and the final one for personal note-taking. Participants are connected to a centralised database and can communicate directly with each other. A modular approach is adopted to knowledge, dividing it up into "topics". Participants do much of their preparation "off-line" thus reducing telecommunications costs. In addition, participants were helped in expressing themselves in the forums by the use of pre-prepared forms. The knowledge base constituted for each topic containing essential basic knowledge is continually built on via a process of capitalising[28] on discussions taking place between participants, that is to say, by extracting important aspects of electronic interactions and reorganising them.

It is this passage from informal to formalised knowledge as well as the definition of a number of evolving ways of working that seem to us to constitute the major assets of JITOL.

K.I.T.E. is an SME set up by Geneva-based researchers who had worked on the initial JITOL programme. According to Christine Gardiol, member of K.I.T.E., the hybrid nature of JITOL, cutting across traditional frontiers between learning, communicating and working, makes it difficult for organisations to come to grasps with it. Two contracts are currently under way. The first, for the World Health Organisation, uses JITOL in the training of workers from ONG's and associations combating alcoholism and drug abuse in South Africa. The second employs JITOL for training by the Medical faculties of the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva.

Contact:

Christine Gardiol, K.I.T.E.
Phone: 41.22.736.33.59 E-mail: Christine Gardiol

[27] The JITOL Project and Model in TeleTeaching, eds. Davies G. & Samways B., Elsevier Science, 1993.

[28] Building an Evolving Knowledge-Base from Computer Teleconferening in Collaborative Dialogue Technologies in Distance Education eds. Verdejo M.F. & Cerri S.A., NATO ASI Series, Springer, Berlin

Sharing professional knowledge: the JITOL approach, De Sanctis C., Lewis R., Gardiol Ch., 3rd IRNETD Conference 1994, Milan, June 23-25 1994.


<< >> Up Title Contents