Supporting learning communities and communities of practice with Coursevo

Coursevo (http://coursevo.com/) is a multilingual multimedia information system for managing courses, supporting learning processes and learning communities through the Web. Its multi-tenant architecture supports multiple instances of the underlying server infrastructure using the same core to serve the needs of multiple communities. An advantage of Coursevo in comparison with other eLearning systems is the emphasis that is given in the use of multimedia as a powerful learning means. Learning activities using multiple media can be more effective than doing it through a single medium (such as text), but what is important is combining media effectively. Coursevo is used in several vocational training and life-long-learning initiatives targeting engineers to establish and continuously support Communities of Practice (CoP). A CoP is a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members' common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created specifically with the goal of gaining knowledge related to their field. We present the establishment of four training frameworks for establishing and supporting distributed CoP across European countries: (1) Computer Science teachers using Python in their courses; (2) Teachers using Arts in teaching all school subjects; (3) Civil protection Communities of Practice; and (4) Communities of Practice in Mechatronics.