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Supportive Systems for Continuous and Online
Professional Development

Ove Jobring
Gothenburg University, Alexanderson Institute (Sweden)

Ingemar Svensson
Upendo Enterprise, Think-tank OmBildning (Sweden)


Summary

Due to the development of social media and online environments, educational systems'
content and form change. At the same time, demands for the individual professional to keep
him- or herself continually updated and employable are on the increase. In this article, we
develop an alternative to established education and forms of training in the shape of a
Supportive System. Even today, new forms of social media and online environments are
constituting such supportive systems for individual learning but could be developed using
institutional input. System development whereby individuals' qualifications can be developed
qualitatively and enduringly can guide and make things easier for people who are
consciously aspiring to enhance their competence and proficiency through informal ways of
working in online environments. In the article, we show how such an online system differs
from previous educational forms, putting forward an outline of a supportive system. The
purpose of the article is to outline the fundamental features of an online system that offers a
continuous and supportive process for developing occupational groups' qualifications
whereby qualifications stand for a combination of knowledge, proficiency, and competence.

The interwoven individual development processes taking place in an online environment
have a special characterization which constitutes an essential prerequisite for developing a
supportive system. We highlight 4 differences between formal educational systems and
Supportive Systems which have to be taken into account in order to design a system rooted
in online environments and social media. These differences are; 1) From pre-produced to
user-generated content, 2) from individual subject motives to joint qualification interests, 3)
from limited duration to continuous and enduring activity, 4) from subject and thematic areas
to a broad perspective on the participants' skills.

On the basis of the four prerequisites, some fundamental features of a supportive system are
outlined. The system is based on existing forms of online environment but which are further
developed and supported methodically and systematically. A Supportive System can consist
of a combination of individual PLEs (Personal Learning Environments) which are coordinated
via a shared Online Learning Communities (OLC) or PLN (Personal Learning Network). A
developed methodology based on circular ways of working supports processes in the various
media and works towards progressing the individual's development.


Keywords: Informal learning, Competence, Proficiency; Skills, Design, Supportive systems



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Introduction and background

Recently, the forms and prerequisites of competence development have changed. Traditional
competence development for professionals is primarily structured within established forms of
organisation and education. The same applies to its implementation. The ICT-based e-learning
variant has often been a reproduction of traditional education. Evolution is necessary in order to
correspond to current demands and prerequisites.

An initial departure point is the trend on the national and organisational levels which entails that
the individual is responsible, to an increasing degree, for his/her competence development,
especially in situations where organisations/employers and society previously had the
responsibility for, and created clear guidelines for, the professional's knowledge and
competence development.

As Ulrich Beck (2002) and several others have shown, individuals' scope for action has been
broadened by a raft of significant changes in the family structure, in education, and on the
labour market, which has created, and which contributes towards providing people with, a
multiplicity of opportunities and choices. This broadened scope of opportunities contributes
towards people feeling a greater responsibility for managing their own life choices. This has
been described as the individualization thesis.

The consequence is that people are being made responsible, to an ever greater degree, for
their own development, especially in situations where, previously, organisations, employers,
and society were responsible and previously provided guidance and road maps for the
development of professional knowledge and proficiency. The trend is from system responsibility
to individual responsibility. This change entails a need for continuous, constantly existing
support for the individual's development, which helps the individual to navigate his/her learning,
work, and life environment.

Our second departure point is the increased use of social media and online environments such
as blogs, photo/film sites, social media like Twitter and Facebook, web communities, and
Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). The increased level of participation on the net creates a
need for coordination for the users. The technical solution is called the Personal Learning
Environment (PLE) and is described in the Horizon report as one of the most important
development trends on the net (New Media Consortium 2010).

In parallel with the emergence of online environments, there is active development in fields
such as Open Educational Resources - (OER) and Open Course Ware - (OCW) (OECD 2007).
The combined development of online environments and OER/OCW provides people with the
support to control, on their own, their competence development using the resources and
communication opportunities which they encounter on the Internet, not least by means of
creating and maintaining a personal page as a PLE. The European Commission points out that
an increasing share of learning occurs at the workplace, in non-formal contexts and in leisure
time - often through new ICT-based learning tools and methods (European Commission
2008b). The online environments inspire traditional tuition with new forms of education and
reduce the differences between the formal educational systems and informal learning which, by
extension, leads to increased demands for innovation within the educational systems.

For many individuals, participating in online environments has an actual and proven
significance for the participants' professional and competence development. Research findings
have been compiled by Ala-Mutka (2009) who has shown that learning is frequently not an

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explicit goal of participating in an online environment. Investigations show examples of
innovative aspects in the online environment with the potential to strengthen endeavours for
lifelong learning such as the occurrence of learning and individual development via a range of
different types of activities like stories and self-reflection, and through various forms of mutual
exchange between the participants.

According to our first departure point, changed working and societal conditions have entailed
increased demands for constantly existing support for the individuals' development, making it
easier for the professional and providing opportunities to navigate his/her learning, work, and
life environment. The development and the increased use that occur via online environments
such as LinkedIn partly offer such support not least with regard to its participants exchanging
experience and monitoring both the wider world and development. In practice, the evolution of
modern media partly constitutes a supportive system which continuously supports the individual
participant's improvement and wherein individuals' qualifications can be developed qualitatively
and make it easier for people who are consciously aspiring to enhance their competence and
their skills by means of informal ways of working in online environments.

The purpose of the article is to outline the fundamental features of an online system that offers
a continuous and supportive process for occupational groups' qualification development
whereby qualifications stand for a combination of knowledge, proficiency, and competence.

In this article, we concentrate on online-based supportive systems. However, similar
developmental tendencies can been seen in traditional adult education where terms like coach,
process supporter, and competence broker are common and are supposed to offer a more
customer-centric support to co-workers and professionals at companies (Jobring & Svensson
2009). The underlying reasons for this trend are probably the same as for the online-based
operation's evolution, but manifest themselves differently in the physical world.


Departure points for a supportive system

A major part of the change in online-based educational methodology is taking, and has taken,
place within the field of e-learning and external studies. The crucial part of method development
has naturally concerned formal education focusing on a specific subject and an expected
progression in learning. Recently, however, a number of researchers have been influenced by
the evolution of the informal learning taking place on the net, pointing to new approaches to
developing formal learning and education (Fejes 2004, Pea 2004, Wilson et al. 2006, Sclater
2007, Fini et al. 2007).

One development strategy that occurs is, thus, seeking to make the formal educational forms
more informal. Our crucial focus and departure point, however, is not formal education. We
instead approach the field from the online environment as our departure point. We are then
able to discern two development strategies regarding how to increase the formal significance of
the informal learning occurring via online environments. The most frequent strategy is to
develop the forms of validation. The European Commission has conducted, here, a significant
endeavour which has resulted in, among other things, the European Qualification Framework
(EQF) (European Commission 2008a).

A second strategy for creating a supportive system influenced by various forms of informal
learning is to develop methods or models that combine online environments with some form of
institutional input. Ala-Mutka (2009) hints at this development strategy in her report, being of

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the opinion that it is a challenge to develop scalable and sustainable models for qualitative and
enduring learning in an online environment. Recently, other researchers proposed models of
development through Innovative teaching and supporting models and microlearning
(Hernndez-Serrano & Jones 2010, Buchem & Hamelmann 2010).

There is a given contradiction in attempting to reconcile bottom-up and self-organised
phenomena like online environments with institutional forms and top-down activities. We are of
the opinion, however, that it is an urgent task to seek to assume such a challenge and, in this
article, we emphasize the prerequisites underpinning such a system.


Four prerequisites of the supportive system

Participation in online environments is characterized by a learning process ongoing over time,
by which the individual's knowledge, skills, and competence are developed during an
interwoven process. This interwoven development process of skills and knowledge differs
greatly from the procedure normally described as traditional education (Preston 2008).

The interwoven development processes occurring in an online environment have a special
characterization and meaning, constituting an essential prerequisite for developing a supportive
system. In this article, we emphasize four different prerequisites which have to be taken into
account when designing a system rooted specifically in an online environment. The description
of these prerequisites is based on a number of previous research programmes that we have
conducted with other researchers in the field of Online Learning Communities (OLCs) (Jobring
et al. 2005, 2006, 2008, Svensson 2007a, b).


1. The participants' proficiency

Our aim is a development system where individuals collaboratively develop skills within their
profession by means of, and with the support of, online environments. Being proficient is being
capable; possessing skills and knowledge within a specific profession, a definite occupation or
field. The first prerequisite is especially important for development and the key departure point
is the individual's combined capability not a specific, defined theme.

Participants in an online environment develop proficiencies when they are active in an
environment. Using experience of distance tuition online, we have developed a model for the
online proficiency of participants, in accordance with the figure below (Jobring, Svensson,
2009).


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Figure 1: Development levels in the online environment


The individual's development of his/her proficiencies in a community is dependent on a range
of factors such as subjects, tasks, and the culture of the group. The better the level of the
proficiencies in accordance with the figure above, that the individuals have acquired, the better
they will perceive themselves to be learning. Ala-Mutka (2009) too, like Nilsen (2009),
accounts for various qualities and knowledge that participants develop through their
participation in online environments. Through their accounts, in combination with those of other
researchers, it should now be established that the better and more advanced the participants'
abilities are in respect of taking part in online environments the more it can also be
demonstrated that competence development actually takes place for the participants. The
question is, however, how to use this knowledge in order to achieve more systematic and long-
term competence development evolution with progress. It is not unproblematic; the fact that
the participants in an online environment are proficient in their ability to deal with the medium
probably entails that they have also developed their professionalism in their respective fields.
However, it is difficult to know specifically in which respects and in which thematic areas or
subjects.

In cases where the intention is to develop methods of e-learning, these are, however, almost
exclusively thematically oriented towards special subjects with the focus on students' and
pupils' acquisition of a specific subject. For example, Salmon's E-tivities (2002) is a method of
supporting, using combined activities, the individual's development in a specific subject. The
aim per se is not to create and underpin informal learning in an online environment.

Departing from the online environment and not a specific subject, theme, or field of
knowledge means departing from a broad, dynamic spectrum of a lot of individual proficiency
and knowledge. The open, dynamic development environment is the online environment's
major advantage, but also its problem. n the traditional environment, an individual's education
is based on a subject or specified field. However, in an open online environment, it is difficult to
specifically steer towards a certain subject. If our aim is to develop new forms of continuous
competence development, we see the medium's major opportunities while also seeing its
difficulties when it comes to developing models for progress-oriented, documented, and
enduring personal development.


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Based on reported research findings, our conclusion is that, when developing a supportive
system, a broad spectrum of the knowledge, competencies, and proficiencies that the
participants are developing in an online environment must be encompassed. Maybe it sounds
simple, but it has to be borne in mind that our entire educational system is based on thematic
tuition in subjects and fields of knowledge. When we think and speak about controlled and
organised education and competence development, we almost exclusively mean subject.
Departing from the broader field "the participants' proficiency when talking about competence
development is a radical perception which requires a mental ability to readjust and probably a
significant development endeavour aimed at achieving broader understanding.


2. User-generated input

Online environments are characterized by user-generated content where the participants,
through their activity, account for a large part of the content produced within the environment
irrespective of whether this is messages on Twitter or stories and reports in a community. This
separates online-based learning from other, earlier models of knowledge development.

The opportunity for the user-generated content is based on the unique function that the Internet
has in that an individual with limited resources can post information and material for the many.
With time, techniques and forms of posting and communicating this material have dramatically
been standardised and simplified, resulting in the increased occurrence of this individual
material as in the world of the blog.

A qualitatively informal exchange of experience on the net often generates good, concrete
solutions for the participants, new angles on problems. Such an exchange of experience can
also highlight weaknesses in the group's level of qualifications by generating questions not
previously noticed, by raising problems, or by proposing new thinking which the informal
exchange of experience is subsequently not really able to deal with.

This can require a theoretical framework and/or a structured and intensified discussion in order
for fresh knowledge or competence, which can be important for the group, to be able to be
released, be tested in an exchange of experience, and be implemented in the desired
qualification. In order to create active processes, there is a need for, even if the prerequisite is
the participants' interest and commitment, a continuous "supply of nutrition in the form of a
controlled input. How this occurs, and in which order, is one of the key parts of a supportive
system. A qualification development process thus pre-requires the continuous supply of fresh
input, knowledge-wise, proficiency-wise, and competence-wise. When we approach the
individual development and informal learning that occurs in online environments, and provide it
with a greater formal meaning via a supportive system, the participants' user-generated content
is an important part of the process.


3. Enduring and without a time limit

The third prerequisite is that the process in an online environment is continuously ongoing. A
traditional educational situation is characterized by the pupil being expected to develop with a
certain and predetermined progress in accordance with a certain development plan over a
determined period of time but this is not the case in online environments. The environment
can be characterized as enduring in the sense of being persistent, surviving, and with the
intention of lasting over time. An online environment is just its activity and cannot be so much

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more. Activities arise and subside, irrespective of where we are in the process, which should
reasonably be regarded as something natural. The day when the activity ceases, the
community and the environment, for natural reasons, will also cease.

Our departure point is that the participant takes part in online environments because something
in his/her life or work situation commits him/her (Carln & Jobring 2006). Other people have the
same commitment and experience the same thing those participating in a community thus
share a similar experience and a shared commitment. They have the same motives for action
reasons as to why they commit to the community. Each participant's individual reasons for
action are then simultaneously a joint motive for action. Jointly, they create the communities'
purpose, or objective. We can also express this in terms of the sum of all individual motives for
action being the communities' and online environment's purpose.

An approach which is based on the participants' motives for action differs from other
approaches in order to explain and understand the activity in an online environment. In the
more management-focused research into net-based communities, trust between the
participants is often emphasized as an important foundation for developing and maintaining the
activity in online environments (Stuckey 2005). However, we have shown that, in online
environments with strong spheres of interest, e.g. groups consisting of women giving birth to
children at about the same time, and in groups with special needs or illnesses, the trust issue
would seem to be less significant. Trust is created via the strong sphere of interest per se, in
turn creating an environment to underpin and preserve processes (Svensson & Jobring 2009).

The participants' involvement creates permanence through its activity. The point is that the
result of the participation, regardless of the intention, is permanence. The participants'
expectation is that it is a process going on over time. In normal education, the participants
expect their participation to be of limited duration. However, no one takes part in an online
environment with the notion that the activity will cease at a given point in time if anything,
quite the reverse. The participants' involvement confirms the prevailing activity and, in doing so,
the continuous and enduring process.

Understanding and respect for this character - the participant-generated permanence is
rudimentary when developing supportive systems for professionals under the inspiration and
influence of informal learning in online environments.


4. The participants' shared interest

The fourth and final prerequisite the shared interest constitutes a combined unit based on
the three previously-presented prerequisites. As we have previously argued, a community is
carried forward by jointly-acting (though not necessarily together) individuals. Joint action,
however, lacks significance for the creation of the community's purpose per se, instead gaining
significance by means of preserving the activity and forcing the development of the community.
If the individuals have the same motives for action, this will also constitute the purpose of the
community and the online environment. However, in order to be designated as a community,
there is no necessity to act in concert or together. If we again refer to the text on permanence,
we can say that the similar rationality of action, as a consequence of the similar situational
experience, constitutes the basis for individual participation in a net-based community.

The participants expect the community, one way or another, to realize their requirements while
the community puts demands on the participants' participation. n this reciprocity, in this

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balance between motives for action and community, we also find the community's permanence.
f there is an imbalance or a lack of concordance between the two, the participant's incentives
to participate will decrease and vice versa; if the community develops the whole time in
harmony with the participants' development, then the community will also develop in an
enduring way. The strength of the participants' shared interest is of fundamental importance for
the enduring development of an online environment.

Summary of prerequisites
In aspiring to develop the bases for a system of support, we have clarified differences that
separate the informal online environment from formal educational environments such as e-
learning these can be summarized as in Figure 2 below:



Figure 2: Four differences between e-learning and Supportive Systems


The various prerequisites are dependent on and related to each other. If the intention of a
programme is competence development in a specific subject or thematic area, it naturally also
follows that we focus on the educational material to be included in the programme. The
participants will then not need to have anything in common besides the subject itself we are
conducting, in other words, distance education.

If the intention is to start out from the informal environment, we also change the departure
points the question then will be how to create the prerequisites for, as well as advance the
participants' possibilities of, jointly creating a process which can be goal-related and validated
and can thus be ascribed a value.

The figure describes two extremes and between these, of course, a range of variants occurs.
A supportive system's various activities do not need to be located within one or the other
extreme. One possible design for progressive development is to vary different forms over time
certain sequences might, perhaps, entail traditional distance education followed by
sequences containing more out-and-out online environment activities.


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Creating a supportive system - an outline

On the basis of the four prerequisites, we are now able to outline some basic features of a
supportive system. The system is based, of course, on the online environments that already
exist but are further developed and supported methodically and systematically. A supportive
system can consist of different online environments and a methodology that supports
processes and works towards progressing the individual's development, something which we
introduce in more detail below.

Media in a supportive system - the PLE and OLC/PLN

User-generated input and the PLE (Personal Learning Environment)
By way of introduction, we mentioned the development of the PLE. As early as 2008, e-learning
papers noted this phenomenon in a thematic issue under the designation the Personal
Learning Environment PLE (Schaffert & Hilzensauer 2008).

In a PLE, the user is equipped with tools in order to communicate, tag, collect, and update the
content as well as to create and navigate an environment adapted to his/her own needs and
interests. The possibility of tagging, categorising, and publishing works online immediately,
without needing to understand or even concern oneself with the underlying technology,
provides teachers and students with a number of opportunities to develop a personal webpage
in the form of a PLE.

Participants, professionals within the same profession, have the opportunity, via personal web
pages, of monitoring information and communicating via various media that are relevant to
other users in the joint group. A participant in a supportive programme with employees in a
fashion house can, via his/her personal web page, monitor a fashion blogger. The blog
describes something that the participant deems to be of interest to the entire group, creating a
post on the group's platform. We thus obtain user-generated input.

The OLC/PLN shared interest
For several years, established journals and conferences have existed in the field of Online
Learning Communities OLCs (Jobring & Kommers 2008). In the active construct development
that prevails, there has today been some emphasis of, and in some cases a renaming of the
phenomenon as the Personal Learning Network (PLN). Here, a PLN is seen as consisting of
the individuals interacting with and obtaining knowledge from an online environment. The
concept of the PLN is stated by Wikipedia to be based on the theory of connectivism developed
by Siemens (2005) and Downes (2007). Participants create contacts and develop networks
which contribute towards their professional development and knowledge.

The PLN has obvious similarities with what we have previously described as personal
development and learning in OLCs. The participants contribute and obtain knowledge via
different nodes. In a supportive system, an online-based community OLC or PLN works like
the shared node. A PLE is the individual's resource bank and the PLN that of the participants'
in the system. The OLC/PLN then becomes an important part of the individual's professional
development. The media part of a supportive system would then be based on individual PLEs
which provide an input for the participants and a shared part - a OLC/PLN where continuous
development is supported and experience is exchanged.


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The proposal that through a combination of PLE/PLM-OLC create systems for skills
development are presented increasingly frequent, for example by Mott (2010) and is an
important research and development task


Process support and progression

Process support and progression constitute the other principal part of a supportive system and
have the purpose of bringing together the individuals' PLEs within the shared OLC/PLN. The
issue of supervision is key. In many social media and similar online environments, there is no
direct supervision examples of such media being Twitter and Facebook.

Possibly, there is some control of activities, but this is not supported by an expert or an
outsider.

The purpose of a supportive system is to methodically and systematically support and advance
the progressive development of the participants' qualifications. n this case, supervisors are
required but the difficulty of supervising such a learning process is apparent (Bjrck 2004).
Supporting the process is an advanced task for one person - a process supervisor but we
also need a subject expert professional expert to support the development of the
participants' knowledge, competencies, and skills. This leadership duo forms an important
component of the development and implementation of a system.

There exists today elaborated methodology, primarily for distance courses. One such method is
problem-based learning which can function as structured process support during certain stages
of a supportive system. PBL methodology has been used in online distance courses given by
Gothenburg University (Gillberg 2004). A variant of this theme is described by Preston (2008),
a method used by teachers in the MirandaNet community, which she calls "Braided learning.
The development takes place during different phases. During the first phase, the community
deals with creating a shared and braided text on the net which provides scope for multiplicity
and the venting of different opinions. Some of the members act like discussion leaders or
"braiders and assist in shaping the debate by making summaries during the discussion and,
perhaps, changing its course (Cuthell 2005). The texts are stored, together with forum
discussions and cases studies, on the MirandaNet network.

What Preston (2008) describes using the term "Braided learning can be described as a circular
method of working whereby the participants' own contributions are dealt with, commented on,
written, and used as a basis for development. Methods that advance the participants'
involvement in the form of problem ownership and circular methods of working are, which
should be evident, entirely central to advancing and supporting progressive development
processes in an online environment as such, they can also be effective methods of ensuring
that informal learning obtains a greater formal content for those participating.

In the figure below, we have summarized our perception of how a supportive system can be
shaped:


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Figure 3: Outline of a supportive online system for
ongoing and continuous professional development


Measuring progression and development in the group
In traditional education, a specific subject is mediated or taught. Exams and result monitoring
are, in this case, relatively uncomplicated. But if we replace the subject with a "frame or a
specific context like an online environment, how will we then be able to know that the
participants are actually developing their professional skills? The problem is that, in an informal
environment, learning occurs on a series of different levels and within a series of different areas
simultaneously.

In order to answer that question, as mentioned above, the European Commission, through a
number of different development programmes, has supported the development of various
validation tools and methods. It has turned out, however, that these have often been time-
consuming and expensive to implement. On 23 April 2008, the European Parliament adopted
"The European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) (European Commission
2008a). This is an accessible document developed in order to evaluate participants' informal
learning. It has been in development since 2004 and is being implemented today by the EU
member countries.

Usually, validation takes place following activity for a period of time or after having finished a
job. We are of the opinion that the EQF, through its formulation in the form of progression from
one level to another, can also be used as an instrument and a basic "EQF programme plan in
order to advance an actively ongoing process in online environments. The participants know
which knowledge/skills/competencies they have and they know what their goal is in
participating. We see before us a progressive, continuous, and enduring process, composed in
accordance with a qualifications increment in line with the 8 stages of the EQF.

The idea behind linking the EQF to a supportive system is being able to use a universal,
generally accepted, and clearly graded qualification standard against which the participants'
qualification development can be validated. Evaluation of the participant's level can be
conducted using a "peer to peer procedure and in dialogue with occupational experts and
process leaders.

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CLOSING WORDS

A supportive online system for ongoing and continuous professional development as a method
of qualification development is new and radical. It departs, both in form and content, from the
traditional competence development concept, entailing that it must be carefully established with
both the organisation/industry and with the occupational group.

The system's benefits and its implications is a faster adaptive process based on continuous
involvement and a higher degree of customization through circular way of working. It implies a
faster and more efficient individual development process. Its basis is the group's common
interest and the system can therefore not replace traditional approaches but is an urgent option
along with existing educational system.

Primarily, it is about building and creating trust in a vision of a long-term, continuous and largely
self-governed learning which is superior to traditional further education models and which
strengthens the organisation, the occupational group, and the participating individual. Such
vision-creating work takes time and requires great openness to new or complementary ideas
originating from both organisational management and from the occupational group in question.






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Authors

Ove Jobring Dr.
Researcher and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Work Science University of Gothenburg
and senior adviser at the Alexandersoninstitute, Campus Varberg. Founder of the research
group Online Learning Communities (OLC) at the ICT-university in Gothenburg.
ove.jobring@av.gu.se

Ingemar Svensson
Senior adviser at the University of Gothenburg, Senior consultant at Upendo Enterprise.
External expert at EACEA and at the Swedish International Programme Office for Education
and Training.
ingemar.svensson@folkbildning.net








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