Emergence and maturing of collective knowledge describe how individual learning interactions, their traces and related materials are made available to others (Learning Toolbox, Bits and pieces). When others are made aware of these via social networking and community technologies, individual uptake or a broader negotiation in a community setting can take place. This can then trigger processes of co-creation and knowledge maturing in which materials are refined and developed into more mature cultural artefacts and made available for a wider target group, e.g. around “Living Documents” (Living documents). A collective knowledge cycle can also start with the provision of cultural artefacts (e.g. existing normative guidelines) which then need to be adopted locally. Collective knowledge that emerges as part of this process, such as documents, aggregated trust or knowledge structures and their interrelations captured in semantic technologies, then provide the context for individual sensemaking or help seeking.
Task performance, reflection and sensemaking describe the processes of experiencing, reflecting about, sharing and collectively validating the learning moments connected with task performance. While much of expert performance is based on tacit knowledge that is being fine-tuned without the need of much explicit reflection, sometimes the experiencing of learning moments triggers more explicit reflection. Having the possibility to record those experiences in the situated context for more extensive sensemaking and reflection later on may enhance individual practice in the long-term. Technologies that support these processes need to help emerge a shared understanding (e.g. through semantic technologies) and tightly fit into existing working practices. Hence, the design in the healthcare domain revolved around note taking and collecting (Bits and pieces), while in the construction domain recording of videos with mobile or wearable technology were considered (Ach so! and Non-obvious). Recorded experiences can be shared more widely and validated by the community via social networking and community technologies to make them useful for others (Learning Toolbox).

In the Learning Layers Project, we develop technologies that support informal learning in the workplace. Our particularly focus is on Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) within Regional Innovation Clusters. We develop mobile and social technologies that unlock and enable peer production within and across those SMEs. The technologies also act as “scaffolds” for the individuals so that they can learn in the right context and at the right time. Scaling informal learning then means that shared meaning of work practices emerges at the individual (workers and practitioners), the organisational (SMEs) and the interorganizational (Cluster) level of the network. We take a design research perspective and build open technologies so others can build on our results. For this reason, we have created an Open Design Library to involve stakeholders interested in our design ideas, and an Open Developer Library through which we showcase our prototypes and involve developers interested in our work.
Read more about our project objectives and strategies, and check out the latest posts related to our two pilot regions:

ZoP app (a LAYERS's spinoff) will be launched during a Robotics Summer School (22-26th August, Finland) and next Bristol Cinefest (20-24th September, Bristol)
ZoP.Space is a spin out from UWE based on outcomes of the Learning Layers project. The ZoP app allows professionals to participate with each other in groups sharing experiences in a video ...

Informal Learning at work Report @Bristol
On the 20th of June 2016 the ‘Informal Learning at work – Making an impact on healthcare, creative industries and higher education’ event was hosted by UWE at the Armada ...

Informal Learning @ work event: Making an impact in healthcare, creative industries, and higher education
If you are responsible for training and staff development in your organisation or Head of Innovation, this event may be relevant for you. Professor John Cook and Dr Patricia Santos (University of ...

Pekka Kämäräinen from Learning Layers is recognised as an Honorary Member of VETNET
The Council of European Educational Research Association (EERA) has confirmed Pekka Kämäräinen (@pkamarainen) as an Honorary Member of its Network 2 (VETNET). Pekka is one of the researchers of the Learning Layers project ...

The Learning Layers Project – visiting Milan Expo and a successful third year review meeting
Looking back at the end of the third year of the Learning Layers project, we can report some very nice outcomes. First, the Learning Layers project was invited to participate ...

LAYERS Track on Social Knowledge Management at I-KNOW 2015
Ronald Maier and Andreas Schmidt together with Christine Kunzmann organized the special track LAYERS Social Knowledge Management at I-KNOW 2015. With the advent of social media, knowledge management had to ...

Learning Layers @ AMEE
Learning Layers was actively involved in AMEE 2015, which took place at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) in Glasgow between the 4th and the 9th of September 2015 ...

3 LAYERS track at the 15th iKnow Conference
Learning Layers sponsors three special tracks at the the 15th anniversary of the I-Know Conference (http://i-know.tugraz.at/call-for-papers/#specialtracks). The topics will cover social knowledge management, education for smart industry and recommender systems. ...

Focus group sessions and presentations of Y2 findings of the LAYERS project at the Tyrolean IT Day
The UIBK team prepared the evaluation of the Learning Layers tools in the fourth year of the Leaning Layers project. We decided not just to perform a standard evaluation, rather we ...

Exploitation Launchpad – The workshop
Original post published at: http://cluster-performance.com/exploitation-launchpad-the-workshop by Gilbert Peffer Last week I was in Espoo, Finland for a three-day meeting of the Learning Layers project. On Wednesday afternoon we ran a workshop called ...

Learning Layers represented by two talks at the FOSDEM 2015 open source conference in Brussels
Over the last weekend of January, the Learning Layers project contributed two Lightning Talks to FOSDEM 2015, one of the biggest open source conferences worldwide. The talks gave an overview ...

The Learning Toolbox
The Learning Layers project has brought into picture new ways of using digital media, web tools and smartphones in the context of work and workplace learning. At the BAU-ABC training ...

Learning Layers workshop with CAMERA: Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry
On 23rd July 2014 representatives from the Learning Layers project collaborated with Plymouth Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry (CAMERA) to run a half-day workshop for a group of educational ...

The LAYERS Help Seeking tool for the Healthcare sector
Layers: The Help Seeking tool in the Healthcare sector The Learning Layers Wp2 team ran two workshops in April and May 2014 with one of the Layers GP Practices (Yorkshire, UK) ...

The Open Design Library: Scaffolding learning in the workplace (Technologies for change)
The Open Design Library (ODL) is a collaborative space (see:http://odl.learning-layers.eu/) where we make the results from the Learning Layers project (www.learningLayers.eu) publicly available and invite individuals and organisations interested in ...

Typical paths of workplace learning in construction
Based on a series of interviews and an a rapid ethnography in the scope of the LAYERS exploratory study, videos on the stories of workplace learning have been created. The ...

Layers on the Financial Times: Technology means wisdom is shared on demand
Tamsin Treasure-Jones from the The Leeds Institute of Medical Education, one of the main partners of the Learning Layers project, was interviewed by the Financial Times for an article about Training ...

About the Learning Layers project
Tobias Ley (out Scientific Coordinator), explains what is it about: Individual videos of partners explaining what is the LAYERS project about Tobias Ley Graham Attwell Tamsin Treasure-Jones Ludger Deitmer Tor-Arne Bellika Andreas Schmidt Ronald Maier John Cook Ralf Klamma John Sandars Merja ...

Expected offerings
Partners share their views on their expected offerings to result from the LAYERS project Graham Attwell Tor-Arne Bellika Tamsin Treasure-Jones Andreas Schmidt Ronald Maier John Cook Ralf Klamma Jhon Sandars Merja Bauters Melanie Campbell Jo Colley Pekka Kämäräinen Christoph Trattner Chris Whitehead John Bibby Taavi Einaste

Expected innovations
Partners share their views on their expected innovations to emerge from the LAYERS project Graham Attwell Ludger Deitmer Tor-Arne Bellika Andreas Schmidt Ronald Maier John Cook Ralf Klamma Jhon Sandars Merja Bauters Melanie Campbell Jo Colley Pekka Kämäräinen Christoph Trattner Chris Whitehead John Bibby Taavi Einaste

Importance of LAYERS
Partners of the LAYERS project share their view on the importance of the project Tobias Ley Tobias Ley (on SME collaboration enhancement) Tobias Ley (collaboration among competing SMEs?) Graham Attwell Tamsin Treasure-Jones (importance for ...

Reshaping Workplace Design to Facilitate Better Learning
Video of talk by John Cook of the University of the West of England titled: 'Reshaping Workplace Design to Facilitate Better Learning' in Washington at the George Mason University in April 2013: ...

Reaching out to Developers
One of the things I am working on in the Learning layers project is user engagement. Learning Layers is based on user centred design model, involving end users and organisations in ...

Requirements Bazaar - enable users and developers to innovate together (RE'13 best tool demo award)
Turning user requirements into solutions is a major challenge of software development. It is tough for developers to fulfill the user's needs. Strikingly, often this is not due to a ...

Why Co-design for an R&D project?
There are many reasons why co-design is suitable for Learning Layers project. Listing some of the most obvious reasons are for example, co-design is flexible for parallel design activities and process, ...

Four parallel Co-design teams
The Layers project has a challenge of combining various parallel activities in broader and narrower scale. The R&D streams are the broader parallel activities and the design teams, whose birth was ...

Our vision
See and hear the individual points of views from project partners: What is LAYERS about? What are the expected Innovations? What are the expected offerings? Why is LAYERS important? The Learning Layers project has recently ...

Objectives
The general project objective is to scale-up informal learning technologies in SME clusters to create meaningful learning opportunities and thereby improve sustained competitiveness of individuals, SMEs and the cluster as a whole. The general objective ...

Work streams
In order to achieve the ambitious objectives, the Learning Layers project requires an interdisciplinary blend of different research strategies and approaches and therefore follows a strategy of continuous validation, integration ...
Subscribe to our newsletter and our stakeholders network