First Schengen Project Group Meeting

On 23 - 27 August 2010 The CEPOL Secretariat hosted the first meeting of the Project Group Schengen on-line learning module.

The Project Group’s experts from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Romania, discussed CEPOL's approach to learning for e-learning modules (see Governing Board Decision 18/2010/GB) and its implications for the Schengen on-line learning module.

As a consequence of CEPOL’s recently intensified cooperation with Frontex, the group’s discussions were enriched by the presence of Friedrich Scheuermann, Training Project Officer in the field of e-learning from Frontex.

Many topics and issues were covered during the meeting including:

• Development of plot lines for e-learning cases;
• Identifying key topics that need to be covered in the field of the Schengen Agreement and the Convention Implementation of the Schengen Agreement (CISA);
• Making sure that the professional domain of the senior police officer is represented in the on-line module thus guaranteeing decision taking related to CISA legal instruments.

One of the main challenges the Project Group members during the meeting was finding a way of mapping essential learning processes to Schengen related strategic decisions and transforming them into an appropriate instructional design in an attractive self-paced learning context.

A future meeting of the Project Group is scheduled for October 2010 in which, amongst others, the experts will focus on the development of a self diagnostic test, related to identifying a learning path as part of a newly designed 'My Progress' learner tool. This tool will give learners improved possibilities to undertake responsibilities for their own learning.