Consortium

RIAM INTELEARNING LAB S.L is a Spanish technology SMEs with headquarters in La Rioja, actively contributing to the establishment of the Semantic Web for over ten years. The company has developed the GNOSS technology platform for semantic and social software. GNOSS allows semantic representation any content already existing in other systems, or any content that is generated natively on the linkable ecosystem of social networks that GNOSS can deploy. It is a platform with social features and it can thus accelerate and enlarge the processes of creating, recording and sharing knowledge. Another product of RIAM INTELEARNING LAB is Didactalia, a software developed with GNOSS technology – it has become the most important catalogue of Spanish open educational resources made by teachers.

Know-Center is Austria’s application-oriented research center for data-driven business, and innovative information and communication technologies. In its role as an innovation hub connecting science and industry, Know-Center conducts application-oriented research in cooperation with numerous partners in academics, industry, government, and science.
It undertakes interdisciplinary research on Technology Enhanced Learning across a broad spectrum of domains including research on acquiring, managing and applying semantic metadata and ontologies, the use of social software in the context of Web 2.0, and on building structures and transferring knowledge within and across individuals, institutions, and organisations.

The wide range of competences, in particular in learning within collaborative work processes and in informal learning environments, is reflected by the numerous national and international projects the center led or participated in. Know-Center is well-versed in developing innovative visual analytics solutions and devising interactive visual representations and interaction techniques, in addition to its strong expertise in the areas of knowledge discovery and data mining. Finally, over the last decade and a half Know-Center gathered extensive experience in transferring scientific results into innovative industry applications, which is demonstrated by several hundreds of successfully completed applied research projects.

The Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (Knowledge Media Research Center/IWM) has become one of the leading research institutions in the world in the field of psychological and educational media research, cooperating with excellent research partners on the national and international level.
The institute examines the potentials of digital communication and collaboration technologies for knowledge exchange, learning and knowledge construction. The IWM’s main expertise is in quantitative and qualitative empirical research in the field of applied cognitive psychology, instructional design, and technology-enhanced learning.

The L3S Research Center is a joint research institute of several universities in Lower Saxony, Germany formally associated with Leibniz Universität Hannover (LUH). Work at L3S focuses on innovative and cutting-edge methods and technologies for Web Science, investigating the Future of Information and Communication in the Web Age. Application areas of particular importance include, for instance, Web Archiving and Technology-Enhanced Learning. The L3S team builds upon technologies and approaches from various areas such as information retrieval, machine learning, natural language processing, semantic web technologies, data management, and Distributed and Peer-to-Peer Information Systems.

Founded in 1845, NUI Galway has earned international recognition as a research led university with a commitment to top quality teaching. It ranks among the top 2% of Universities in the world. The five Colleges of the University are: College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies; College of Business, Public Policy and Law; College of Engineering and Informatics; College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; and College of Science. Research and development within the AFEL project will be led by researchers associated with the College of Engineering and Informatics, as part of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.

The Insight Centre for Data Analytics is one of Europe’s largest data analytics research organisations, with 350 researchers, more than 40 industry partners and over €88 million of funding. Insight is made up of four main centres: Insight@DCU, Insight@NUI Galway, Insight@UCC and Insight@UCD as well as a number of affiliated bodies. Each of Insight’s main centres has a long track record of data analytics research. In November 2013 they came together under Science Foundation Ireland as Insight. The size of the centre allows for collaboration on a large scale, which enables the organisation to compete for funding and opportunities at a much higher level.

The Open University is the largest university in the United Kingdom and the leading distance teaching institution in the world. The Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) was set up in 1995 as a corporate research lab in recognition of the need for The Open University to stay at the forefront of research and development in a convergence of areas that impact on the university’s very nature: Cognitive and Learning Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Semantic Technologies, and Multimedia. Since its creation KMi has quickly established itself as a major player on the world stage of research in data science, web and knowledge technologies as well as technology enhanced learning. With its specific focus on the realisation of linked web data in education, members of KMi involved in AFEL have been carrying out coordinating activities around the application of linked data principles in university environments, as well as through research and concrete tools regarding the exploitation of open (linked) data in education. KMi is therefore widely recognised as a community leader in the areas of wide relevance to the project, as illustrated for example through the LinkedUniversities.org platform co-founded by members of AFEL.