A Services-enabled Environment for Personalising Lifelong Learning Pathways

Assisting independent learners to access, compose and manage their learning pathway throughout their life in a range of institutional, informal and work-based settings is a challenging issue on the lifelong learning agenda. In this paper, we present a service-based architecture and an implementation that provides support in planning lifelong learning and creating personalised learning pathways. The architecture integrates several tools and web services, interacting with services provided by external organisations in order to create an environment that supports independent lifelong learners in identifying learning opportunities available through different learning providers at regional level. The resulting system offers functionalities for the creation of individualised learning pathways, and for the sharing of personal learning experiences with the regional community of independent lifelong learners. The system also offers recommended learning pathways through courses and learning opportunities in order to facilitate learners’ progression into Higher Education and support career choices.