Virtual College will show how e-learning weathers the storm at eLN CONNECT

Virtual College, in collaboration with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECWMF), will be exhibiting and presenting at this year’s eLearning Network Annual Conference.

The ELN CONNECT 2017 event on the 7th November marks the 30th birthday of the eLearning Network, an organisation for learning professionals.

The ECWMF is an independent intergovernmental organisation supported by 34 States. It functions as a research institute and a 24/7 operational service – producing and disseminating numerical weather predictions to its Member States. This allows its partners to get the most from ECMWF's computing services and data, to develop an advanced understanding of forecasting.

At the event, Carsten Maass from ECMWF will explain that they have been working in collaboration with e-learning provider, Virtual College, to create e-learning modules to be used in training activities - either as stand-alone modules or as part of other courses.

The extensive learning programme includes 13 modules of online course content, webinars and a blended course in addition to their face to face courses.

These modules will help ECMWF provide customisable and flexible training initiatives and cut down face to face training costs for ECMWF’s Member States.

Virtual College’s Learning Technology Manager, Sophie Thornton, will explain that the potential audience for these training courses is made up of different groups - academics, scientists, forecasters, technical staff, and software developers.

This has created some interesting challenges. Each group has different needs: academics and scientists may be interested in the working of numerical weather prediction (NWP) models or the theory underpinning NWP concepts, forecasters in the interpretation and use of meteorological products whilst technical staff may be interested in software installation and maintenance.

Sophie added: ”Users of these courses come from different European countries so e-learning will mean that they can easily fit the learning in at a time to suit them without taking days to travel to traditional training sessions.”

Stream 1: Real Worlders

Presentation title: Forecasting the weather: creating engaging elearning from technical scientific content with Sophie Thornton, Virtual College and Carsten Maass, ECMWF

Venue: Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London

Date: Tuesday 7 November

Time: 4.30 pm