SIF brings together 250 departments of education and software vendors in the US and the EUN visit is part of its internationalisation strategy. “Education is not that different across the different countries,” said Larry Fruth, “the more we talk, the more we find similarities all the way from policies, technologies and school needs”.

At the conference the LIFE network was presented. LIFE is an EUN project to explore the topic of practice in eLearning interoperability in Europe. The project is funded by the European Commission’s eLearning scheme.

SIF and LIFE share similar approaches in that they bring interoperability actors to the table to identify and address the issues at stake.

The LIFE partners’ network currently includes eight European teaching institutions, software vendors and European Schoolnet which acts as a coordinator of the network. The goal is that this core group will attract other interested parties and organisation in Europe to participate in the knowledge and best practice exchange.

SIF and EUN approaches are complementary stresses Mr Fruth: “In the US the focus is on student administration and accountability whereas in Europe, more emphasis is put on learning object management”. Bridging the two approaches is the goal of the partnership.

Similar rapprochement actions will be initiated across the globe and the goal is to set up an exchange mechanism between actors such as EUN, SIF and other global players to exchange best practices and examples and to engage in pilot projects explained, Mr Fruth at the conference.

“SIF and EUN both have consensus-building activities. We have a lot to learn from each other which is why it is the perfect partnership,” concluded Mr Fruth.