The I-CLEEN project

The I-CLEEN project takes inspiration by an educational resources model called "Open Educational Resources" (O.E.R.) with which it shares the common feature to be open in the use, the distribution, and the modification.

The philosophy behind this kind of interpretation of the resources addressed to the learning was born in the beginning of the 2000s and grew into the homonym movement itself. It is also rooted in the thought of some masters of freedom, such as the Indian Nobel prize-author Amartya Sen, and in the consideration that the lack of access to knowledge is one of the causes of  limitation of the people's freedom, or worst, of oppression.

If you think that this principle is just one of many good airy-fairy '68 theories1, then maybe you are not considering that one of the most prestigious cultural institution in the world, as the il MIT, il Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA created an international consortium called Open Course Ware (OCW), which was joined by around 50 universities of different countries. By the web, it provides hundreds of free and full courses, all strictly of the OER kind, in 8 different languages.

We the teachers of the I-CLEEN editorial staff think that the Italian school has an extreme and urgent need of projects and services drawing from this principle. That is why our main goal is:

To select and publish (as OER) any resource able to speed up the delicate and fundamental process of the lesson preparation.

The core of the I-CLEEN project is the database of resources (most of all OER), enriched by a teachers' team composing the editorial staff, which fulfills criteria and rules previously established according to international standards.

The editorial staff is supported by a team of experts, composed by researchers of the Tridentine Museum of Natural Sciences, but also by external institutions, providing assistance during the scientific review of contents.

The whole editing process takes place online in one web environment realized with LifeRay. That allows the management of the database, the contents, the users and the carrying out of all the editing stages (proposals, drafts, review, and revised versions). The staff members also personally meet at least once a month in one of the many seats across Italy.

I-CLEEN prefers the use of free knowledge sharing tools. That is why both LifeRay and all the adopted and suggested technologic tools belong to the Open Source Software family, when possible.

Little bibliography: