Issue: The NSW Food Industry Training Council (NSWFITC) was concerned about the lack of resources available to support workforce development in the Food Industry, which is vital to Australia in terms of profitability, investment, exports and jobs growth.

Solution: Redlaunch designed FoodHub as a collaborative, free repository of high quality industry-specific information and learning resources. The wiki vision is that collective wisdom will enable FoodHub to become a valuable tool for all workplace supervisors and vocational trainers and assessors across the food industry.

Visit Food Hub at www.foodhub.com.au

Redlaunch is updating its Quality System to incorporate certification requirements for the new ISO Standard, ISO/IEC 19796-1:2005, Information Technology – Learning, Education and Training – Quality Management, Assurance and Metrics – Part 1: General approach.

ISO/IEC 19796-1:2005 aims to harmonize the various approaches used around the world for assessing the quality of e-learning initiatives. It is a framework to describe, compare, analyse, and implement quality management and quality assurance approaches.

Bruce Peoples, Chair of the ISO/IEC group that developed the standard explains,

The standard represents the harmonized international know-how on quality for e-learning. By having comparable and commonly understood requirements and criteria, there will be a better match between the needs of users, purchasers and providers.

ISO/IEC 19796-1:2005 consists of the following items::

• description scheme for quality management;
• process model defining the basic processes to be considered when managing quality in the field of ICT-supported learning, education, and training;
• conformance statement for the description format.

The annexes show examples of its use and are based on the French 'Code of Practice in e-Learning' (AFNOR Z 76-001) and German DIN PAS 1032-1. Additionally, an annex on Reference Quality Criteria (RQC) is included.

ISO/IEC 19796 - 1 is the first part of an overall framework which is due to be developed over the next two years and that will include the following documents::

Part 2: Quality model, will harmonize the aspects of quality systems and their relations and will provide orientation for all stakeholders. It will not enforce any particular implementations but will, instead, focus on their intended results.

Part 3: Reference methods and metrics, will harmonize formats for describing methods and metrics for quality management and assurance. It will provide a collection of reference methods that can be used to manage and ensure quality in different contexts. This part will further provide a collection of reference metrics and indicators that can be used to measure quality in processes, products, components, and services.

Part 4: Best practice and implementation guide, will provide harmonized criteria for the identification of best practice, guidelines for the adaptation, implementation, and usage of this multi-part standard, and will contain a rich set of best practice examples.

Redlaunch will implement Parts 2-4 as they are released.

Weblink: www.iso.org/iso/en/commcentre/pressreleases/2006/Ref992.html