The Training Marketplace
The Training Marketplace http://www.egi.eu/user-support/training_marketplace/ is a service that allows you to search for or advertise any type of training resource throughout the EGI community. These can be events, certification services, virtual organisations that may be open to absolutely anyone, just those within the EGI community, or they may be specific to a small project or to one country only. The Training Marketplace is the one-stop shop for your training needs as a user, as a trainer and is open and free for both academic and commercial providers to advertise in.
Since May the Training Marketplace has evolved from a simple event and material repository into a interactive site where requirements can be captured, can be rated, commented, moreover the marketplace itself can be customised and embedded into third-party websites using a web gadget generator.
The following types of resources are currently supported by the marketplace:
- traditional training events, usually classroom based or workshops where people attend in person. They can also include virtual events running at specific times. The difference between training events and online training is that training events have a set start and end time whereas online training is accessible either permanently or over a longer time scale. You can choose to display events as a list, on a calendar or on an interactive map.
- online training, available via the web. This category covers a wealth of resources, from self-study courses that require users to log in and complete exercises at their own pace leading to a qualification, through to online tutorials that users can tap into as they wish. An example is the Globus tutorials that are registered from the IGE Training Hub.
- training resources, physical resources or services available to the community to assist in training. An example of a training resource is the GILDA Certification Authority which issues temporary (14 day) personal public key certificates for EGI trainings.
- the requirements area is a place for users to describe their training needs and for training providers to see if there is interest in running courses. For example, a provider may post details of potential offerings and ask those interested to visit their website for further details, to check for viability before running a course.
- University courses is the place for higher education institutions to advertise their Masters and Doctorate training opportunities.
After attending an event or taking part in online training users can rate the event and leave their feedback, letting others know the value of their experience much in the same way are people do with online shopping nowadays.
The latest release of the Marketplace is a step towards improving the user's experience and looking towards longer term sustainability. It includes the new online training category, much improved search functionality, notifications to authors once entries are published and an improved calendar view. We are now working improve the functionality and appearance of the Training Marketplace gadget http://egitraining.esc.rl.ac.uk/gadget/ , which allows projects or NGIs to embed the EGI Training Marketplace into their own website, pick and choose which parts to include and even skin some elements with their project colours. If you are an NGI or project we would be interested in hearing about your requirements for the gadget, so please contact us on UCST@egi.eu. In the meantime, register your training resource or browse other NGIs, projects’ or persons’ offers and needs.
