In the preface to the Proceedings of the 12th World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (E-Learn 2007, held in Quebec City), Conference Co-Chairs Theo J. Bastiaens, of the Open University of the Netherlands, and Saul Carliner, of Concordia University, Canada, observed: “Satisfying e-learners with the experience of e-learning— in addition to the content—is an increasing concern.”

With an eye on efforts currently underway with the NSDL’s partner publishers, I attended E-Learn—which brought together nearly 900 attendees from 52 countries and included 700+ papers (approximately 45% of some 1500 submissions)—to present Columbia CI’s plans to develop annotated concentrations of select research articles through the Library’s “Web 2.0” functionality as an experiment in guided learning that may serve as an anchor for online collaboration. To this end, E-Learn was an opportunity to meet with a diverse array of researchers and designers concerned with constructing content-rich and participatory educational artifacts and to establish, hopefully, some valuable contacts to consult as work progresses.

The major topics for the conference included content development, instructional design research, evaluation, tools and systems, and implementation issues. And under each of these broad headings were scores of focused papers/presentations on online collaboration, games/simulations in education, distance learning, informal education, guided learning, community building, and, of course, Web 2.0 in general.

During a two-hour poster reception, I introduced Columbia CI’s plans to many conference attendees. Here I was also able to present the NSDL central collection interface, the Pathways collections, and the NSDL Wiki from my laptop using the convention center’s wireless access and distribute ~25 copies of the paper, which will appear in the E-Learn Conference Proceedings, part of Ed/IT Lib, the AACE Digital Library.

During the concurrent sessions and a networking lunch section “Digital Libraries in E-Learning,” I met with numerous folks working in areas relevant to learning spaces such as we hope to construct around research content and other publisher assets (including a researcher from the Czech Republic who remembered Kaye and Dean from a meeting in Prague). Some examples of presentations of interest included

CoRe – Linking Teaching and Research by a Community-Oriented Strategy

The Potentials and Pitfalls of Synthesizing Research Evidence to Guide Practice in E-Learning and Distance Education

Ingredients of Educational Portals as Infrastructures for Informal Learning Activities

A Model for Online Student Community Building at the Program Level

Web 2.0 Technologies for Social and Collaborative E-Learning

I am pleased to have already heard back from one visitor to the networking lunch concerned with the semantic web, ontologies, curriculum development, and scholarly publishing. He was good enough to send along a reprint.

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Apart from productive (I trust) and genuinely enjoyable interactions from the World Conference, and in the spirit of a true Road Report, presented here is some information that will put you ‘in the know’ in Quebec City. But first, I must acknowledge the sage advice of the concierge of the hotel where I stayed. She suggested that although “Vieux Quebec” was quite lovely, I should get out of the enchanted village without delay and venture into the larger city: specifically to the post-industrial, now boho, district of Parc St. Roch.

This entailed walking about a mile out of Old Quebec into the Lower Town; for which I was warned to be careful as a few of the streets one must cross were “a little strange.” (This heads-up turned out to be a bit perplexing—apparently, in Quebec City, “a little strange” means there are no gift shops or over-priced boutiques on every corner. One wonders what her impressions might be of the “little strange” streets in New York.)

The restaurant she suggested, “La Cuisine” (The Kitchen), was essentially a restaurant -bar that resembled many a finished basement from the 1970’s. It featured an assortment of Cold War era, formica-topped tables and a décor of primary colors (Figure 1) with a “home style,” open kitchen in one corner, complete a family-sized, white consumer refrigerator, electric stove, and two microwaves (Figure 2).

The menu consisted of five “comfort food” main courses (all $8.00 CAN) and two soups. The ratatouille and autumn vegetable soup were both tres manifique.

P.S. Most common question asked during the E-Learn poster session: “Is it available in Canada?”