European Commission

About the European Commission

The European Commission embodies and promotes the interests of the European Union as a whole. It is the Commission that submits proposals for new European legislation to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. The Commission is also responsible for day-to-day management of EU policy and the allocation of EU resources. It ensures that everyone complies with the European treaties and legislation. The Commission comprises 25 men and women, one from each EU member state. The members are supported by approximately 24,000 permanent officials, most of whom work in Brussels.

Several Directorates General

U&I Learning has been developing and implementing customised content for various Directorates General of the European Commission since 2003:

• DG Commerce
• DG Interpretation
• DG Taxation and Customs Union
• DG Informatics
• DG AIDCO

Virtual classrooms in DG AIDCO

DG AIDCO implements the foreign development policy of the European Union. For DG AIDCO U&I Learning developed a virtual classroom that supported the DG's own software. A virtual classroom can counterbalance the loss of personal contact in e-learning: when a trainer and students are online, they can talk with each other using a headset and a webcam. Naturally a virtual classroom comes with a lot of learning tools, such as slides, multimedia, a virtual "whiteboard", et cetera.

We taught several trainers of DG AIDCO to use the virtual classroom and to develop an effective course in a digital learning environment.

Custom training for DG Interpretation

DG Interpretation organises meetings with or without an interpreter for the entire European Commission as well as for other major institutions. In order to optimise this task, the DG has developed software to centralise and automate processes: WebDOR. The DG wanted to make its application more visible and U&I Learning was asked to create a custom training module. The goal of this training was to teach students the necessary basics for optimal day-to-day use of WebDOR.

Tracing contraband at DG Taxation and Customs Union

The e-learning course Car Search was developed on behalf of the European Commission DG Taxation and Customs Union. This course covers searching cars by customs officials to find contraband. The course was supplied in three languages (English, German and French) and was translated into various other European languages. The course can be taken offline (on CD ROM), online (Intranet, Internet) or on an LMS.