e-Learning: For the competitiveness of cooperatives

"Aura Interactiva is not only our solution provider, we are also working together on the identification of training needs in the sector, the implementation of Educoop, and the project promotion. That's why it is our strategic partner".

Rodolfo Navas
President
San Jose, Costa Rica

Through an alliance with Aura Interactiva, an e-Learning development firm, CENECOOP migrated its training offering to e-Learning in favor of the competitiveness of cooperatives.

The Center for Cooperative Training and Studies R.L. (CENECOOP R.L.) is a Costa Rican cooperative organization founded in 1982 and whose objective is cooperative company growth through education and research.

CHALLENGE:

The cooperative population is over 400.000 in Costa Rica alone, and the number is growing and growing; cooperatives are scattered across the country, and the new market rules demand unprecedented responsiveness by cooperatives. A prompt change response, the adaptation to a global world, and a fast knowledge transfer are part of the challenges CENECOOP has to face today to achieve its institutional mission of providing support to cooperatives.

However, it was not possible to achieve this mission based on the traditional training model; therefore, CENECOOP chose e-Learning or computer-based learning as the new training approach

SOLUTION:

At the beginning we chose e-Learning for its scalability. We wanted to start training thousands of school students on the cooperative movement because we thought that this movement was being slowly promoted, and that training was important for the survival of this movement. This first CD-ROM course allowed us to reap the benefits of e-Learning and embark upon the next online major project: EDUCOOP", said Marco Salazar, Director of Research and Development at CENECOOP.

Educoop is a regional project that is based on a strong learning management platform or LMS which combine collaboration tools such as tutorials, chats, forums, and other asynchronic solutions as interactive courses based on the e-Learning format. "The first available courses on this platform are part of a Training Program on Cooperative Management whose content has been developed by highly experienced and well-known experts," mentioned Stéfano Arias, Executive Director at CENECOOP RL.

RESULTS:

According to Salazar, for the first experience with children, the objective was to send the cooperative message to over 5000 students from 100 schools; however, 30.000 school children were trained in just 3 months. After investing $25 per student, in 2005 the investment was just $1.13 per student.

Based on this first national project, it was possible to change a cultural pattern where just the teacher was able to teach about the cooperative movement since children were able to accept technology-based training naturally. This solution is being extended to other Latin American countries after carefully adapting it to each historical and cultural background.

e-Learning meant for CENECOOP a positive change in which the entire organization has been prepared to support EDUCOOP regional project, which will allow creating growth opportunities for over 4 million cooperative-movement supporters in the region and increasing cooperative company productivity in the national and international markets.

"Aura Interactiva is not only a solution provider; we are also working together to identify training needs in the sector, implement Educoop, and promote the project. That's why it is our strategic partner," said Rodolfo Navas, CENECOOP R.L President.

For further information on the project, visit www.educoop.co.cr or www.cenecoop.com