Why the ORION Network is needed

Along the far edges and coastlines of Europe, the applied marine sciences play a major economic role in fisheries and aquaculture. It is therefore not surprising that educational centres in such locations have developed excellent courses to meet the needs of their students. However excellent these courses may be, they still need a steady inflow of students from other areas in order to survive, because remote areas are nearly always depopulated areas.

Why the emphasis on less widely spoken languages?

Tertiary education in some remote areas can be limited by the language of course delivery. How many students are fluent in the three original ORION languages(Greek, Portuguese, Swedish are termed Least Widely Spoken Languages)? Each of these languages, though culturally very important, is often superseded by the widespread use of English for course delivery, particularly in courses of a scientific nature. Click here to see the ORION Language Learning Policy.

What does the ORION Network do?

Recognising the crucial importance of language learning in the diverse academic and cultural mix that is present-day Europe, the ORION network has created a Virtual Learning Environment powered by a suite of innovative teaching/ learning tools, which can help solve some of these problems. The ORION network links its partners by means of a distributed network which hosts jointly -run courses, course resources and language learning modules.

How does the ORION Network operate?

The ORION Network operates an integrated learning service which combines an open access approach used in its basic language learning units (English, Greek, Portuguese, Swedish) and the ORION Resources, and a restricted site which contains the course materials used in actual and jointly run academic courses.

  • The ORION network provides basic self-tuition modules in English, Greek, Swedish and Portuguese to reflect the real-life situation and to aid content comprehension.
  • The ORION Network provides a marine science glossary with 1200 terms and definitions instantly available in English, Greek, Portuguese and Swedish.
  • The ORION Network provides secure ODL delivery of content modules in available to registered users only.

The ORION Network is the outcome of a LEONARDO da VINCI Pilot project (EL 2001 BP LA 114443, 2001-2004) coordinated by the Institute of Marine Biology of Crete, now the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research.
For full details of the project please see the Final Report.        

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