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Title:
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IMPLICATIONS FOR ELEARNING IN SMES IN EUROPE |
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Author(s):
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Sinead Averill , Timothy Hall |
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ISBN:
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972-8939-02-7 |
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Editors:
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Pedro Isaías, Carmel Borg, Piet Kommers and Philip Bonanno |
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Year:
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2005 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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eLearning, mobile learning, SMEs, Small Medium Enterprises, Training, life long learning. |
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Type:
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Short Paper |
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First Page:
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218 |
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Last Page:
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221 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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This paper examines the implications of eLearning, and in particular m-learning, for SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises). There are over 19M SMEs in the EU, and, according to a European Observatory on SMEs, they total over 90% of non-primary private enterprises and employ almost twice as many people (77M) as do large companies. They form a main source of new jobs, innovations, economic dynamism, and social equalization. For SMEs to remain competitive in a growing Europe and to compete in world markets it is that they continuously update the skills of their workers. SMEs do not traditionally place a high priority on skills upgrading and training for their workers seeing it as a cost rather than an investment because their business horizons are closer than those of bigger companies. However, the enhanced just-in-time and justenough training possibilities of m-learning technology coupled with the as yet underdeveloped pedagogical structures promise to address these concerns. |
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