A platform for management of academic and entrepreneurial knowledge

Purpose - The globalization of business and education on the one hand, and constant technological development on the other hand, imposes the need for companies to continuously improve the knowledge and skills of their staff. The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) could significantly facilitate and accelerate the development and training of personnel. Using OER employees can gain new knowledge as well as improve their knowledge and skills and to apply them in their work more effectively. The paper aims to provide theoretical and practical insights for the development and implementation of an OER platform for management of academic and entrepreneurial knowledge. Particular attention is paid to the integration of OER with some solutions of the metadata publishing. Design/methodology/approach - Advances in information technology, and especially web technology, have offered many solutions for OER sharing. However, the biggest defect is the weak search ability of these resources on the internet. The amount of resources is increasing every day and users need much more time to find exactly what they are interested in. Because of that, drawing on theoretical studies and practical challenges, the paper deals with the integration of OER platform with some of the solutions for metadata publishing. Metadata should provide greater visibility and availability of resources on the internet. Originality/value - This paper seeks to shed more light on development and implementation of an OER platform intended primarily for academic education but suitable also for use in entrepreneurship. The development and implementation of an effective OER poses several challenges. First, it is necessary to define the objectives and target groups and, in turn the contents which will be published. Second, it is essential to define an appropriate set of metadata that should not be too exhaustive, but sufficient to adequately describe resources. Third it is necessary to explore the available platforms on the market and choose the solution that will largely meet our requirements. Finally it is crucial to adapt existing solutions to our needs. Practical implications - The paper offers a snapshot of some main platforms that are used for OER and point out their benefits and disadvantages. In doing that the study highlights how an OER platform intended primarily for academic education can be adapted for use in entrepreneurship. Moreover the papershows how it is possible to increase the visibility and searchability of resources on the Internet integrating platform for OER and metadata portal.