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Abstract-- E-Learning is becoming an increasingly important

way for professionals to update their knowledge. It provides them with the ability to access targeted resources at a time of their choosing and at their own pace. E-learning is already well established in some areas, such as the medical profession. In the electrical and energy sectors, well constructed resources that promote copper intensive solutions to address service factor, quality and reliability problems within current installation will be of high value.

Over the last few years, the trend has been to produce

resources in electronic format and to deliver them via the internet. Elearning is a natural extension of this process, with individual resources packaged, together with self-assessment modules, to form a structured learning path in which the user is progressively guided through the material.

Self-assessment tests, before, during and at the end of the

learning process, enable the user to review the material, to refer to supporting materials or to post questions in a forum.

User progress through the material and their self assessment

responses are logged, allowing to assess the effectiveness of the material, determine future needs and gather information indirectly about their current practice and attitudes.

Index Terms-- power quality, disturbances, mitigation, education, distance learning

I. LEONARDO POWER QUALITY INITIATIVE – BUILDING

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

DUCATION has been one of the main activities of Leonardo ENERGY from the beginning of the program.

Even before the program has started officially under the name of Leonardo, between 1995 and 2000, the European copper network ran a series of national power quality campaigns. These campaigns were organised around partnerships with local organizations having educational motivation like universities or industry using education to build up their reputation.

Leonardo Power Quality Initiative (LPQI) emerged in 2001

as the common platform for education on power quality. The LPQI rationale was to fill the education gap of engineers who

Leonardo ENERGY (www.leonardo-energy.org) is the portal dealing with

sustainable energy which offers a lot of energy education options, one of them is the elearning campus on: http://www.leonardo-energy.org/academy.

Roman Targosz, European Copper Institute, PCPM, plac Jana Pawla II-1, 50-136 Wroclaw, Poland (email: targosz@eurocopper.org).

were expected to cope with the compatibility of the electricity supply and use, particularly in the context of more and more non linear character or loads. Co-financed by the European Commission, LPQI went far in depth and scope forming strong Leonardo brand.

Through joint collaboration of 10 contractual partners

LPQI developed application guide which consists of 45 application notes, web portal with “distance (e)learning” module (rather unidirectional knowledge stream designed to serve multinational language students) and many other facilities aimed at increasing knowledge exposure to users. LPQI was present in physical learning by seminars and other events organized in collaboration between LPQI partners and local institutions.

LPQI, together with two other projects, was awarded by the

European Commission in a competition between few thousand educational projects.

In 2005, when LPQI was still in valorisation phase, an

educational experiment was organised to compare LPQI’s elearning effectiveness with classical lectures. Students were split in 2 groups and tested. Even for this primitive e-learning system, it was found that there is no discernible difference between classroom teaching and e-learning.

On the ground of LPQI, LPQIVES (VES stands for Vocational Education System) project, also co-funded by European Commission, started at the end of 2005. LPQIVES offered deeper scope for electricians for whom electrical power quality makes up for substantial professional duty. The project was to set up a system of modular learning and personal accreditation in area of power quality.

II. POST LPQI – LEONARDO ENERGY

After 2005 LPQI has transferred into a number of directions. First of all, the request was to expand the scope of the initiative from PQ focused to the full spectrum of electrical energy related issues. By the same time EU funding had disappeared and at the same time, the internet was developing at an unprecedented rate which led to number of other pragmatic transitions:

From LPQI Leonardo ENERGY

Leonardo ENERGY E-Learning program on power quality

R. Targosz

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Modern Electric Power Systems 2010, Wroclaw, Poland MEPS'10 - paper P51

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From PQ to sustainable energy. From European to global From hybrid to web From multi language to English only Leonardo ENERGY published about 200 high quality

publications at the caliber of LPQI application guide. All together the number of assets which could be relatively easily organised into learning trajectories is close to 4000.

Realizing this opportunity, since 2010, Leonardo

ENERGY's elearning portal http://www.leonardo-energy.org/academy/ has gradually expanded as a solid distance learning education pillar of Leonardo ENERGY in 3 main areas:

• Power Quality • Energy Efficiency • Renewables

A. Approach

Leonardo ENERGY will use Moodle ® as default environment, Articulate ® as content preparation tool for highly animated content. Webinars, if possible will be used as the first step or progress control step for the courses. Courses have the following tools and mechanisms:

• testing and assignments • grading (combined with virtual certification for

volunteers) • forums and discussion • closed enrolments and closed course schedule for some

courses

B. The list of courses:

• PQ01 Introduction into Power Quality. Voltage dips and short interruptions, by SIER

• PQ02 Harmonics and Interharmonics, by AGH • PQ03 Voltage fluctuations (flicker), by AGH • PQ04 Overvoltages and Transients, by SIER • PQ05 Reliability of electricity supply, by ECD • PQ06 Earthing systems, by TU Wroclaw • PQ07 The influence of static converters on the supply

network, by CITCEA • PQ08 Compensation of reactive power. Voltage and

current unbalance, by North West University • PQ09 Distributed Energy Sources and Power Quality.

Energy storage systems by University of Magdeburg • PQ10 Utility Package (Frequency variations. Quality of

supply in the electricity market. DSM. Tariffs and power quality. Rational use of energy), by AGH, ECI

Each course requires about 20 hours of learning. The acquired skills will help in:

• identification of the disturbance nature • disturbance source identification • disturbance assessment by means of measuring • evaluation of technical and economic effects of

disturbance • proposing remedial measures

Already PQ01 and PQ02 courses are available. All together 214 students enrolled to PQ01 course on PQ introduction and voltage dips, and 244 students to PQ02 course on voltage and current distortion. More details about courses are available on: http://leonardo-energy.org/power-quality-elearning-leonardo-energy-academy .

III. DESCRIPTION OF E-LEARNING INTERFACE

The figure below presents the main interface of our Academy. The teacher / course creator interface is shown with administrator controls on the left hand side.

Figure 1: Academy home screen

This elearning platform enables quite convenient and close integration with Leonardo ENERGY portal. In fact any web resource can be adapted as Academy resource. However exchange between Leonardo ENERGY and Academy is even more straightforward. Below example of adding Leonardo ENERGY resources on harmonics as reference to Academy is shown.

Figure 2: Inserting a LE link to the course topic

Figure 3: LE reference in the Academy course topic

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Figure 4: Screen view of LE reference

Below the main view of PQ02 (harmonics) course is presented. The course is divided into topics while the learning content can be added either as a resource or an activity.

Figure 5: The course main view

Figure 6: Adding a resource

Every content type explanation is provided on request (question mark help button)

Figure 7: Resource types

Activities add interaction between a student and a teacher

Figure 7: Adding an activity

The basic activity used in our courses are tests

Figure 8: Example of a test

Tests are used to grade students and certify course completion.

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Figure 9: Example of a test score which is used in course grading

To produce highly animated content we use Articulate ® software.

Figure 10: A screen shot from PQ02 (harmonics) course

Teacher takes care about the course and students, particularly their queries. However very practical guidance on the use of Moodle ® is available at the bottom of screen view.

Figure: 11: Moodle “help”

Typically every two weeks the web-meetings using Adobe Connect ® are organised to help students in understanding the concept of learning and answer their questions.

IV. ADDITIONAL COURSE ELEMENTS

Typically every two weeks the web-meetings using Adobe Connect ® are organised to inform students about the time frames and help students in understanding the concept of learning and answer their questions. Such meetings are announced in forums and the site/course calendar.

Students are also invited to forums where they can add new discussion topics and exchange ideas on courses, verify if resources and tests are correct and sufficiently explaining the subject.

Additional elements are also polls checking students assessments of the course material and its relevance for their jobs. Courses are very positively assessed and over 60% of students (29 votes) declare high relevance of the courses.

To make the best use of the previous LPQI or Leonardo ENERGY resources such as application notes, minute lectures on PQ topics, the links to Leonardo ENERGY resources such as publications, videos or animations are placed in the appropriate parts of the course. Such links and files are usually described as “background material”.

The course graduates who graded positively (reached threshold score) from the tests are offered notification http://www.leonardo-energy.org/leonardo-energy-academy-graduates and electronic certificates.

V. CONCLUSION

LPQIVES was the project to precisely scope and structure PQ knowledge and develop main content. PQ course offered in our elearning academy program is in fact a harvest of LPQIVES assets. It took us quite a long time to make a final selection of elearning platform. Among the factors we considered and tested, the particularly important one, was the platform stability. Moodle proves to be the correct choice so far. Still many functions need upgrade and testing to fully exploit integration with Leonardo ENERGY and use of all our resources. The example is our weekly webinar program drawing loyal audience on a wide variety of subjects, which may become a valid promotion tool or a sort of a kick off for a course. However the short experience from the launch of our first PQ courses shows promising results. Other than PQ related Leonardo Energy subjects and content will gradually be adopted to our elearning campus. In today’s era of knowledge openness the ultimate challenge for our elearning Academy is to build the world’s reference campus for sustainable energy professionals.

VI. BIOGRAPHY

Roman Targosz born inWroclaw Technical University in Poland in 1986, Power Engineering Department.

His employment experience includedsynchronous machines and open pit equipment industry. In year 2000 he joined European Copper Institute where he works till today as project manager responsible for PQ economics, efficiency in transformers campaigactivities.

In 1995 he post graduated from ABB Executive Management Development Program.

born in 1962. He graduated from Wroclaw Technical University in Poland in 1986, Power Engineering Department.

employment experience included ABB – synchronous machines and open pit equipment industry. In year 2000 he joined European Copper Institute where he works till today as project manager responsible for PQ economics, energy efficiency in transformers campaign and elearning

In 1995 he post graduated from ABB

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