*By Morten Andersen

Shelves run up two floors high when you enter Learning Lab Denmark. Books fill some of the shelves, but many are filled with toys or remain empty.

"The bookshelf is an old symbol of producing and publishing new knowledge, which of course is an important task for a research institution like Learning Lab Denmark. The empty shelves, though, represent the process in which the results are developed. We want to create a contrast to the academic concept of learning", smiles lab director Marianne Stang Våland.

"For many years the universities held a monopoly on creating knowledge. Today many realize that knowledge is developed in many different contexts. By working with the interaction between theory and practise we are responding to that".

The visiting address of the lab is at the Danish University of Education in Copenhagen, but roughly half of the about 70 people directly engaged in the labs activities are found at various research institutions and private companies. Many of them have another main occupation and the lab has bought a specific part of their working hours for a specific project. Their fields range from neuroscience over business management to working with difficult youngsters. The common denominator is that they are all interested in developing new methods, concepts and tools for learning.

Knowledge-based organisation

In other words Learning Lab Denmark creates new networks. The web site of the lab (www.lld.dk) and the web forums of the various projects link it all together.

"We are not an IT institution, although IT plays a role in many projects. But I think the lab would probably not have been established, had it not been for the growth of the whole networking idea", Marianne Stang Våland says.

One of the research clusters that partly have an IT focus is called "Tools for the Knowledge based Organisation". Here one of the three overall topics is "IT-based knowledge management systems and, in particular, their human context".

"This area of research responds to the change we see in the business and organisational world. Until recently the trend was to put everything into databases. Today the focus on how data is used in databases is changing. Now we know that information is not knowledge until it becomes actionable. The process by which this can happen we call learning", the lab director explains.

”If you want a truly knowledge based management, I believe that the personal meeting will still be a key element. In spite of e-mailing and video conferences we will still be flying around the world in order to see if we like each other, before we enter into a business relationship”.

Computer clubhouses

Another project is aimed at creating so called Computer Clubhouses for "underserved" youngsters. An after school arrangement where the kids create new technology solutions. The project is based on cooperation with MIT Media Lab in the US.

"Our approach is quite different to the one of MIT Media Lab as their field is technology and ours is social science.
But the combination is fruitful", Marianne Stang Våland says and adds that also a general principle of the US lab has come into the daily vocabulary of the Lab.

"We find their mantra of "demo or die" interesting. Although our profile is softer than theirs, we are also very oriented towards practise. So if a project can't prove itself in the real world, it doesn't have a future with us".

Learning Lab Denmark has a range of partners in Sweden and hopes to be able to establish a cooperation with another Øresund Region institution, the Interactive Institute in Malmö, Sweden.

Being Norwegian, Marianne Stang Våland is herself an example of Scandinavian integration: ”The whole idea of the lab is to be open towards cooperation between people from different fields and institutions. One of our top four indicators when we evaluate the progress of our projects is international cooperation, just as we are keen to cooperate with private and public enterprises whenever it is relevant for the projects".

More information: LLD

This article was originally published by Øresund IT Magasine (Spring 2003).You can download the magazine in PDF format on Publications.

*Morten Andersen is a Danish journalist based in Copenhagen..