Horizontal project integration

Experience has shown that horizontal integration is enormously enhanced if all partners in a consortium implement the project at their own sites. To be able to do that, sufficient operational knowledge of all system requirements and components must be available at each site.

To allow all researchers in HYDRA to collaborate effectively and efficiently a number of internal training courses are foreseen. These will be intensive courses in which all disciplines will be covered by advanced introductions. Also, the researchers in the project will get hands-on experience with the software components that are available at the time of the course.

The first course, which will take place shortly after the kick-off meeting, is intended to lay the foundation for successful collaboration in the consortium. Subsequent courses will emphasise the software components developed in the course of the project. One project internal course is planned for each year of the project. Senior researchers in the project will teach the project internal courses.

Vertical integration & training

It is common knowledge that researchers often find it difficult to explain the opportunities opened up by the results of their work to managers in the business departments of large companies. They also often have difficulty understanding the boundary conditions for the development of commercially viable services and products. In a similar vein, business managers find it difficult to grasp the opportunities and threats of completely new applications and completely new interaction procedures and to explain the limitations imposed by economically viable services to researchers. To alleviate this situation HYDRA plans a number of courses in which researchers and business managers meet to exchange information and to educate their colleagues so that they can understand each other better.

Three courses are planned in HYDRA for this purpose, in the second, third and fourth year of the project. A course of this type in the first year is considered inappropriate, because experience has shown that success is crucially dependent on the availability of operational demonstrators. The researchers employed by the academic and independent research partners will participate in these courses.

Project external training activities

Project external training activities will take two somewhat different forms, depending on the targeted audience. One set of training courses will aim at developer users in the full range of disciplines related to embedded software systems; another set of courses will address device developers and business development managers in related companies.

• Training courses for software developers - HYDRA will organise a series of training courses for software and hardware developer users in the HYDRA middleware concept and the HYDRA middleware. The frequency of these courses will increase towards the end of the project, as more and more demonstration middleware becomes available.

• Training courses for business development managers - At least three seminars will be organised to train business development managers in relevant companies to learn how to think in terms of device networks and middleware. In designing and organising these courses we will use the experience gained in the project internal training courses.

Course materials

HYDRA is committed to the production of professional course material in the form of interactive websites, books and other printed and multimedia material. The first set of course materials to be produced will be targeted at developers. This material will be derived from the project internal technical training courses. Finally, a comprehensive eLearning package will be developed. Here too, use will be made of the material developed for and in the internal training courses and material developed in other projects.