Mecomp.net - organisational, sociological and technological aspects of a community network in the field of education and employment

Global competition and short innovation cycles in information technology (IT) and multi-media industries (MM) lead to rapidly changing requirements with respect to education and qualification of human resources. Traditional vocational training and education offerings are no longer sufficient in this situation and have to be supplemented with short-term, need-oriented and work-process oriented offers. In mecomp.net all actors in the field of media and IT-competence have been considered as community of interest, self-regulating the evolution of qualification offers based on current developments in the market and employment situation. Interaction, communication and self-regulation within this community is supported by an Internet-based Web-Portal, providing evolution mechanisms and match-making between suppliers and seekers of jobs and qualification measures. This paper introduces the basic organisational and sociological aspects of mecomp.net, outlines the main concepts of the Web-Portal (www.mecomp.net) and implementation, and summarizes the lessons learned.