A successful Learn PAd review for the second year

08 Apr 2016 5 min read

The Learn PAd project started over 2 years ago and early April was the occasion to do status with the European Union institutions. This second-year review was especially important since it was the last step before the final one. On this occasion the consortium decided to take a risk: a live demonstration of the distributed Learn PAd platform (4 servers and one router).

All partners met on the 5th of April 2016 in order to make a full rehearsal of the real presentation. During the rehearsal, we also configured the platform and tested all the scenarios that were planned to be demonstrated. The whole presentation was structured in 4 phases:

  • business process modelization and uploads to the wiki
  • syntactical and semantical analysis of wiki contributions
  • browsing and recommendations in the wiki
  • simulation of business processes

On the 6th of April 2016, some of us were already in the EU building at 8:00 to set up the platform and test everything before the real review which started at 9:00. The morning was pretty tough with a lot of questions from our 3 reviewers. The live demonstration led to them asking a lot of questions, especially about usability. The afternoon was smoother even if reviewers continued to show a lot of interest in the live demonstrations.

16:00 marked the end of the review. The reviewers gathered to decide about their recommendations. Around 16:30 they presented their conclusions: all deliverables have been accepted. The important technical work was very much appreciated. 

However, they highlighted 2 important steps to fulfill before the end of the project (in less than 6 months):

  • serious experimentation on real end-users of the Public Administration
  • a solid exploitation plan for the future of the Learn PAd platform

Jean Simard
R&D engineer
XWiki SAS

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