Merlot

Marketplace for lifelong educational data spaces and smart services provisioning

Über MERLOT

In January 2022, the MERLOT (MarkEtplace foR LifelOng educaTional dataspaces and smart service provisioning) project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), was launched. MERLOT is one of eleven projects funded as part of the “Innovative and practical applications and data spaces in the Gaia-X digital ecosystem” funding competition. The scheduled duration of the project is until Dec. 31, 2024.

The MERLOT funding project will create specially protected educational data spaces and services within the Gaia-X ecosystem. These ensure that the owners of educational data always retain sovereignty over their data and can make it available to other users or services in an interoperable manner as required. Learners, schools, public institutions, administrations or companies are thus enabled to exchange educational data in a GDPR-compliant manner and to share it in a controlled manner without having to conclude separate individual agreements with each participant. This facilitates the interaction of the actors in federal systems and opens up new possibilities in the processing of highly sensitive educational data.

services

Smart Services

The consortium is developing Advanced Smart Services, various services based on data-secure AI-supported digital assistants to support learners in educational and career orientation or to accompany citizens in lifelong learning through digital continuing education assistants. In another application model, a digital education profile forecasting assistant will combine data from the economy and labor market development with individual education potentials in such a way that the virtual assistant will use them to develop targeted suggestions for individual career planning and propose promising opportunities (e.g., taking into account market trends such as the increase in the shortage of skilled workers).

Artificial intelligence

MERLOT demonstrates with these use cases that despite decentralized data storage based on the Gaia-X Federation Service architecture, processing of highly sensitive educational data using AI methods becomes possible without compromising data privacy, learner data sovereignty and other data sources.

visionary technology
goals radar

MERLOT Marketplace

The marketplace for certified digital services developed in MERLOT ensures, on the one hand, the secure and responsible provision and use of data according to European values and rules in a transparent ecosystem open to all providers. Learners, schools, public institutions, administrations or companies can thus select and use services from a trusted source. The marketplace enables dynamic competition, innovation and new types of collaborations among education service providers. The emergence of diverse digital tools for individual educational and skills development is promoted, thus improving equal opportunities and educational equity overall.

Consortium leadership

IMC part of Scheer

Consortium partners

August-Wilhelm Scheer Institut Digital Research
dataport
Edu-sense
IONOS
International Data Spaces Association
Hochschule Karlsruhe Logo
hpi_logo
Schuelerkarriere_Logo
o Center for Cognitive Science