Welcome to www.highware.es
HIGHWARE: Publishing educational content for the engineering of major scientific, industrial, IT, and infrastructure projects.
HIGHWARE's introduction in Spain was through its partnership with the EUREX project.
The EUREX project was part of the ESSI (European System and Software Initiative) initiative of the ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme of Research & Development in Information Technology) program, funded by the CEC (Commission of the European Communities).
The ESSI initiative (1994-1998) aimed to finance the additional cost associated with a change in practice in software development. A change in practice is defined as an improvement in the actions of software developers; this improvement is generally supported by the introduction of a new method, new tools or new technology.
The ESSI initiative has funded nearly 300 PIEs (Process Improvement Experiments) conducted by as many small and large companies in the European Union. Each PIE involves preparing, piloting, and evaluating the improvement of software development practices supported by the introduction of a new technology for the company.
Funded under the ESSI initiative, the EUREX project consisted of gathering, classifying and exploiting the lessons learned from these PIEs and making them public.
The EUREX project (April 1997 - March 1999) brought together the following five organizations: HIGHWARE GmbH (in Germany), GEMINI (in Italy), SOCINTEC (in Spain), SISU (in Sweden) and HIGHWARE SA (in France).
After an initial phase of analysis of the results obtained by the different PIEs in the different countries, the EUREX project consists of consolidating the results and publishing the results in a series of works which have been published by the German publisher Springer Verlag.
HIGHWARE was then a partner in the CORONET project (2000-2002), supported by the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme of the CEC (Commission of the European Communities).
Full project title was: Corporate Software Engineering Knowledge Networks for Improved Training of the Work Force.
The CORONET project partners were:
- Fraunhofer Gesellscheft für angewandte Forschung e.V. (Germany): Coordinating Contractor,
- DaimlerChrysler AG (Germany),
- University of Technology Graz -Institut für Informationsverarbeitung und Computergestützte Neue Medien (Austria),
- Centro de Computação Gráfica (Portugal),
- COMUNICACION INTERACTIVA (Spain),
- HIGHWARE (France),
- The University of New South Wales (Australia).
The overall CORONET objective was to improve efficiency of web-based training of the workforce. This has been achieved by the following detailed project outcomes:
- Development and implementation of a new training approach CORONET-train. It was essentially based on learning in corporate knowledge network environments, by collaborative work with human experts as part of the training sessions, and by visualisation of contents and learner profiles;
- Development and implementation of a new hypermedia learning environment to support CORONET-train. It was based on the components and experiences of already existing learning environments of the partners;
- Improvement of hypermedia content production by reuse of existing knowledge packages for methods and techniques in the software engineering domain. Contents production has been devoted to quality management, project management, configuration management, and innovative inspection techniques;
- Industrial validation of the new training approach. The integrated approach CORONET-train was tested in different industrial environments;
- Empirical demonstration of the benefits of CORONET-train: A common reference model has been developed, including the process of courseware development, the collaborative training process with group interaction and the process of knowledge sharing via corporate knowledge networks. The benefits of pedagogical, cost, and other aspects of the approach relevant to the user and the sponsor are demonstrated based on empirical data gathered during industrial validation. For this purpose, experimental user trails in two consecutive cycles were conducted: a baselining cycle (cycle 1) and a subsequent improvement cycle (cycle 2).
Since then, HIGHWARE has been developing its network of specialists, trainers and lecturers in Spain for the engineering of large projects, as well as its partnerships with higher education institutions and service providers.
Founded in 1987 by Gilles Vallet, HIGHWARE has developed numerous professional training programs, including the French-language "Postgraduate Highware in Project Engineering" (Postgrade Highware en Ingénierie de Projets - PHIP), which was awarded the "Registered Education Program" label by the IPMA (International Project Management Association) in 2015; as well as various higher education programs run and accredited by IX Academics:
- the PGCert PE (Postgraduate Certificate in Project Engineering),
- the PGDip PE (Postgraduate Diploma in Project Engineering),
- the MSc PE (Master of Science in Project Engineering),
- and other Master's programs, Specialized Masters, and MBA specializations.
HIGHWARE learning resources (course handouts, conference videos, software components, digital role games and remote learning) are in use at IX Academics (Higher education - Oxfordshire - UK), at IndeXpertise (Professional certification - Paris - France) , and a number of selected higher education partner institutions.
Thousands of project leaders have been successful thanks to HIGHWARE services, professional training or higher education in Europe (France, Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Ukraine and Greece), in Asia (China, India, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore), in Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt) and in the United States of America.
The HIGHWARE training administration and knowledge management system is operational at IX Academics and IndeXpertise..
In Spain, HIGHWARE is expanding its network of specialists, trainers, and instructors for major project engineering, as well as its partnerships with higher education institutions and service providers.
Contact HIGHWARE here.