• Article by Marisa Trigari on PERINE published on the educational journal 'Scuola e città'
• Survey on the Internet in order to gather relevant web sites for the PERINE database;
• Editing of new documentary records;
• Input of new documentary records;
• Focus on the special needs area - besides the main four ones (as to the retrieval of web sites, resources etc.)

National and European activity has focussed on the following main areas:
In the period September-December 2003 - INDIRE has been active in the following European and national projects

NEW! A new sub-site called 'Abitare la scuola' (Living at school) is being designed, presenting interesting examples of innovative educational buildings, spaces, playgrounds, commented by an architect who is expert in the field. This is a way of stressing the importance of the physical setting to educational researchers and administrators;
NEW! National project established by the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) for the teacher in-service training on new technologies Puntoedu in the framework of the MIUR- ICT project. New e-courses have been designed also for school managers;
NEW! National project called 'POF' (Piani dell'Offerta Formativa) on the schools educational supply. A free authoring software has been acquired by Indire as to allow schools to edit their educational plans;
NEW! National Portal on Adult education EDA to support lifelong education activities;
NEW! Indire fond, 'Ottavio Gigli' a fond has been acquired, dealing with educational material dating back to the beginning of the 20^th century (public and private correspondence, original documents, documentary material etc.).
NEW! Erasmus Caffè, an interactive environment for university students participating in the Erasmus programme (student exchange programme);
CELEBRATE, a European project that seeks to create an innovative approach to teaching by using e-Learning technologies and learning objects (INDIRE role: partner);
Dotsafe, examining issues to do with the safe use of the Internet; EUN-CLE (European Schoolnet Collaborative Learning Environment) which aims to create a multi-lingual international learning environment for young people aged from 8 to 14, acceptable to different national educational approaches to Internet safety. A specific portal, called ZAP, will be create to allow children to retrieve useful learning resources;
Musiknet, a portal on musical instruments and music museums;
Valnet, a European Validation Network (ValNet) aiming at building knowledge about innovation in schools and helping create the conditions for creating schools of tomorrow;

INDIRE has regularly updated the following databases during the period:
GOLD: documentary units relating to best practice in Italian schools at any level of education. The system is undergoing a process of revision. The new database will contained best practices selected by IRREs (Regional Institute for Educational Research) on the basis of common qualitative indicators. NEW! The first selection of documentary best practices by the IRREs is completed. Indire is selecting the most significant ones, also in relation to the enclosed learning objects;
BIBL: bibliographic references about Italian and foreign scientific literature in the field of education (+ 432 – Tot.:18,174 records); NEW! A new Clearing House on Evaluation has been selected in order to assure qualitative documentation.
Risorse Internet per la Didattica: directory of Internet sites classified by curriculum subjects, indexed and abstracted (677 revised and updated + 35 new records);
RIVI: bibliographic references about periodical literature in the field of education (+ 309 – Tot.: 35,189); NEW! The RIVI staff has participated to training courses for the integration of the RIVI database into the national periodical database;
EMER, directory of current Italian educational periodicals, with an index and content notation (tot.: 380);
DIA: Immagini per la didattica: images covering a number of curriculum areas, with indexes and content description. (+ 1609 - Tot.: 8089);
Portale per l’educazione interculturale, an educational portal on intercultural education, multilingual material and cultural-related initiatives;
Valutazione del software didattico : professionally certified educational software for any level of education. Assessed software: + 30 – Tot.: 202; selected: + 29 – Tot.: 171).
Two other information services were managed and updated during the period:
Handitecno: scuola, handicap, tecnologie, dealing with educational technologies for disabled pupils.
SET: scienza e tecnologia, about pilot projects on scientific and technological education promoted by MIUR within the 2001-2002 school year.
WINIRIDE - the software for school library documentation and cataloguing, produced and maintained by INDIRE - was improved by adding the functionality of derived cataloguing from the Italian National Bibliography.
INDIRE continues to operate as the Italian National Agency with responsibilities towards the Eurydice network (NEW! 1. Focus on the structure of higher education in Europe (2003/04), national trends in the Bologna Process; Press Release; 2. Organisation of school time in Europe (2003/2004 school year), 2003; 3. Publications and database catalogue 2003/04, 2003; collaboration with the Eurydice European office for constructing the new Eurydice Thesaurus) and Socrates programme.
The Institute has also continued to conduct special work playing as a reference point for school libraries and documentation centres in Italy and as a documentation and support agency for the Istruzione Formazione Tecnica Superiore.

For more information on the actitivities of INDIRE please click

http://www.indire.it