Internet based training and education for coastal management in Germany: A critical evaluation

This paper examines progress towards Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) implementation in Germany based on findings from a stakeholder survey undertaken as part of the national German ICZM stocktaking exercise and evaluates the state and effectiveness of ICZM e-learning. It is evident, that training, education and capacity building for ICZM are important issues in Germany, but have to fulfil specific demands and requirements. The national ICZM internet platform “IKZM-D Lernen” has been developed to meet this demand. The contents, progress and state of the platform are described and compared with the similar CoastLearn and SETNet systems. Using a SWOT-analysis and an internet visitor monitoring tool, several modules and module groups were evaluated to establish the success of different types of online training and education modules. National and international ICZM strategies consider best-practice and regional case studies as an important element to illustrate the benefit and added value of ICZM, to ensure a knowledge transfer and to support training and education. However, German best-practice examples that are publicly available online have only very limited access rates and require active dissemination to have a training impact.