ENEIDE R&D Project – Cap Digital

May 2009

PERTIMM is developing the search engine for tomorrow's Digital Work Environments (DWE).

Objective : optimize searches for document resources within DWEs for all stakeholders in the field of education, from teachers and the administrative staff to students and their parents.
Pertimm, a French SME publishing search engine solutions, is participating in ENEIDE, a 3-year research and development project, as part of the Cap Digital competitiveness cluster.

Project aim: Facilitate access to digital tools within the context of education

The ENEIDE project (Espace Numérique Educatif Interactif de DEmain, interactive educational digital space of tomorrow), coordinated by Hachette Livre subsidiary Infostance, brings together 17 partners, both private (Hachette Livre, Pertimm, Edumedia, Maxicours, etc.) and public (the CNDP, research laboratories of French universities such as LIP6, etc.), with a total budget of €14,304,000.

ENEIDE was the first research and development project focusing on Digital Work Environments (DWE). DWE, or "virtual desks," are a set of customized, secure online services accessible not only to students and teachers but also to other members of the educational community, especially parents. A DWE would allow a student, for example, to access his schedule, homework notebook and notes online from within or outside of the school, as well as to consult document resources or course materials made available by professors, or even work collaboratively with his classmates.

As a national, collaborative project that brings together all the players in the educational environment, the main aim of the ENEIDE project is to facilitate access to digital tools for education over the coming years. Users of DWEs (teachers, students and administrative staff) must be able to enjoy new features and an improved user interface that facilitate accessing and using digital tools, even when roaming.

The technological contribution of the 1st search engine prototype developed by Pertimm

From a technological point of view, the ENEIDE should make it possible to integrate the LOM.fr (Learning Object Metadata) standard, which aims to standardize the metadata (such as title, description, keywords and the author field) contained in teaching materials such as books, films, websites, software, etc.

This is the goal to which Pertimm is contributing its expertise in the field of semantic relevancy and information searching. The prototype of the search engine for ENEIDE developed by Pertimm is actually capable of indexing the full text of various types of complex data formats (PDF, .doc, html, etc.) along with the associated metadata (LOM-Fr standard). The finished demonstrator can use intelligent semantic indexing to search in three different databases, including the Educasources database of teaching resources compiled by the CNDP (French national center for teaching documentation).

Pertimm has included the CNDP's knowledge bases (Otaren and Motbis) in searches. This semantic enrichment vastly improves the relevancy of hits.

Expected results for the ENEIDE project in 2010

The Pertimm semantic search engine will eventually be integrated into the SWE platform designed for the ENEIDE project. It will be used to activate instant, cross-disciplinary access to all types of resources and information from one single point of entry, thus providing users (students, teachers or members of the administrative staff) with unparalleled ease of use and effectiveness.

The ENEIDE project targets not only the French market but also the international market, with its particularly high potential. With their innovative features and comprehensive solution for teaching aids, the competitive, innovative platforms and software developed for the ENEIDE could win a large part of the market share in DWEs.

About Pertimm

Pertimm was founded in 1997 by a team of three engineers. These product designers combined their expertise in linguistics, artificial intelligence, databases and real-time operating systems to develop an innovative technology for creating relevant search tools.

Today, Pertimm is present in Asnières-sur-Seine and Valence in France, as well as in the United States.

In 2004, the company received the Innovative Start-Up award from Anvar, after being nominated to the European Fast500, a group of the 500 European high-tech companies who have experienced the fastest growth. Pertimm's growth rate is 560% in 5 years.