`International Olive Oil School Opens its Virtual Doors - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

International Olive Oil School Opens its Virtual Doors

By Denise Johnson
Nov. 12, 2013 11:20 UTC

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Anyone who would like to know more about olive oil will now be able to learn from world-renowned experts with­out trav­el­ling to Rome, Athens or Madrid.

The International Olive Oil School (IOOS), launch­ing this week at oliveoilschool.org, offers an expand­ing cur­ricu­lum of online courses to fos­ter greater knowl­edge on top­ics of olive oil qual­ity, its health aspects and usage.

“With an ini­tial offer­ing of courses on olive oil tast­ing, health and culi­nary appli­ca­tion, the pro­gram is being designed for every­one from home chefs to food indus­try pro­fes­sion­als,” said Curtis Cord, pub­lisher of Olive Oil Times and founder of the school. ​“We are in the process of devel­op­ing courses on top­ics such as olive oil mar­ket­ing, prod­uct devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion. IOOS is the bridge between the world’s olive oil experts, and those who would like to advance their knowl­edge on a vari­ety of prac­ti­cal top­ics.”

Instructors and par­tic­i­pants will engage via an enter­prise-level web con­fer­enc­ing plat­form designed for the school. At the begin­ning of each les­son, reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants will logon to their course and be face to face with their instruc­tor, with the abil­ity to ask and respond to ques­tions. For olive oil tast­ing and sen­sory assess­ment courses, a col­lec­tion of olive oil sam­ples selected by the instruc­tor will be deliv­ered to each par­tic­i­pant in advance of the les­son.

One of the instruc­tors in the pro­gram’s expand­ing ros­ter of experts is Antonio G. Lauro, the con­sul­tant, jour­nal­ist and panel leader, who will begin with a ses­sion on olive oil sen­sory assess­ment. ​“This is an out­stand­ing oppor­tu­nity to reach peo­ple every­where who wish to learn more about olive oil and its cul­ture,” said Lauro, who will con­duct his lessons from his office in Calabria.

Class sizes are lim­ited to 25 peo­ple and will usu­ally be held Friday after­noons (UTC) allow­ing for simul­ta­ne­ous par­tic­i­pa­tion in most time zones. Most ses­sions will be 2 or 3 hours in dura­tion. Selected webi­nars will be recorded and made avail­able after­ward.

Cord said the web con­fer­enc­ing sys­tem needed to be seam­less. ​“Of course the tech­nol­ogy is impor­tant because the focus needs to be on the sub­ject mat­ter, not the soft­ware. What we came up with is a high-per­for­mance solu­tion that is easy and intu­itive.”

The school comes at a time when inter­est in olive oil is surg­ing around the world. ​“What we know from Olive Oil Times read­ers is that peo­ple are increas­ingly curi­ous about olive oil and are seek­ing solid answers. There was a need for an inde­pen­dent online course plat­form cen­tered on advanc­ing edu­ca­tion on this vital sub­ject. IOOS com­pli­ments the mis­sion of Olive Oil Times per­fectly, which is to facil­i­tate such a shar­ing of knowl­edge.”

Registration for courses opens Wednesday November 13 at Noon GMT on the olive oil school web­site.

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