The JEM thematic network addresses the need to improve the didactic tools and the teaching materials in mathematics. Recent technological advances regarding the representation of mathematics on the web make it possible to create and to deliver high-quality, reusable, interactive mathematical content to students' computers worldwide. Centres of excellence in mathematical research and education are scattered across the continent and all too often their effort fail to add up in the absence of an efficient system for collaboration and for communication between technology developers and authors of eContent. In Europe alone, mathematics instructors lecture students at about 4000 establishments of higher education every day of the week. They hold introductory classes consisting of basically the same notions but they cannot share the didactic materials with each other because they are unaware of a suitable language?independent easy?to?use platform.

The goal of the JEM thematic network is

1. to pool together the required expertise and
2. to contribute to the coordination of content enrichment activities in the area of mathematics,
3. to promote standards and best practices,
4. to deliver powerful synoptic high-quality user information and support pages, invoked in e-learning platforms operated by the partners.

The JEM range of awareness activities are addressed to educational content stakeholders in mathematics and focus on the benefit of enriching digital content with semantic markup. Additionally, technology developers are exposed to the concrete requirements of authors of digital content. JEM enlists the leading developers of the technologies as instructors and tutors for author of eContent and, as a result, distributes best practice sample material via established servers of major universities, commercial publishers and professional societies, like the European Mathematical Society. The JEM portal offers a social networking platform that identifies the community of experts in high-quality eContent for eLearning mathematics. By supporting authors, developers and distributors, the JEM portal ensures that a constant flow of information on the production of eContent is available and recorded in terms of reusable documentation.

The JEM network aims to create greater compatibility within European higher education in mathematics in the spirit advocated bythe Bologna process. Implementation of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System will be more easily achieved if high quality courses an curricula can rely on a common repository of educational content, on commonly agreed entry tests and assessment exams. Moreover, by strongly promoting cooperation in quality assurance it aims to show that technological innovation applied to learning has te potential to provide an opportunity to all.