The EMOOCs 2017 Conference (European MOOCs Stakeholders Summit 2017) took place at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Leganés, Madrid, Spain from 22 to 26 May 2017. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have been a game-changing development in education especially in the last 5 years. Technology was ripe as to allow world-wide education to flourish. Technology providers such as edX, Coursera, FutureLearn, MiríadaX and many others have been providing education to millions of people around the world.
• • eMadrid project (emadridnet.org) European University Association • • •
PAU Education Springer UNESCO Chair on “Scalable Digital Education for All” at UC3M (educate.gast.it.uc3m.es) May 2017
Carlos Delgado Kloos (General Chair)
Patrick Jermann (Experience Track Chair) Mar Pérez-Sanagustín (Experience Track Chair)
Daniel Seaton (Research Track Chair)
Su White (Research Track Chair) Darco Jansen (Policy Track Chair)
Mauro Calise (Policy Track Chair)
The growth of MOOCs has helped to make institutions, IGOs, governments, accreditation organisations and societies at large more aware of the opportunities related with open and online education. However, important differences remain with respect to European developments versus the American trendsetters. The following papers reflect the discussion developed through the Policy Track sessions of the EMOOCs2017 conference, focused on the potential of MOOCs as response to the challenges relating to the modernization of Higher Education and to emerging societal needs in a global and digital economy.
While the interest of HE institutions across Europe has grown considerably over the last few year, their concrete commitment to implementing strategies related to the use of new teaching technologies, and the MOOCs in particular, differ significantly. According to a recent survey, 45% of HEIs in Europe are having MOOCs or planning to develop MOOCs soon. However, numbers of the actual production still remain unsatisfactory, as only a few among the major public universities have shown a consistent effort in the development of MOOC platforms, thus also effecting the overall quality of European MOOC output.
Moreover, differences are observed between countries caused by (the lack of) supporting policies of other regional stakeholders. The first set of papers outline the strategies put in place within four universities - the University of Moscow (pp. 118-127) the University of Science and Technology of Norway (pp. 112-117), the University of Wageningen (pp. 133-138) and the University of Naples Federico II (pp. 89-95) - to develop projects aimed at including MOOCs in the university curriculum. The contributions highlight the difficulties associated with the organizational and regulatory aspects, with particular attention to accreditation policies, and the persistent resistances to face the main challenge of sustainability of traditional business models of universities.
The other face of the coin of promises behind MOOCs concerns the potential in addressing other major challenges for Europe, related to more general political and social issues, such as unemployment, skills mismatches, refugees and migrants’ crisis. The studies held by RAND Europe and Corsham Institute (pp. 104-111), and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (MOOCs4inclusion) (pp. 96-103), together with the experience of the Coursera for Refugees project (pp. 128-132), allow deepening the critical aspects related to the ambition of guaranteeing equality and inclusion to everyone.
May 2017 Darco Jansen (Policy Track Chair)
Mauro Calise (Policy Track Chair)
Committees Experience Track Committee • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Carlos Delgado Kloos, Univ. Carlos III de Madrid, Spain (General Chair) Patrick Jermann, EPFL, Switzerland (Experience Track Chair) Mar Pérez-Sanagustín, PUC Chile, Chile (Experience Track Chair) Gudrun Bachmann, University of Basel, Switzerland Chris Brooks, University of Michigan, USA Gavin Clinch, Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland Jean-Marie Gallito, Télécom Bretagne, France Davinia Hernández Leo, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain Irwin King, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Alison Littlejohn, The Open University, UK Jorge Maldonado, Universidad de Cuenca, Ecuador Kim Manturuk, Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology, USA Max de Mendizábal, Universidad Autónoma de México, Mexico Andreina Parisi-Amon, Coursera, USA Jeanine Reutemann, Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Switzerland Martín Rodríguez, IE Business School, Spain Andy Santarelli, Stanford University, USA Nicolas Sennequier, Mines-Télécom, France Gideon Shimshon, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands Marinke Sussenbach, TU Delft, The Netherlands Guadalupe Vadillo, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Ignatia/Inge de Waard, The Open University, UK/Belgium
Judith Zubieta, Universidad Autónoma de México, Mexico Research Track Committee • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Carlos Delgado Kloos, Univ. Carlos III de Madrid, Spain (General Chair) Daniel Seaton, Harvard University, USA (Research Track Chair) Su White, University of Southampton, UK (Research Track Chair) John Mark Aiken, Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ, Germany Aneesha Bakharia, University of Queensland, Australia Ruth Cobos, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain Dan Davis, TU Delft, The Netherlands Pierre Dillenbourg, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland Gulustan Dogan, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey Martin Ebner, Graz University of Technology, Austria Rebecca Ferguson, The Open University, UK Silvia Elena Gallagher, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Tanja Jadin, University of Applied Sciences Upper, Austria • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Policy Track Committee • • • • • • • • • • •
Carlos Delgado Kloos, Univ. Carlos III de Madrid, Spain (General Chair) Darco Jansen, EADTU, The Netherlands (Policy Track Chair) Mauro Calise, Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy (Policy Track Chair) David Atchoarena, UNESCO, Paris, France Yves Deville, UCLouvain, Belgium Jaroslav Fidrmuc, Ministry of Education, Czech Republic Hannah Gore, The Open University, UK Jeff Haywood, University of Edinburgh, UK Rune Heiberg Hansen, Danish Accreditation Institution, Denmark Anne Helsdingen, Center for Digital Education, EPFL, Switzerland Ilmari Hyvönen, Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland