The European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) is coordinating an annual MOOC survey for the fourth year already.
MOOCs are here to stay and they are becoming an increasingly important part of our educational system. Consequently, a considerable number of people see MOOCs as a serious option in their (continuous) education. MOOCs have an increasing impact on European higher education system Several independent European studies conclude that European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are strongly involved in MOOCs (>40%) and are using MOOCs to innovate their education offering to flexible learning opportunities next to increase their institutional visibility.
MOOC’s main competitive advantage is their just-in-time training capacity to meet the immediate needs of employees in fast changing industries such as computer forensics or data visualisation. It is expected that MOOCs will have an impact on the further development of formal higher education and continuous professional development (CPD), as well as in initiatives to open up education and will change the higher education landscape.
However, big MOOC platform providers are shifting to offering online courses that users need to pay for, partially by offering MOOC-based credentials and more than a dozen graduate degrees. The European HEIs seem to be in favour in keeping those massive courses for free, much related to the social inclusive dimension of European higher education system. MOOCs are even used for refugees and migrants. This raises the question if indeed a distinct European MOOC approach is emerging.
To shed light on this possible bifurcation, you are kindly invited to complete and promote the online survey on your institutional strategies on MOOCs.
Darco Jansen, Programme manager
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities - EADTU
Parkweg 27 | 6212 XN Maastricht | The Netherlands
+31 43 3118712 | +31 6 14829106 | Skype: darco.jansen
darco.jansen@eadtu.eu | Linkedin.com/in/darcojansen