In the fall of 2015 the Research Group Open Educational Resources of Fontys University of Applied Sciences - School of ICT has conducted a survey into the production and/or reuse of OER and MOOCs by Dutch publicly financed Higher Education (HE) institutions: 15 research universities, 38 university of applied sciences and 8 university medical centres. The goal of the survey was to provide an overview of the current situation regarding the creation, sharing and reuse of OER and MOOCs. Until then information was anecdotal, mainly about individual projects and programs. In this paper data are presented on the following three main issues: production and publication of open educational resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), re-use of OER and/or MOOCs (motives, forms and target audiences) and the presence or absence of an institutional vision and policy. Some of the outcomes of the survey are compared with the results of two other surveys: the survey of the OER Research Hub and a survey on policy for OER in the Netherlands in 2012. The results of the current survey indicate that on many places in universities (including university medical centres) and universities of applied sciences OER and/or MOOCs are being published and reused, but also that many institutions still lack a coherent vision or policy on this subject. The data of the survey, however, do no yet provide an overview on which conclusions may be drawn for individual institutions. Further research must enhance the current picture.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have continued to attract considerable media coverage as governments and universities respond to the open and online education movement. Three years after the MOOCs began its rise, it is clear that the HE institutions in the EU are gaining speed in this movement. This report on MOOCs intends to contribute to literature on MOOCs in Europe. Its specific aim is to present data on the perception and objectives of European higher education institutions on MOOCs and the main drivers behind the MOOC movement. In addition, the report makes a comparison with similar studies conducted in the United States in 2013 and 2014 and to data produced by the European University Association (EUA) between October and December 2013. The report made clear that involvement is still increasing, but also that arguments to get involved differ from those in the US. The main source is a survey conducted by the project HOME - Higher education Online: MOOCs the European way, partly funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The survey was conducted in October - December 2014. In total 67 institutions responded out of 22 European countries representing in total about 2.8 millions of students.
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The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) movement is the latest ‘big thing’ in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) which threatens to transform Higher Education. Both opportunities and threats are extensively discussed in literature, comprising issues on opening up education for the whole world, pedagogy and online versus campus education. Most of the literature focus on the origin of the MOOC movement in the US. The specific context of Europe with on the one hand autonomous countries and educational systems and on the other hand cross-border cooperation and regulations through the European Union differs from the US context. This specific context can influence the way in which the MOOC movement affect education in Europe, both reusing MOOCs from other continents (US) as publishing MOOCs, on a European platform or outside of Europe. In the context of the EU funded HOME project, a research was conducted to identify opportunities and threats of the MOOC movement on the European institutions of higher education. Three sources of data were gathered and analysed. Opportunities and threats were categorized in two levels. The macro level comprises issues related to the higher education system, European context, historical period and institutional level. The micro level covers aspects related to faculty, professors and courses, thus to the operational level. The main opportunities mentioned were the ECTS system as being a sound base for formal recognition of accomplishments in MOOCs, the tendency to cooperate between institutions, stimulated by EU funded programs and the many innovative pedagogical models used in MOOCs published in Europe. The main threats mentioned were a lacking implementation of the ECTS system, hindering bridging non/formal and formal education and too much regulation, hindering experimenting and innovation.
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