Session Information
06 SES 08 A, MOOCs and beyond
Paper Session
Contribution
ECO (Elearning, Communication and Open-data: Massive Mobile, Ubiquitous and Open Learning) is an ambitious project funded from the European Community's CIP (Programme under grant agreement n° 21127)
The ECO proposal aims at extending to a pan-European scale the most successful MOOC experiences in Europe, piloting and showcasing these best practices by its implementation in regional hubs of excellence throughout Europe. To do so ECO will implement a merged MOOC platform integrating different modules provided by some ECO partners, to train teachers for online collaborative learning and certify teachers who will create their own courses.
The project will be piloted in the following locations across Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Italy. The Project will also corporate with universities who are using the MOOC methodology outside Europe – La Universidad Nacional de Quilmes de Argentina and La Universidad Manuela Beltrán de Colombia.
Main project objectives are:
- To analyse requirements for MOOC platforms from a pedagogical viewpoint (Including learning analytics, web 2.0 and other aspects).
- To set up a framework for designing and implementing MOOCs.
- To design the overall ECO platform architecture and integrate all the individual modules building the overall platform.
- To pilot with the ECO platform in the 10 hubs involving at least 50.000 students (teachers from different educational levels).
- To analyse and assess the MOOC market international scenario.
- To develop an appropriate business strategy and business plan for ECO sustainability.
- To increase awareness in Europe on the open educational resources benefits for European citizens and institutions.
Open Educational Resources (OER) has the potential to widen access to education and to improve the quality and cost-efficiency of teaching and learning in Europe. (UNESCO, 2012)
The most successful way to achieve a practical implementation of OERs are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are large-scale online courses and represent one of the latest developments in open education in its continuous effort to improve quality, access and equity in education and training. MOOCs can be applied to formal/informal/non-formal learning and make learning ubiquitous (Fischer, 2014). ECO will focus on extending to a pan-European scale the most successful MOOC experiences in Europe, piloting and showcasing these best practices by its implementation in regional hubs of excellence throughout Europe, assessing the outcomes, results and lessons learnt from these best practices in open and mobile learning.
ECO will contribute to increasing awareness in Europe of the benefits of open educational resources for European citizens and institutions. The project will demonstrate the potential of MOOC (courses & communities) for lowering or remove technological barriers in learning processes for users with special needs or at risk of exclusion.
The expected impact of ECO will be increased by preparing certified teachers who will be able to create their own online courses and other open educational resources and distribute them through the open learning platform that gathers all the pilot projects. This will extend the project impact to their respective communities. Therefore, ECO pilots will pay special attention to training European teachers
Participant organizations in the project are:
Universidad Nacional De Educación A Distancia (Spain)
Open Universiteit Nederland (Netherlands)
Universidad De Valladolid (Spain)
University Of Manchester (England)
Universidade Aberta (Portugal)
Universidad De Oviedo (Spain)
Politecnico Di Milano (Italy)
Universidad De Zaragoza (Spain)
Universidad De Cantabria (Spain)
Reimer It Solutions B.V. (Netherlands)
Sunne Hanna Eichler (Germany)
Universidad Loyola Andalucia (Spain)
Universite Paris Iii Sorbonne Nouvelle (France)
Tabarca (Spain)
Telefónica Learning Services S.L. (Spain)
Fedrave (Portugal)
Editrain, S.L. (Spain)
Vereniging Van European Distance Teaching Universities (Netherlands)
Humance Ag: (Germany)
Prisma Vista Digital S.L. (Spain)
Universidad De Quilmes (Argentina)
Universidad Manuela Beltrán (Colombia)
Yaco Sistemas (Spain)
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Fischer, G. (2014). Beyond hype and underestimation: Identifying research challenges for the future of MOOCs. Distance Education, 35(2), 149-158. doi:10.1080/01587919.2014.920752 Gaebel, M. (2013). MOOC. Massive Open Online Courses. Brussels: European University Association (EUA). Jona, K. & Naidu, S. (2014). Editorial. MOOCs: emerging research. Distance Education, 35 (2), 141-144. doi: 10.1080/01587919.2014.928970. Perna, L. W., Ruby, A., Boruch, R. F., Wang, N., Scull, J., Ahmad, S., & Evans, C. (2014). Moving through MOOCs: Understanding the progression of users in massive open online courses. Educational Researcher, 43(9), 421-432. doi:10.3102/0013189X14562423. UNESCO (june, 2012). 2012 Paris OER Declaration. World OER Congress, Paris, France. Retrieved from http://oercongress.weebly.com/paris-declaration.html Yuan, L., & Powell, S. (2013). MOOCs and open education: Implications for higher education. Bolton: University of Bolton, Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards & JISC. Retrieved from http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MOOCs-and-Open-Education.pdf
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