EMOOCs 2014, the Second MOOC European Stakeholders Summit, will be held on February 10-12, 2014 in Lausanne (Switzerland). Organised by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and P.A.U. Education, the event aims to be an opportunity to gather European actors involved in the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) phenomenon, from policy makers to practitioners and researchers. Read more...

The International Council for Open Research and Education (ICORE) was successfully launched on May 16, 2013 in Rome (Italy) during the Learning Innovations and Technology (LINQ) conference.
Over 40 participants from more than a dozen countries gathered in Rome to provide their professional experience, elaborating on the ICORE mission. Their diverse backgrounds, including computer science, information management, language learning, literature, physics, and quality management, brought a constructive and varied input to the meeting. Read more...

The jobs gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early has continued to widen during the crisis. A good education is the best insurance against a lack of work experience, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance report.
Unemployment rates are nearly three times higher among people without an upper secondary education (13% on average across OECD countries) than among those who have a tertiary education (5%). Between 2008 and 2011, the unemployment rate for the poorly-educated rose by around 4 percentage points, while it increased by only 1.5 percentage points for the highly educated. Read more...

The School of Open is offering its second round of facilitated courses. A total of 7 courses will be offered free of charge. Registration closes on 4 August, and classes will start on or after 5 August.
Launched in March 2013 and coordinated by Creative Commons and P2PU, the School of Open is a community of volunteers from around the world passionate about peer learning, openness, and the intersection of the two. The new round of free courses they are offering are: More information.

By Dr. Juan Cristobal Cobo Romaní. Over the last decade, open educational resources (OER) initiatives have created new possibilities for knowledge-sharing practices. This research examines how, where, and when OER are attracting attention in the higher education sector and explores to what extent the OER discussion has moved beyond the English-speaking world. This study analysed English, Spanish, and Portuguese OER queries over a long-term period (2007-2011). The data retrieval was conducted using four online platforms: two academic journal databases (Web of Knowledge and Scopus), one video-sharing Web site (YouTube), and one document-sharing Web site (Scribd). The number (more than 32,860) of search results collected indicate an increasing interest in online OER discussion across languages, particularly outside academic journal databases. Additionally, a widening “language gap” between OER discussions in English and other languages was identified in several platforms. This research reports some of the cultural and language challenges caused by the expansion of the OER discussion and highlights relevant findings in this field. Read more...

By Fred Mulder. In its first decade (2001-2010) the OER movement has been carried by numerous relevant and successful projects around the globe. These were sometimes large-scale but more often not, and they were primarily initiated by innovating educational institutions and explorative individual experts. What has remained, however, is the quest for a sustainable perspective, in spite of the many attempts in the OER community for clear-cut solutions to the problem of sustainability. This is a major barrier for mainstreaming the OER approach in national educational systems. Read more...

On 26 April 2013, the Commission for Education, Youth, Culture and Research (EDUC Commission) of the European Union’s Committee of the Regions held the International Conference on Pioneering Europe 2020 Smart Regions, in Espoo, Finland. The purpose of the Conference was for experts from city authorities, universities and industry to discuss how research and innovation can foster the development of ‘smart regions’ in Europe. About 80 members of the EDUC Commission (all of them members of city/regional councils in Europe) participated in the Conference. Moreover, experts from industry and universities exchanged knowledge about instruments and projects for developing smart regions. Given the relevance of the International Platform for Learning Cities (IPLC) to the promotion of smart regions in Europe, UIL was invited to participate in the Conference.
In his presentation on Lifelong Learning and Learning Cities, Mr Jin Yang showed that learning cities have become effective instruments in promoting lifelong learning for all in the international community. In addition, he explained how UIL, in collaboration with interested national, regional and international organisations as well as the private sector, took the initiative to establish the IPLC. All presentations at Conference are available at: http://euparl.net/. Read more...

Festo Didactic, a world leader in industrial education solutions, has agreed to support the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in establishing the International Platform for Learning Cities (IPLC) and preparing for the International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing from 21–23 October 2013. In a meeting with Dr. Nader Imani, Head of Global Education at Festo Didactic, on 15 July 2013, both organisations reaffirmed the role of learning cities in addressing urban development issues such as sustainable industrialisation, youth employment and social inclusion. Read more...