By Allison M. Vaillancourt. Over the winter break I had lunch with with a colleague I have always admired. He is smart, classy and gregarious, and I have made a habit of observing the things he does to appear so confident, put together, and bulletproof. To my surprise and chagrin, he seemed like a different person when we got together recently. Instead of being confident, he was unsure. Instead of being focused on the future, he expressed confusion about what to do next. Normally the type of person who fills a room, he seemed somehow smaller. What was the difference between before and after? The answer: He is now reporting to someone new. See more...

By Inge Ignatia de Waard. Vol. 9, No. 2 of the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (JOLT at http://jolt.merlot.org/) has been published and is available online. In this issue you will find 12 peer-reviewed scholarly articles, nine of which comprise the much-awaited Special Issue on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), guest edited by Dr. George Siemens (Athabasca University), Dr. Valerie Irvine (University of Victoria), and Dr. Jillianne Code (University of Victoria). The remaining three articles are regular-issue articles relating to various aspects of online education. More...

By Inge de Waard, Michael Sean Gallagher, Ronda Zelezny-Green, Laura Czerniewicz, Stephhen Downes, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Julie Willems. This exploratory paper picks up elements from the European Commission’s educational vision and philosophy behind Opening up Education, the resulting initiative of the OpenupEd.eu MOOC platform and takes this as a starting point to look at potential challenges for developing MOOCs that include vulnerable learner groups. In order to align the future conceptuali!ation of MOOCs "ith the vision and philosophy of Europe, potential tensions of contemporary and future education are listed. The current dichotomy of xMOOC and cMOOC are used to mark some of the unexplored MOOC territory. Practical ans"ers to contemporary, ICT supported educational challenges are provided as options to fuel the debate. The challenges and options for future online education initiatives are based on insights and ideas of international scholars and researchers reflecting on potential barriers for learners and online education. This paper aims to stimulate discussion of the potential for ne" educational technologies to ensure social inclusion for virtual and physical vulnerable learner groups. More...

À la veille de l'ouverture des premiers MOOcs le 16 janvier, un nouveau plan d'actions est lancé afin de développer l'offre de formation numérique avec notamment 8 millions d'euros de financement complémentaire et la création d'une trentaine de nouveaux MOOCs.
A la veille de l’ouverture des premiers MOOCs, cours en ligne ouverts à tous, Geneviève Fioraso a annoncé de nouvelles mesures pour développer les MOOCs en France. Les MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) sont des cours en ligne, ouvert à tous, qui se déroulent avec plusieurs milliers d’apprenants simultanément. Ils associent des ressources numériques (vidéos, textes, images...) et des activités pédagogiques (quiz, forum, réseaux sociaux, tutorat, évaluations...).
Le 2 octobre 2013, Geneviève Fioraso avait lancé la première plateforme numérique française de MOOCs, France Université Numérique. Cette plateforme est une des 18 actions de l’agenda numérique mis en place par la ministre pour développer le numérique dans l’enseignement supérieur et la recherche.
Dès le 16 janvier 2014, les étudiants, mais également les lycéens, les salariés, les demandeurs d’emploi, toutes les personnes désireuses d’apprendre et de se former, pourront suivre, gratuitement et à leur rythme, les 8 premiers MOOCs sur France Université Numérique. D’ici 3 semaines, ce sont 18 MOOCs qui auront commencé. Suite...

By Naomi Vera. The critique about MOOCs being patriarchal is theoretical rather than literal. Patriarchy does refer to authority being in the hands of men, either within a family unit or in a government or organisation. Most societies are still patriarchal in the literal sense because the majority of people in power, either in government, are men. This persists despite legal and constitutional reforms in many societies that provide equal rights, for the most part, to women. Patriarchy is also discussed in a more abstract sense in theory. For example, the history of Western science and philosophy is imbued with bias due to the fact that documented and produced knowledge was predominantly created and validated by European men. The voices of women, colonised people, indigenous people, disabled people, and sexual minorities were not widely heard, known or constructed as valid knowledge. More...

The EU has now launched a new mobility scoreboard to create an oversight over member state activities in relation to mobility of students. The Eurydice report published four days ago was a follow up to the 2011 Council Recommendation on mobility and is a product of cooperation with experts from the member states. The scoreboard focuses on five areas which we will briefly summarise below. See more...

In October 2013, Norway got a new coalition government formed by the Conservatives and the Progress Party after eight years of a social democrat government. In the area of higher education, a number of ideas have already been put forward, and the prime minister has also recently stated clearly that issues related to the knowledge society and knowledge politics are amongst the most important ones for this new government. See more...

Ausländische Studenten mögen Deutschland, die meisten kommen aus China, Russland und Österreich. Eine neue Umfrage ergab: Die Gaststudenten werden nicht nur mehr, sie sind auch zufriedener mit der Betreuung als früher.
Deutschland ist bei ausländischen Studenten weiterhin sehr beliebt: 61 Prozent der im Sommersemester 2012 befragten Ausländer, die zum Studium nach Deutschland gekommen waren, sagten, Deutschland sei ihre erste Wahl gewesen. 2009 war nur bei etwa jedem zweiten Bildungsausländer (47 Prozent) Deutschland das Lieblingsziel.
Die Zahl der ausländischen Studenten stieg 2012 auf 192.853. Herkunftsland Nummer eins ist China, gefolgt von Russland, Österreich, Bulgarien, Polen, der Türkei und der Ukraine sowie Indien. Erstmals schaffte Brasilien den Sprung unter die Top 20, wie das Bundesbildungsministerium und das Deutsche Studentenwerk (DSW) am Freitag mitteilten. Mehr...

Zum ersten Mal sollten Jura-Studenten der Uni Zürich eine Prüfung online ablegen. Doch das ging daneben. Der Server lahmte, statt Fragen hagelte es Fehlermeldungen - und so konnten einige Prüflinge nur tatenlos zugucken, wie die Zeit ablief.
Die Jura-Fakultät der Universität Zürich war sehr stolz: Erstmals sollten die vielen Erstsemester ihre Prüfungen online ablegen. Das sollte Zeit und Aufwand sparen und den Prüflingen ermöglichen, die Tests im Fall der Fälle innerhalb kurzer Zeit wiederholen zu können. Mehr...