Motives for MOOCs in Europe

EUA has published its second Occasional Paper on the topic of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Authored by Michael Gaebel, Director of the Higher Education Policy Unit at EUA, it also looks in detail at a number of issues related to the development of MOOCs that are directly relevant for universities. The full paper can be downloaded here.
Motives for MOOCs in Europe
It is interesting to see the diverse responses to MOOCs that European national higher education systems and different types of institutions with different missions develop. Many European institutions develop MOOCs as a complementary strategic approach for international competition. This seems to be the case for example in the Netherlands and in the UK, where institutional leadership devotes considerable attention to MOOCs.
The UK’s FutureLearn initiative and France’s Université Numérique (FUN) have been presented as initiatives to ensure global visibility and competitiveness against the transatlantic developments, and to explore possibilities for international visibility and attractiveness. In the case of the French and the Spanish platforms, language is of course an additional aspect. But interestingly, they also provide some courses in English.
There is also the expectation that MOOCs could contribute to improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of higher education, and as a means of broadening and innovating learning. This seems to be the case in Spain, which has currently the highest number of MOOCs, delivered both by the open universities and regular universities. At several occasions, Spanish university leadership and staff expressed their conviction that MOOCs could be a means to revolutionise the present learning and teaching practices, and hence bring the change that the Bologna Process and national reforms failed to achieve. In Italy, the Ministry for Education, Universities and Research established a Committee in June 2013 to develop proposals to improve the quality of e-learning in the country, and in view of the eleven Telematic Universities. In France, FUN is one element of an ambitious e-learning strategy, involving all education sectors. In the UK, a report by the Department for Business, Education and Skills in collaboration with the Centre for Distance Education (CDE) and the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, concludes after an extensive literature review that MOOCs will in the long term contribute to significant changes in the higher education sector.
One of the promises is also that MOOCs would allow a better articulation between higher education and the labour market, and contribute to providing professional education opportunities for learners outside of universities. This seems to be a motive in many countries, certainly also those in crisis, like in Spain. Germany’s first MOOCs had been developed for professional education, though not free of charge, and university involvement in them has been marginal.
But there seems to be some scepticism towards MOOCs and the idea that they would play a major role as a transformer, innovator and game changer – beyond the novel approaches that would emerge anyway from other types of digital and online education. This seems to be particularly the case in countries that have already established a broad offer of e- and online higher education. For example in Germany, some higher education institutions have a longstanding experience in blended learning, and rather than focus on MOOCs, the current debate seems to centre on how e- and online learning can enhance higher education.
This may also be one of the reasons why so far there are only a few MOOCs in northern Europe. Many of the northern European universities have a longstanding practice in e- and online learning offers, and it may not be evident why they should now develop MOOCs. This is supported by the fact that there is a vivid discussion in the university communities of northern European countries: In Finland, for example, all universities have incorporated open universities, which may explain why the interest in MOOCs and international MOOCs providers seems to be limited, and discussions focus more on the development of new Finnish platforms for course delivery. MOOCs are certainly also considered by national authorities. For example, a Norwegian official expert committee issued a report on 18/12/2013, recommending increased public funding for MOOCs and other e-learning measures, including e-literacy of staff, and its use in formal and informal education.
The European Commission (EC) is obviously interested in MOOCs, for various reasons. As MOOCs attracted the attention of higher education leadership, this could help to underpin the EC’s “Opening up Education Communication” (September 2013). Besides bringing European education into the digital age, it also sees great prospects for IT skills development (shortage of programmers etc.). It conceded that it would support the development of courses through the Erasmus+ Programme, given also that many institutions would not yet have the capabilities to provide MOOCs. It also emphasised an interest in keeping courses open, which may have to be seen in relation to its ongoing efforts to establish open access on research results, and would – if turned into European policy – contribute to shaping the European higher education landscape.  Given the interest in modernising European higher education, it also perceives MOOCs as an opportunity for transformation and increased collaboration with business. Commissioner Vassiliou spoke on the occasion of the launch of the abovementioned OpenupEd portal of the European open universities, and on a number of occasions; other EC officials have addressed and also facilitated discussion on the issue, e.g. at the 2013 University-Business Forum. It will be interesting to follow developments in the next months, on whether and how a European dimension of MOOCs would be developed. In this regard, the EC has launched a tender to map MOOCs developments and to establish a European MOOCs platform, or to advise how to build on already existing network platforms. Another tender on innovation in teaching and learning mentions MOOCs quite prominently as one of the strategies to be studied.
The idea to establish a central European platform is still occasionally referred to, but it is unlikely to materialise. Europe is diverse, and its strength lies probably in decentralised approaches that compete and also cooperate. It would be more important that platforms that have been established in Europe so far, and others which may still emerge, would — in addition to their language preference — develop a clear profile that makes them attractive to both European and international institutions.
It is likely that European MOOCs will be of growing interest internationally. Some European MOOCs initiatives are (also) considering international audiences: e.g. FutureLearn has been presented by Prime Minister Cameron during his visit to India this year; some francophone MOOCs from different European countries target African learners; and Spanish initiatives reach out to Latin America. European universities are obviously of interest to the big international platforms, whose representatives travelled many miles over the past months to promote their initiatives and patiently answered questions from European stakeholders. A workshop entitled “Making Sense of Euro MOOCs” organised by Madison University in June 2013 did not only try to analyse the European situation, but also used the occasion to discuss the issues that US universities are confronting. Despite the different ecosystems, there are many parallels to be drawn. The global higher education community has found yet another topic for discussion, and hopefully for cooperation. Download the full paper here.