By Natasha Lomas. Berlin-based MOOCs startup iversity, which last year began a pivot away from online learning collaboration tools with the aim of becoming the Coursera of Europe, is launching its first clutch of free online courses today.
Back in March, iversity told TechCrunch it was hoping to attract six-digits’ worth of students at the launch of its MOOCs. And it’s managed to do so — saying initial student sign-ups have exceeded 100,000. More...

Sur le blog Educpros de Brigitte Fournier. Tandis que les États-Unis découvrent les  SPOCs (les cours en ligne soumis à un processus de sélection et destinés  à un nombre restreints de participants), l’Europe se réconcilie enfin avec les MOOCs(les cours en ligne ouverts et massifs, voir précédent article). Le mois dernier, la Commission européenne a lancé Open Education Europa, un site web qui servira de porte d’entrée unique à l’éducation ouverte européenne. Ce lancement fait partie de l’initiative « Ouvrir l’éducation », lancée aussi en septembre par la Commission « pour stimuler l’innovation et les compétences numériques dans les écoles et les universités ». Dans l’enseignement supérieur, cela se traduit par la facilitation de l’introduction des MOOCS dans les institutions. More...

By A. Papapostolou. The rectors of eight Greek universities who have failed to supply the Education Ministry with details of their 4,574 administrative staff, a third of whom must join a so-called mobility scheme, are reportedly seeking a meeting with troika officials to press their case.
The rectors, are planning to travel to Bruxelles this Thursday to brief the European Parliament on their demands.
Meanwhile the ministry has drafted legislation foreseeing the suspension of all the universities’ administrative staff unless all eight institutions submit lists of their employees along with the additional information necessary for authorities to evaluate them. More...

Par Aude Fredouelle. Bruxelles envisage de créer un cadre pour le crowdfunding au niveau de l'Union Européenne. Une consultation en ligne ouverte à tous a été lancée.
Alors que la France s'apprête à créer un cadre et un statut propres au crowdfunding pour aider à son développement (Lire l'article : "Crowdfunding : Fleur Pellerin présente son projet de cadre législatif", du 30/09/13), la Commission Européenne pourrait à son tour décider de légiférer. Une consultation a été lancée le 3 octobre sur le sujet. Elle concerne toutes les formes de crowdfunding (don, prêt, equity). Jusqu'au 31 octobre, un questionnaire est accessible en ligne, tant pour les citoyens que pour les acteurs du financement participatif. Suite...

The Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and ASEAN held a two-day European Higher Education Fair (EHEF) to respond to increases in the number of Indonesian people who are interested to study in Europe.
The delegation’s head of cooperation, Franck Viault, said Europe, with a wide variety of countries and cultures and a large number of universities, had continued to improve its educational institutions. More...

'Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations'. Senator William Fulbright
As the debate on internationalisation of higher education grows stronger, so does the interest in mobility not only of students, but also of staff. This is likely to intensify in the coming months, as the European Commission's new Erasmus+ programme, starting in 2014, promises more opportunities and funding for higher education and teaching staff to study, train and work in another country. Indeed, higher education staff will account for a significant percentage of the 1 million beneficiaries of a mobility period funded by the programme between 2014 and 2020.
Staff mobility is seen as a vital and often cost-effective means of creating 'internationalisation at home' – enabling students to (in)directly experience another higher education culture on site. It is also widely believed that staff mobility has an additional value in acting as a catalyst for student mobility. More...

"Expert RA" rating agency prepared the second annual ranking of Russian universities. A comprehensive survey included the statistics analysis and large-scale interviews with more than 4,000 respondents: employers, representatives of the academic and scientific community, students and graduates and was carried out with support of ‘Volnoye Delo’ Oleg Deripaska Foundation.
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Saint Petersburg State University, and National Research Nuclear University ‘MEPhI’ are on top of the ranking. More...

Our 3rd call for applications to join the European Master's in Translation network is now open. Universities may apply if they run programmes that comply with EMT quality standards. Already a member? Then you must re-apply with a complete file to renew your membership — selection cannot be guaranteed.

• deadline for applications: 16 December 2013
• we will inform you of the outcome by 2 June 2014

EMT membership (or observer status) will take effect on the day of publication, lasting five years. We will monitor memberships and organise a mid-term review. The EMT Board will deal with potential cases of doubt about continued membership.

Apply now

Please read thoroughly:

Please complete and send:

• the application form(472 Kb)  
• the declaration of conformity(74 Kb)  

Please make sure you duly complete all required information, fill in the documents mentioned in the guide for applicants and attach all relevant annexes.

For details of where to send your application and what documents to include, see the guide for applicants.

If you have any question about EMT or the application procedure please contact us: DGT-EMT-Selection2014@ec.europa.eu.

More about the evaluation procedure: see the assessment form(160 Kb)   and guide for assessors(267 Kb)   .

Why join?

By joining and contributing, your institution will benefit from a partnership with DG Translation and from the collective efforts of the network to achieve the following objectives:

• enhance the status of translation as a profession
• promote a quality label of qualifications
• raise the profile of your programme
• help those managing programmes to develop the right competences by:
  • strengthening programmes
  • re-assessing training methods
  • sharing competences and resources
  • negotiating with partner associations, institutions, and technical and commercial organisations as a network
  • building up cooperation links
  • taking part in an ongoing EMT forum on competences, criteria, resources, methods and requirements.

Eligibility

You can apply if your programme:

• is already in place in (and authorised by) an EU country
• is an authorised programme run by a university in certain non-EU countries (prospective new member countries, countries taking part in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) or the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland and Russia). Programmes from these countries will be granted observer status.

Selection criteria

We also assess your programme against a number of other criteria – relevant to EMT standards(45 Kb)   and the EMT strategy(36 Kb)   :

• structure of the programme — objectives, credits and expected learning outcomes of the courses given
• coverage of EMT competences

• human resources — number of teaching staff and their qualifications
• infrastructure assigned to the programme, e.g. premises, IT equipment, CAT-tools
• career support & monitoring — including career guidance for students, internships, tracking of careers after graduation and employment statistics

Additional assets

We particularly welcome applications from programmes that demonstrate the following attributes — though these are not taken into account in the selection decision:

• cooperation with higher education institutions at an international level or participation in national networks
• effective quality assurance system
• active in research