E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

On Wednesday 13th of April,  I attended a #OEGlobal session in which MIT and OpenUniversity presented their results of many years of Open Education. The general feeling I had over these two presentation was that Open University has a very clear strategy and MIT is just bopping around. I know that this is not true for MIT OpenCourseWare, but it certainly is the impression I got about MITx.

15 years vs 3 years

In 15 years MIT OpenCourseWare has accomplished a lot. They reached 203M people around the world. There production proces and IP handling is very professional and made sure that they have published over 3000 courses.
The contrast with MITx can’t be any bigger. They have produced 83 unique MOOCs, but I didn’t get the impression that there is a standardised proces and the process definitely is different from MIT OCW. I really don’t understand why MITx hasn’t used more of the expertise of their OCW team. It seems that they are reinventing the wheel while their colleagues next door, already know the answer.

In their presentation Joseph Pickett and Dana Doyle stated that OCW and MITx are very separate from the start:

• Different buildings
• No clear communication as to who is doing what
• Both groups extremely busy producing course sites and online courses

Since 2015 the teams have been working more closely together, they state "MITx is still a young organization seeking to find an optimum path in a changing environment".

Ten years of open practice: a reflection on the impact of OpenLearn

The presentation of Patrina Law was so different from MIT. The strategy and activities of OpenLearn are very organised. Their strategy in engaging learners seems very logical:

I especially liked the slide with the guiding principles for all their courses:

• Learners most value quizzes with feedback
• Use of activities and video also highly rated
• Select the most engaging content within a module
• Make a key topic accessible to new learners
• Ensure the course works as a stand-alone piece of learning
Learners

value recognition for their achievement

(statement of participation)

Their project of Badged Open Courses is a very good example of their activities:

The Badged Open Courses project returned the investment in 4 months via extra enrolments (26% clickthrough rate):

• 2500+ badges issued
• The BOCs are generating around 12,000 new visitors a month to OpenLearn
• They drive a very high proportion of learners to click-through to make an enquiry to the OU (26.2% Feb-Nov 2015)
• Completion rates of BOCs are higher than our MOOCs
• 350 formal module registrations have been made (mostly entry level)
• 2,500 prospectus requests
• >300 qualification sign-ups (mostly new students)
• Satisfaction rates very high (~98%)
• 57% say that they will be sharing their achievements with an employer

Altogether it showed me that if you have a clear strategy and align all your projects towards this strategy a vialable business model is open education projects.

This week I'm attending the Open Education Global Conference in Krakow. This is the yearly conference of the Open Education Consortium of which I'm member of the Board of Directors (and just got re-elected for 2 years).

On the first day I presented about the impact of 30 DelftX MOOCs. In general I can say that the impact of our MOOCs is much higher than we anticipated when we started in 2013. In my presentation I discuss 6 impacts:

1. Educating the world
2. Increasing TU Delft’s international Reputation
3. Improving campus education
4. New relations between education and research
5. Collaboration with industry
6. The whole TU Delft organization

Currently we are writing the evaluation report, so later I will publish more about these impact. For now, you can take a look at my slides:

Last week it was Open Education Week. Many people world wide participated in local and online events during the week. We hope it inspired you for Open Education. Next month is the Open Education Global Conference were you learn more about Open Education and join the global movement in Open Education.

The Open Education Global Conference is the annual opportunity for researchers, practitioners, policy makers and educators to deeply explore open education and its impact on global education.

Conference participants learn from thought leaders in open education and have the opportunity to share ideas, practices and discuss issues important to the future of education worldwide. Sessions cover new developments in open education, research results, innovative technology, policy development and implementation, and practical solutions to challenges facing education around the world. The Open Education Global Conference 2016 will take place in Kraków, Poland from the 12th to 14th of April 2016. The theme of the Open Education Global Conference 2016 is Convergence Through Collaboration.

TU Delft's Vice President Education and former President of the consortium Anka Mulder will be one of the keynote speakers. Martijn Ouwehand and me we also attend the conference and we will participate in a couple of sessions. I hope to see you there!

It was a busy week with all the activities during the fifth Open Education Week. Every year the Open Education Week is a great way to share our thoughts about Open Education and inspire others to start with opening up their education. Here an overview of the activities I participated in.

Getting Started with Open Education

In Monday I started with an Action Lab on Getting Started with Open Education. We had a group of 20 people among many teachers who were new to Open Education. Below are the slides of that sessions

Workshop Open Education

On Wednesday Martijn Ouwehand and I were asked to give a workshop about Open Education at the European Students' Convention. This event was organised by ISO and LSVb, in cooperation with ESU.
I already blogged about this earlier this week.

Open Education Seminar & Debate

On Thursday we organised a seminar. It started with a keynote of Anka Mulder, which included a few minutes about Open Science by Wilma van Wezenbeek and ended with a panel discussion with some of the partners of our Credit for MOOCs alliance. Below is the recording of that session:

 After the keynote there were 7 presentations in two parallel rounds. These sessions were not recorded, but the slides are available on our website. The closing of the day was a debate, which I moderated.

Open Sketching

In the week before and during the Open Education Week we asked people to sketch or write what Open Education means to them. Many have submitted a card and Mark van Huystee made an awesome drawing of it. You see a small version as header image of the blog. For a full version go the our open sketching blog. you can also see the making process of it.

Conclusion

Looking back at this week give me a feeling of satisfaction and proud. Satisfaction because we organised a lot of events and everything worked out as planned and proud in the leadership my university is showing in open education. I hope that we have inspired the participants of all the events to take steps in opening up their education. If you need help or more inspiration, don't hasitate to contact me or one of my colleagues. We are always willing to share!

Gisteren heeft SURFnet een verkenning gepubliceerd over regelgeving en aandachtspunten bij opschaling van open en online onderwijs. Deze verkenning is geschreven door mijn collega Marinke Sussenbach en Janina van Hees van SURFnet. Ik ben een van de vele mensen die input hebben gegeven voor deze verkenning.

De verkenning is bedoeld als handvat voor universiteiten en hogescholen die zich (willen) richten op de inzet van open en online onderwijs. Het doel is drieledig:

1. de belangrijkste randvoorwaarden en regelgeving identificeren en toelichten;
2. voorbeelden presenteren uit de praktijk van een onderwijsinstelling om te laten zien wat er binnen de huidige kaders mogelijk is;
3. een vergezicht bieden naar de opschaling van open en online onderwijs: in hoeverre moeten randvoorwaarden en wettelijke kaders worden aangepast?

Er zijn totaal vijf thema's waar deze drie aspecten worden toegelicht. De thema's:

• begeleiding van studenten;
• implicaties van tijd- en plaatsonafhankelijk onderwijs;
• online toetsen;
• erkenning van online onderwijs in formeel onderwijs;
• delen van leermaterialen.

Natuurlijk gebeurd open en online onderwijs al jaren, maar er is nu wel de ontwikkeling om dit op grotere schaal te gaan toepassen. Volgens de auteurs zijn er vier argumenten voor het aanbieden en faciliteren van open en online onderwijs:

• hogere onderwijskwaliteit
• effectievere besteding van contacttijd
• flexibilisering onderwijs en onderwijs op maat
• rijkere en internationalere leeromgeving

Belangrijke vraag hierbij is of de huidige wet en regelgeving deze ontwikkeling in de weg staat.

Hieronder enkele interessante observaties uit het rapport:

• de definitie van contacturen wordt nog vrij veel beperkt tot fysiek bij elkaar zijn, terwijl online begeleiding net zo waardevol kan zijn voor een student.Virtueel contact wordt nog vooral als aanvulling op het fysieke contactmoment gezien. Ten onrechte volgens mij.
• de huidige wetgeving laat zich nog erg beperken door fysieke grenzen. Door online onderwijs vervagen deze en de huidige regelgeving heeft hier verduideling nodig en misschien ook wel aanpassing.
• Op basis van de wetgeving is het geen probleem om een vak te vervangen door een MOOC. Wel is dat nodig als een instelling student verplicht stelt om het certificate te halen. Vrijwel alle mooc providers bieden alleen nog maar een betaald certificaat aan. Volgens de wet kunnen deze kosten niet doorberekend worden aan student en dus moet er een alternatief georganiseerd worden (aparte assessment, vouchers oid).
• Online onderwijs biedt studenten mogelijkheden om een individueel leerpad op te stellen. De huidige werkwijze via de examencommissie is niet opschaalbaar. Er worden door verschillende instellingen naar alternatieven gekeken. De TU Delft kijkt naar een Credits for MOOCs alliantie.

Al met al een uitstekende verkenning over de complexe wet en regelgeving in het onderwijs. Zeker goed om te lezen.

Today Martijn Ouwehand and I are giving a workshop on Open Education on the European Student's Convention in Amsterdam. This event is being organised by ISO and LSVb, in cooperation with European Students' Union.

In this workshop we give them an overview about Open Education and focus on why Open Education is important for students and how they can contribute in the adoption of open education. Below are the slides we used during the workshop:

Assignment

At the end of the workshop we gave the students a homework assignment:

What would be your next step in Open Education?

and we asked them to share their response as comment on this blog item. We are looking forward to their responses and their creative ideas to move Open Education forward in their countries.

Results

I have published the photos of the flipovers that the students created during the two workshops on Flickr.

Today is the first day of the fifth Open Education Week, organised by the Open Education Consortium. Together with my team at Delft University of Technology we have created a full programme with interesting activities.

Today I was asked to do an Action Lab on Getting started with Open Education in one of the new rooms of the Science Center (photo on the right). This workshop was aiming at lecturers that are new to open education. Below are the slides I used, you are more than welcome to reuse them as I have reused many slides from others in the Open Education Community.

 You can still join the other activities this week.

Op zondag staat Tegenlicht in het teken van de slimme universiteit. De aflevering gaat over de toekomst van de universiteit. Hieronder de promovideo van de uitzending:

 Rondom de uitzending worden regelmatige Tegenlicht Meet Ups georganiseerd. Aanstaande woensdag organiseert Studium Generale in samenwerking met Lijm & Cultuur zo'n avond over de slimme universiteit. Ik ben een van de sprekers die avond. De toegang is gratis, dus kome vooral langs in Delft.

Op 22 maart is er over hetzelfde onderwerp ook zo'n bijeenkomst in Breda waar ik ben uitgenodigd. De aankondiging komt op hun Facebook.

The European Commission has published a report on Validation of Non-formal MOOC-based Learning. The report is an outcome of the OpenCred study, which was carried out collaboratively by the ICT for Learning and Skills team of JRC IPTS, researchers of the University of Leicester, and consultants:

This report presents the outcomes of research, conducted between May 2014 and November 2015, into emerging practices in assessment, credentialisation and recognition in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Following extensive research on MOOCs in European Member States, it provides a snapshot of how European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) recognise (or not) non-formal learning (particularly MOOC-based), and how some employers recognise open badges and MOOC certificates for continuing professional development. We analyse the relationship between forms of assessment used and credentials awarded, from badges for self-assessment to ECTS credits for on-site examinations, and consider the implications for recognition. Case studies provide deeper insights into existing practices. The report introduces a model which guides MOOC conveners in positioning and shaping their offers, and also helps institutions and employers to make recognition decisions. It concludes with a set of recommendations to European HEIs and policy makers to enable wider recognition of open learning in higher education and at the workplace.

Full story »

SURFnet lanceert een nieuwe initiatief om ICT start-ups in contact te brengen met onderwijsinstellingen. Het initiatief is een experiment dat start-ups met innovatieve ICT-technologieën en nuttige producten en diensten voor het onderwijs helpt hun weg te vinden naar toekomstige gebruikers. De start-ups hebben al een toepassing, maar nog weinig tot geen afnemers en staan op het punt te groeien.

Op de website startuppodium.surf.nl kunnen start-ups zich aanmelden. Onderwijsinstellingen kunnen die pitches vervolgens liken. Bovendien kunnen onderwijsinstellingen die direct met een start-up in zee willen, rechtstreeks met hen in contact komen.

Ik verwacht natuurlijk dat een aantal YesDelft startups zich melden, zoals FeedBackFruits, ProjectCampus, Binkies, KE Works, Vemble, en WebChair. 

Start-up Live Event
Op 19 mei organiseert SURFnet tevens een Start-up Live Event, waar enkele start-ups hun product of dienst presenteren. Het programma biedt ruimte aan onderwijsinstellingen om in gesprek te gaan met de jonge ondernemers.