E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

This week I was invited to speak the 9^th international e-learning conference of the Thailand Cyber University project. The theme of the conference was MOOCs and beyond. Normally I don’t hear or read a lot about the developments around MOOCs and online education in Asia, so this was good opportunity to learn.

Keynotes

They had a great line-up of keynotes with Paul Marca of Stanford Center for Professional development, Zoraini Wati Abas of Wawasan Open University Malaysia, Madya Alyani Ismail of Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia, Dhawal Shah of Class Central, Masato Kajimoto of University of Hong Kong, Anuchai Theeraroungchaisri of Thailand Cyber University (TCU) Project and me.

General Impression

Every Asian country has initiated a national MOOC project in the last couple of years. Most of these projects are directly funded by the government. For example, the ThaiMOOC project is funded by three ministries (education, science & technology and ICT). In Thailand this project is included in the national education strategy 2017-2036(!).

Most of them use open.edx as platform to offer MOOCs. Most important reason is setup their own platform is the language. English is still a barrier for most Asian people. They all configured the platform in their native language(s). It is positive that they are using open.edx platform and not developing their own.

The goal of most projects is not specifically about MOOCs, but more about modernising the educational sector. What I understood is that the education sector was still very traditional and suffered from declining enrolments. A lot of students wanted to study abroad and now also online. The government needed to do something to kick-start this transformation and MOOCs were the perfect project to do this.

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Today I was invited to give a keynote presentation at the 9th international e-learning conference of the Thailand Cyber University in Bangkok. The theme of the this years conference is “MOOCs and beyond”.

The long-run impact of MOOCs

In my keynote I used Amara’s Law to build my presentation:

we tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but we underestimate it in the long run

I think this is the case for MOOCs as well. In a lot of articles lately there is disappointment of the impact of MOOCs, but when I look at the long-run impact MOOCs have had, it is much more than we anticipated.

I identified five long-run impacts that were caused or accelerated by MOOCs:

• From Courses to Programmes to Credits
• From National to a Global World of Education
• From Initial Education to Continuous Education
• From Traditional lecture rooms to Blended Learning
• Towards Open Education

Below are my slides and soon the recording will be online soon:

 Video recording of my keynote:

Part of our participation in the EMBED project (European Maturity Model for Blended Education) is the organisation of a couple of training events to share our knowledge and to give you the opportunity to learning about state of the art research and innovation in blended and online teaching and learning.

The first training event will be 26-28 September 2018 in Tampere, Finland. The training will be done by experts from KU Leuven and TU Delft. The training event is free to attend, but you have to register and pay for your own travel, hotel and food.

More information about the event and registration is available on the EMBED website.

A little over a week ago the Open Education Global Conference 2018 was finished. More than a year we have been preparing for this conference. The conference was a blast: everything went according to plan or better!

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Arizona State University Foundation and the Boston Consulting Group published an interesting report about digital learning. The focus of report is on how the use of digital technologies in postsecondary education impact students’ access to education, student outcomes, and the return on investment for students and institutions. The resulting Making Digital Learning Work study provides interesting data, case studies and best practice recommendations for institutions looking to scale digital learning. 

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This weekend I received an interesting question about the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and open education:

A trend in open online education is a shift from attention to publishing and reusing open materials (including MOOCs) to their effects on education. Terms such as Open Educational Practices and Open Educational Pedagogy are part of this. Such practices are characterised by using openness in a much broader context: not only OER, but also open data, open platforms (such as forums, twitter, blogs, Wikipedia, etc.). Most of these practices involve students creating content on such platforms, for example as a form of assessment (such as writing a Wikipedia article).

Most such platforms require (justifiably) non-anonymity in order to be able to make contributions. That is where my question lies. What I understand is that under the GDPR you cannot force students in an educational setting to share their data in that way. Wilfred recommends looking for alternatives that do not have such a requirement or (if that platform is used structurally) concluding a data processing agreement. However, it is precisely this non-anonymity of contributions that cannot be prevented, so platforms that do not demand it will not, in my opinion, be available. And is Wikipedia, for example, waiting for processing agreements to be concluded with all kinds of educational institutions?

A very interesting question and one I try to answer. Big disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, anything I write here is my interpretation of GDPR and not legally binding.

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In three weeks Open Education Global Conference will be in full swing. That means less than three weeks to get everything organised for the conference from 24-26 April. Here some updates I want to highlight.

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Last week MIT published the report "The global state of the art in engineering education":

The report, authored by Ruth Graham, is a global review of cutting-edge practice in engineering education. It is informed by interviews with 178 thought leaders with knowledge of and experience with world-leading engineering programs, combined with case studies from four different universities. The report paints a rich picture of successful innovation in engineering education as well as some of its opportunities and challenges.

The study was structured in two phases. First phase provided a snapshot of the cutting edge of global engineering education and a horizon scan of how the state of the art is likely to develop in the future. Phase 2 involved case studies of four selected institutions identified during Phase 1 as being ‘emerging leaders’ in engineering education. TU Delft was selected as one of the four institutes, next to Singapore University of Technology and Design (Singapore), University College London (UK), and Charles Sturt University (Australia).

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Last week the DCU's National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) and the Centre for Assessment Research, Policy and Practice (CARPE) published an interesting report on portfolio use in higher education. The report synthesizes and reviews the literature on the use of the 'learning portfolio' in universities and higher education institutions.

Traditionally the (paer-based) portfolio was associated with the fine arts/design as a means for individuals to showcase samples of their work. Nowadays the portfolio is used as a pedagogical and assessment tool in all different kind of disciplines and in all levels of education. The definition the authors mention is a good reflection of this:

‘a portfolio is an organized compilation that demonstrates knowledge, skills, values and/or achievements and that includes reflections or exegesis which articulate the relevance, credibility and meaning of the artefacts presented.’

In the report they distinguise three types of portfolios:

• showcase portfolio: this most closely resemble the original paper-based portfolio
• summative/evalution portfolio: students receive a grade based on the work submitted in their portfolio.
• Learning Portfolio: Unlike showcase and assessment portfolios, learning portfolios may include drafts and ‘unpolished’ work, with the focus broadened to include the process of compiling the portfolio, as well as the finished product. 

The report focuses on the learning portfolio.

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In less than 2,5 months Open Education Global Conference will be in Delft. As conference organisers we have been busy with all preparations for the conference.  Here some updates about the conference and all the great things we are organising.

Programme

We had a record number of proposals and we had quiet a challenge to fit all the accepted proposals in the programme. Thanks to the great work of our programme chair Robert Schuwer we have an interesting programme for all attendees. First of all the conference will be opened by our Minister of Education, Culture & Science Ingrid van Engelshoven. We have invited four keynote speakers:

• Erin McKiernan, professor National Autonomous University of Mexico, will talk about the intersection of open research and open education
• Vincent Zimmer, Co-Founder and Business Development Director of Kiron Open Higher Education will talk about the (digital) future and transformation of universities
• Annemies Broekgaarden, head of public & education Rijksmuseum, will talk about innovative learning in a museum context
• Peter Schmidt, professor Innovation in Higher Education UMUC, will talk about the role of open resources in defining what the future holds

On the website you will find the programme overview. Later this week we will publish the detailed programme.

Social Events

An important part of the conference is to meet and talk to open education people from all over the world. During the day there are already many oppertunities, but we have also some great evening events organised for you. The opening reception will be held in the Royal Delft pottery museum and factory. Royal Delft is the last remaining earthenware factory from the 17th century. Here the renowned Delft Blue is still entirely hand painted according to centuries-old tradition. During the reception we will recognise the winners of the Open Education Awards for Excellence.

Gala Diner
The conference gala diner will be in the historic courtyard of Museum Prinsenhof. It was once the court of William of Orange, the Father of the Dutch Nation.

After the conference on Thursday afternoon we have the option to visit Madurodam, on our website you find more info.

We highly recommend that you will stay for Kingsday on Friday. It is something you have to experience to fully understand it.

Sponsors

We have been actively contacting companies and organisation to sponsor the conference. We are grateful that Siemens Stiftung, Canvas, Moodle and TAO have confirmed their sponsorship. We will announce more sponsors soon. If you are interested, please take a look at the sponsor opportunities.

Video update

As conference chair I also was forced to record a video, please take a look at it ;-)

Pre-conference workshop

I also invite you to join our pre-conference on Monday 23 April. During the pre-conference TU Delft will share its involvement in Open & Online Education and introduce you to some of the exciting projects TU Delft has to offer. Registration via the conference website.

Early Bird

The early bird registration is available until March 1st, so don't forget register and join us in Delft

Image credits
Delft Blue CC-BY Bert Knottenbeld