The European Commission is pushing universities to embrace digital teaching and make more course material freely available online. However, it concedes that adequate business models may not exist yet to support a radical shift in focus.
The push comes in a policy document entitled Opening Up Education, published on 25 September. This deals with the impact of digital technologies on all aspects of education, from schools and universities through to vocational education and informal learning.
The Commission’s analysis of the university sector concludes that the digital infrastructure is good, but not yet fully exploited. Most institutions have learner-management systems that support course design, teaching and assessment, but their use is not yet changing teaching practice. And while students usually have 24-hour electronic access to library resources, either remotely or via campus networks, options for blended learning are limited.
“With the number of EU students set to rise significantly in the next decade,” the Commission says, “universities need to adapt traditional teaching methods and offer a mix of face-to-face and online learning possibilities, such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which allow individuals to access education anywhere, anytime and through any device. But many universities are not ready for this change.”
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The Commission is particularly anxious about MOOCs, where it sees Europe lagging behind the United States. MOOCs are short educational programmes, delivered free of charge over the internet, with no entry requirements or size restrictions. “The appearance of disruptive innovation like MOOCs has the potential to transform higher education and create new competition and centres of excellence among universities worldwide,” it says.
It wants to see more European universities explore the possibilities offered by MOOCs and other open educational resources, such as free-to-use textbooks, videos, tests, and software. “Since open educational resources are available at no cost for users, they could make education and training cheaper, for administrations, institutions and for users,” it says.
The main barrier seems to be that many university lecturers are simply not interested in creating or using open resources. Another issue is the copyright system, with open resources usually made available under licenses that allow free use, re-use and sharing. “While these open licences do not challenge the current intellectual property rights framework, they can still represent a challenge to the traditional business models of publishers or universities,” the Commission observes.
The European University Association (EUA) has welcomed the policy initiative, which it sees as backing for continuing innovation in teaching and learning rather than a departure from what some of its members are already doing. However, it warns that the cost savings cannot be taken for granted, particularly when it comes to MOOCs.
“There is no immediate economic model for them, so they would have to be financed either by extra money that you get from grants or you have to take it from your budget,” says Michael Gaebel, head of the EUA’s higher education policy unit. While he thinks MOOCs are a useful focus for discussion, their long-term significance remains uncertain. “It’s not clear what they mean to education, beyond what has already been experienced with digital learning or e-learning in institutions.”
The Commission has little in its armoury to force through the changes it wants to see. It will use Erasmus Plus and Horizon 2020, the forthcoming education and research programmes, to support the development of new business and educational models, with large-scale experiments to test innovative pedagogical approaches, curriculum development and skills assessment. Finding a way of recognising independent learning achieved with open resources is a particularly important goal.
Meanwhile, it will require all educational materials supported by Erasmus+ to be made available under open licences. Hence, if a masters programme is developed or a teaching chair funded by the programme, all teaching materials will have to be freely accessible.
Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.