elearning_label_learning_and_society
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an ambitious project launched in April 2013 with the aim to bring together and make freely available to the world the resources from libraries, archives and museums across the United States.
The DPLA offers a single point of access to millions of items, from photographs to manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images and more. Users can browse and search the collections by timeline, map, format, and topic; save items to customized lists and share their lists with others. Users can also explore digital exhibitions curated by the DPLA’s content partners and staff.
The DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used, through its three main elements:
- First, an easy-to-use portal where anyone can access collections and search through them using novel and powerful techniques, including by place and time.
- Second, a sophisticated technical platform that will make those millions of items available in ways so that others can build creative and transformative applications upon them, such as smartphone apps.
- Third, along with like-minded institutions and individuals the DPLA will seek innovative means to make more cultural and scientific content openly available, and it will advocate for a strong public option for reading and research in the twenty-first century.
European Commission survey on the use of digital technologies in schools
The European Commission’s report “Survey of schools: ICT in Education”, collects information from 31 European countries (27 EU Member States, Croatia, Iceland, Norway and Turkey) and provides detailed, up-to-date and reliable benchmarking of Information and Communication Technologies in school level education across Europe, painting a picture of educational technology in schools: from infrastructure provision to use, confidence and attitudes.
According to the survey, based on data collected during the school year 2011-12, students and teachers in Europe are keen to "go digital", computer numbers have doubled since 2006 and most schools are now "connected", but use of ICTs and digital skill levels are very uneven. These skills and support for teachers to deliver them need a strong boost.
Some of the key findings of the study indicate that teachers are generally confident and positive about the use of ICTs for learning and most of them believe there is need for radical policy change. However, teacher training in ICTs is rarely compulsory and therefore most teachers devote spare time to private study of these skills. Teachers use computers to prepare lessons more often than they use them in lessons.
The report shows there are marked country differences. Scandinavian and Nordic countries have the best equipment (Sweden, Finland, Denmark); while students in Poland, Romania, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovakia are most likely to lack the right equipment. However, lack of equipment does not mean lack of interest: some countries with the highest use of computer equipment are the ones with the lowest scores on equipment provisions (e.g. Bulgaria, Slovakia, Cyprus and Hungary).
The findings and recommendations of the 163-page report will feed into the Digital Agenda's effort and assist the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs (which plans, for example, to promote Massive Open Online Courses for teachers and spread the use of incentives and coordination in teacher ICT training), and other Commission initiatives such as the Rethinking Education Strategy and the forthcoming Opening Up Education proposal.
The study was undertaken by European Schoolnet and the University of Liège. This is the third European survey of ICT in schools, and the first to survey students directly.
Ocean Solutions online course
Oceans Solutions is a free 6-week online course offered by the University of Western Australia (UWA) Class2Go programme and taught by Carlos M. Duarte, Director of the Oceans Institute and Research Professor with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC),
This course focuses particularly on the Indian Ocean, which is arguably the least explored of the world's oceans. However, and like many other oceans, it is under stress from overfishing, pollution, climate change and sea level rise.
Students will analyse and discuss the great challenges humanity will face, and is already facing, due to the increase of the world’s population and address how an intelligent and innovative use of the ocean can sustainably and safely deliver the key resources necessary to meet the challenge of providing fair livelihoods to 9 billion people by 2050.
Professor Duarte will argue that while we live on a planet mostly covered with water, we get most of our resources from land, and we need to reverse that thinking.
Conference Programme for Learning Innovations and Quality: The Future of Digital Resources Available
LINQ event hosts from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany have published the final conference programme for LINQ 2013. The conference in Rome will be supported by a variety of prominent figures vital to the fields of technology-enhanced learning, open educational resources, and vocational education in Europe and worldwide. Furthermore, their presence will further the highlight of LINQ 2013: the launch of ICORE, the International Council for Open Research and Education (www.icore-online.org). Registration for LINQ 2013 is still open for all interested parties until May 8th, but seats are limited and should be reserved as quick as possible.
On May 16th, Learning experts and pioneers such as Dr. Tony Bates of Tony Bates Associates, Dr. Ignasi Labastida, director of the OCW Consortium and Creative Commons, and António Silva Mendes, Director of Education and Vocational Training at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture will take part as keynote speakers at LINQ 2013. They will join the already confirmed Prof. Dr. Rory McGreal and Prof. Dr. Fred Mulder, both UNESCO chairs for Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). Together these esteemed speakers will establish the greater context of international learning innovations for LINQ 2013.
Complementing the established experts, selected researchers from over 150 submissions will also present new and innovative research papers and projects. Four parallel sessions, divided into three parts each, will provide the structure for presentations. The 1st Parallel Session will consist of invited European speakers as well as two workshops respectively on the co-hosting VOA3R project and the innovative ODS project. The 2nd Parallel Session will consist of the selected papers from the LINQ 2013 call. These papers in turn fit into three thematic sections: “Digital Resources & Online Repositories”, “TEL for Schools, Universities, & Lifelong Learning”, and “Innovations & Future Trends in LET”. In addition, the 3rd and 4th Parallel Sessions will be dedicated to the presentations of selected European and international projects, thematically divided into “Quality Management: Evaluation, Standards & Certification”, “Open Access & Open Educational Resources: Policies, Tools and Content”, and “New Knowledge Networks – Ideas & Innovation for LLL” on the one hand, and “VET, New Skills & Quality”, “Teachers in Focus: Competence & Skill Development”, and “Innovation in TEL” on the other. The final conference programme is available on the LINQ 2013 conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/2013/programme.
Registration for LINQ 2013 is still available for all interested groups until May 8th – only a few seats remain, so please register as soon as possible to ensure your chance to participate. Further information on registration is available at the conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu/registration. For the latest updates on LINQ and related initiatives, follow @LINQ_Conference on Twitter and like www.facebook.com/LINQConference on Facebook.
ORIOLE Survey 2013
The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the Open University are conducting an international survey, as part of the project Open Resources: Influence on Learners and Educators (ORIOLE).
The ORIOLE Survey 2013 aims to collect and share data about how learning resources are used and sourced in higher education.
Available in English and Spanish, the online survey will remain open until May 30th and is targeted to anyone working directly in learning and teaching and those who support this work (Library, Instruction Design, Educational Technology, etc.)
Spread the word! £300 will be donated to Oxfam education programmes, with respondents choosing the specific initiatives to receive money.
Outcomes of the seminar "MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?"
The "MOOCs and Libraries: Massive Opportunity or Overwhelming Challenge?" seminar took place 18-19 March, 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania and was broadcast live online.
Hosted by OCLC Research, one of the world's leading centres devoted exclusively to the challenges facing libraries and archives, and University of Pennsylvania Libraries, the event featured thoughtful and provocative presentations about how libraries are already getting involved with MOOCs, and engaged attendees in discussions about strategic opportunities and challenges going forward.
OCLC Research Senior Program Officer Merrilee Proffitt organised the event and has posted a series of six blog posts that recap presentation highlights and summarise its outcomes. These blog posts include:
- MOOCs and Libraries: Introduction
- MOOCs and Libraries: Copyright, Licensing, Open Access
- MOOCs and Libraries: Production and Pedagogy
- MOOCs and Libraries: New Opportunities for Librarians
- MOOCs and Libraries: Who Are the Masses? A View of the Audience
- MOOCs and Libraries: Next Steps?
In addition, videos of the sessions, links to the presenters' slides and the next steps document are available at the MOOCs and Libraries event page.
Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research free MOOCs
The University of Sheffield’s School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) is running three free open learning courses in 2013. These new courses will take the form of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and will run between June and November.
The ScHARR is a centre of excellence in research, teaching and consultancy across health services research, health economics and public health. The new MOOCs it is offering in 2013 will cover three distinct topics:
- Sustainable Healthy Diets (17 June - 24 July). The course introduces sustainable diets as a concept (what might a sustainable diet look like, what does it not look like?) and takes students through some of the challenges involved in choosing food which is both healthy and sustainable.
- Health Inequalities (15 July - 16 August). This course provides an opportunity to examine contemporary interpretations of health inequalities and related concepts like justice, fairness and equity. Attendees will discuss how different approaches to measuring, defining and monitoring health inequalities are influenced by social and political factors and how this, in turn, shapes strategies for addressing such inequalities.
- Health Technology Assessment (28 October - 29 November). Introducing Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as a concept (what it is, what it involves) and the key stages in the HTA and decision-making process.
Anyone can register for these free courses.
Negotiations continue to achieve an agreement before the summer about the Erasmus for All programme
On 15 February 2013, the EU's education ministers discussed Erasmus for All, the reformed student exchange programme, and the contribution of education to creating jobs and growth.
Erasmus for All is a proposal for an integrated programme in the areas of education, training, youth and sport for 2014-2020. It brings together in a single programme activities previously covered by a number of separate programmes (including the Lifelong Learning Programme, Erasmus Mundus and Youth in Action) and also includes activities in a new area of European competence: sport.
The new programme aims to continue focussing on three types of key actions, namely:
• the learning mobility of individuals;
• cooperation on innovation and good practices; and
• support for policy reform.
There are also a number of innovative proposals, such as the Erasmus Master's degree student loan guarantee scheme - aiming to promote mobility and access to affordable finance for students taking their Master's degree in another member state -, knowledge alliances and sector skill alliances.
The programme also aims to support the EU's efforts to overcome one of the most difficult economic periods in its history, notably by aligning itself very closely with the Europe 2020 strategy for growth and jobs, in which education and training play an essential part.
The negotiations between the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission started on 19 February 2013. The Irish Presidency hopes to achieve an agreement before the summer, which would enable important preparatory work by the Commission to be completed in time for the programme to begin, as proposed, on 1 January 2014.
Launch of the first pan-European MOOCs Initiative
Partners in 11 countries have joined forces to launch OpenupEd.eu, the first pan-European MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) initiative, with the support of the European Commission.
The European Commission welcomes the launch of the first pan-European university MOOCs initiative
Partners in 11 countries have joined forces to launch OpenupEd.eu, the first pan-European MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) initiative, with the support of the European Commission.
Around 40 courses, covering a wide variety of subjects, will be available free of charge and in 12 different languages in the portal www.OpenupEd.eu, officially launched on 25 April 2013. The initiative is led by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) and mostly involves open universities based in France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey and Israel.
Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, launched the European MOOCs initiative in a webcasted international press event hosted by the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands. “This is an exciting development and I hope it will open up education to tens of thousands of students and trigger our schools and universities to adopt more innovative and flexible teaching methods”, she said. “We see this as a key part of the Opening up Education strategy which the Commission will launch this summer.”
Professor Fred Mulder, chair of the EADTU task force on open education and UNESCO chair in Open Educational Resources, is leading the initiative. "Our aim is to respond to the need for a more accessible system of higher education, which puts the learner at the centre. The European MOOCs will provide quality, self-study materials and a bridge between informal learning and formal education", he stressed.
For EADTU President, Will Swann, “the pan-European MOOCs initiative shows our collective passion to further innovate.”
The OpenupEd.eu free online courses range from mathematics to economics, e-skills to e-commerce, climate change to cultural heritage, corporate social responsibility to the modern Middle East, and language learning to writing fiction. Each partner is offering courses via its own learning platform and at least in its home language. Courses can be taken either in a scheduled period of time or anytime at the student's own pace.
All courses may lead to recognition: a completion certificate, a so-called badge, or a credit certificate that may count towards a degree. In the latter case, students have to pay for the certificate, with the cost ranging from € 25 to € 400.