EFQUEL Innovation Forum

“Acknowledging the QA challenges of the future”, Guy Haugh shares his thoughts in opening keynote at the EIF

mbijnens — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:52:16 +0000

Guy Haugh was centrally involved in 1998-2001 in initiating and shaping the Bologna Process, which aims to foster coherence in degree, credit and QA systems throughout Europe. Between 2001-2006, he worked for the EU Commission where he was in charge of major policy documents aimed at setting a European agenda for change/modernisation in higher education and research. Guy Haug has hands-on experience of university management and of quality assurance/accreditation (he is also a member of Austrian and Spanish accreditation agencies).

In his opening keynote on the 26th of September, Guy Haugh will address the challenges of QA for the future. What is the orientation for the future? Which new and emerging fields and technologies are posing new challenges to quality development? With a new wave of e-learning emerging through new and fascinating developments like Open educational resources, MOOCs and social media in learning and a decade of intense development of quality criteria, methods and management approaches it is time to tackle the challenges…

26th of September, 10:00CET, Guy Haugh: “Acknowledging the QA challenges of the future”

Follow LINQ2013 on 16 and 17 May 2013 via streaming and twitter

mbijnens — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:19:35 +0000

The LINQ 2013 conference (www.learning-innovations.eu), starting on the 16th of May in Rome, will have an online Live Stream. You can see and follow all keynotes and all invited speeches and workshops online via LIVE STREAM: http://www.learning-innovations.eu/2013/programme#livestream

In addition, you are invited to the online dialogue during our LINQ 2013 conference. For all Twitter users, please address your comments, questions, and pictures to: #LINQ2013

To stay up-to-date on the different sessions, follow: @LINQ_Conference

And would like to hear follow-up stories and be informed about LINQ events in the future? Then “like” the LINQ conference Facebook page: www.facebook.com/LINQConference

eLearning Papers just released its 33rd issue entitled “MOOCs and Beyond”.

mbijnens — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:14:17 +0000

Is there a future for MOOCs in Europe? Will this historical movement in Open Education have a lasting resonance in the digital age? To what extent can MOOCs engage users socially? How well can they promote entrepreneurship education? Find out this and more in this latest issue of eLearning Papers.

In August, 2012, four months after opening, Coursera—one of several Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers quickly gaining traction on the Internet—registered one million students, from nearly 200 countries. This is only one of the many staggering statistics that could be shared about the sudden popularity of MOOCs, the total of which speak to the worldwide interest in accessing university courses online.

The large number of people enrolling in MOOCs, coupled with university interest in expanding online content, has put this new model in the spotlight. The term MOOC dates from 2008, developed initially as a pedagogical experiment focused on creating a more connected and democratic learning environment. However, since 2011, universities have used the term to describe course offerings geared toward a worldwide student body. Today, “MOOC” describes a range of pedagogical models. George Siemens distinguishes between “cMOOCs” which follow the original “connectivist” model and the more institutionalised and tightly structured “xMOOCs”. Despite the differences, the emergence of MOOCs as a whole poses a set of challenges to the educational community. Many of us seem to believe that MOOCs are finally delivering some of the technology-enabled change in education that we have been waiting nearly two decades for.

eLearning Papers the world’s most visited Online Education journal just released its 33^rd issue entitled MOOCs and Beyond. Take a closer look at this issue edited by Yishay Mor and Tapio Koskinen
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Talking about MOOCs and quality at the EIF… Some warming up blog posts and discussions!

mbijnens — Wed, 15 May 2013 09:58:26 +0000

MOOCs represent the latest stage in the evolution of open educational resources. First was open access to course content, and then access to free online courses. Accredited institutions are now accepting MOOCs as well as free courses and experiential learning as partial credit toward a degree. The next disruptor will likely mark a tipping point: an entirely free online curriculum leading to a degree from an accredited institution.

MOOCs are moving from an early entrepreneurial stage into the reality of more and more educational institutions. Gaining participants, visibility and a growing community worldwide in many occasions the question rises to the surface: Are MOOCs the new model of online education for all? Are they fit to democratize education? and above all – what is a good quality MOOC?

The MOOC Quality Project, an initiative of EFQUEL addresses the latter question not by trying to find one answer which fits all, but by trying to stimulate a discourse on the issue of Quality of MOOCs.

A series of BlogPosts of worldwide visible experts and entrepreneurs of MOOCs address the issue from each particpant’s viewpoint. After each BlogPost we will allow a one week period of time to react and comment on the post made available. At the end of the week the discussion will be shortly summarized and made available to all. The most interesting ideas coming out of these blog posts will be presented at the EIF2013 this year in a session specifically dedicated to quality and MOOCs. Read the blog posts here! http://mooc.efquel.org/

Deadline for submitting your EIF contribution extended till 20th of May!

mbijnens — Tue, 07 May 2013 13:29:29 +0000

The deadline for submitting a contribution to the EFQUEL Innovation Forum has been extended till the 20th of May. EFQUEL welcomes different types of contributions to the EIF2013: presentations (papers, best practices, results), interactive formats (workshop, learning café, discussion panel, …), posters.

While the past years have seen a lot of adoption of traditional quality approaches to new fields, as well as the developments of new quality approaches today we invite the contributions to the following themes:

Quality in e-learning: Criteria, processes, methodologies
Quality for new emerging technologies and pedagogies (e.g.MOOCs)
Quality, E-Assessment and testing with e-learning

Apart from conference presentations we encourage you to suggest interactive workshop sessions, learning cafes, lively debating sessions and poster presentations.

Submit your ideas via the form available on the “call for contributions” page!

#EIF13, use our new hashtag!

mbijnens — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:28:04 +0000

Are you a twitter-user, an EFQUEL follower on Twitter or were you already following the previous #EIF2013 hashtag on twitter? Then pay attention, we started using a new hashtag for this year’s innovation forum. Use the #EIF13 hashtag if you want to communicate with us, comment on our programme or tell us more about your submitted contribution.

Or simply follow our EFQUEL twitter page: https://twitter.com/EFQUEL

And if you are also interested in following the news via Facebook, don’t hesitate to become a fan of EFQUEL! We publish regular news about EFQUEL, the Innovation Forum, stakeholder consultations and interesting publications and presentation.

Welcome to EFQUEL’s social media channels!

EIF2012 proceedings available now

mbijnens — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:04:37 +0000

The EFQUEL Innovation Forum 2012 proceedings (ISSN: 2294-9755) are available for downloading here. The proceedings contain all full papers that were presented at last year’s forum in Granada, (English as well as Spanish papers).

A selection of the best 5 papers 2012 has in the meantime been submitted to the review process of EFQUEL’s recently launched journal called INNOQUAL and will be published in the first inaugural edition of this journal in the summer of 2013.

For submitting papers to the next Innovation Forum (26-27 September, Barcelona), please go to the “Call for Contributions” section on this website for more info.

If you are interested in submitting a paper to INNOQUAL for the second volume, then follow us closely via the INNOQUAL website or via the #INNOQUAL twitter stream. We’re looking forward to receiving your papers!

Call for contributions, submit your presentation, workshop or poster now!

mbijnens — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:04:07 +0000

EFQUEL welcomes different types of contributions to the EIF2013: presentations (papers, best practices, results), interactive formats (workshop, learning café, discussion panel, …), posters. Read more about the topic to be addressed and find submission information via this page on the EIF2013 website.

Refocusing Quality in E-Learning

The EFQUEL Innovation Forum is the leading conference for practitioners in international quality and innovation in e-learning, training and development. The 8th EIF takes place at the Open University Catalunya in Barcelona.

The financial crisis and a regime of austerity pose a great challenge to innovation in education, training and learning in Europe, both in the public and the private sector. The question where and how e-learning can add value to providing a high quality education is put into the center every more. After a decade of quality assurance and development in e-learning, the field today has broadened significantly. Two facts have become apparent: on the one hand, quality has become a synonym for continuous improvement, innovation and organizational development and has moved beyond assuring conformity and standardization. On the other hand it is evident that quality development has become mainstream practice in every educational institution and is important for all learning provision. Both developments are a sign that the quality debate in e-learning has moved from early stages of development and try-out to a more professionalized practice.

With a new wave of e-learning emerging through new and fascinating developments like Open educational resources, MOOCs and social media in learning and a decade of intense development of quality criteria, methods and management approaches it is time to extract the scientific essence: Where do we stand today in quality development in e-learning? What has proved working well? What is the orientation for the future? Which new and emerging fields and technologies are posing new challenges to quality development? While the past years have seen a lot of adoption of traditional quality approaches to new fields, as well as the developments of new quality approaches today we invite the contributions to the following themes:

Quality in e-learning: Criteria, processes, methodologies
Quality for new emerging technologies and pedagogies (e.g.MOOCs)
Quality, E-Assessment and testing with e-learning

Apart from conference presentations we encourage you to suggest interactive workshop sessions, learning cafes, lively debating sessions and poster presentations.

EIF 2013 will convene more than 150 experts in e-learning to an interactive gathering. During the conference you can meet up with your peers in the practitioners lounge, meet European experts, take stock of the latest developments and listen to leading innovators in the field of quality and innovation.

R&D at UOC, a report from Tony Bates

mbijnens — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 08:47:01 +0000

In a series of articles, Tony Bates, keynote speaker at this year’s EFQUEL Innovation Forum, reports about the research activities in different e-Learning centers he visited in Europe. In a first report he takes a closer look to UOC’s eLearn center, of which EFQUEL’s vice-president Albert Sangra is director. UOCs eLearn center will be hosting the 2013 EFQUEL Innovation Forum in Barcelona next year.

Full reports of the visits will be appearing later this month on the Ontario Online Learning Portal for Faculty and Instructors managed by Contact North. These reports are looked at from the perspective of key ‘game-changers’ in online learning, and provide an overall picture of each institution.

Read a first blog post about the visit to UOC on this page

EFQUEL @ Media and Learning

mbijnens — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:42:51 +0000

EFQUEL will co-organise a workshop with The European Interest Group on Creativity and Innovation (EICI) at the Media and Learning conference (Brussels, 14-15 Nov) this year.

The workshop is entitled “VISIR’s learning innovation workshop – promoting innovation and creativity in the regions” (15th o November, 11:00 – 12:30, Plateau room)

Digital media offers a large variety of possibilities to innovate the learning settings in the European classrooms. Not only do they offer a more learner-centred learning approach and environment but they also strengthen learners’ ability to think critically as well as to work more collaboratively and independently with colleagues and peers. So far, flexible learning scenarios are still not very common in Europe.

The VISIR project has identified several best practices in its partner regions which will be demonstrated within a workshop session during the Media & Learning Conference in November and which will outline the positive effect on the students’ learning ability and their creative thinking when using flexible learning scenarios through the use of digital media.

In an off- and online follow-up discussion the VISIR consortium wants to identify the main important political and societal changes which have to be carried out that learning innovation and new open learning styles will become a reality in all European regions.

Furthermore EFQUEL will hold a stand at the confernece, on the 14th of November. The full programme and more information about the Media and Learning conference is available on their website: http://www.media-and-learning.eu/home