Implications of Open Education for the Maltese Educational ...
Transcript of Implications of Open Education for the Maltese Educational ...
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Implications of Open Education
for the Maltese Educational
System
WITH A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON MOOCS
Anthony F. Camilleri March 2015
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CONTENTS
Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 2
Table of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................. 4
1. Foreword ............................................................................................................................................. 6
2. Introduction to MOOCs ........................................................................................................................ 7
2.1 Definitions and Classification of MOOCs ........................................................................................ 7
2.2 Defining Open Education .............................................................................................................. 7
2.3 Open Access to Resources ............................................................................................................ 9
2.4 Clarifying Terminology .................................................................................................................. 9
2.5 History........................................................................................................................................10
3. Provision Models for Open Education ...................................................................................................12
3.1 The role of ‘Silicon Valley’ MOOC providers (Coursera, Udacity, EdX) .............................................12
3.1.1 Coursera .................................................................................................................................12
3.1.2 edX .........................................................................................................................................13
3.1.3 Udacity ...................................................................................................................................14
3.2 European MOOC Provision Models (OpenupEd, FutureLearn) ........................................................14
3.2.1 FutureLearn ............................................................................................................................16
3.2.2 OpenUpEd ..............................................................................................................................16
4. Trends & Effects of Open Education .....................................................................................................18
4.1 The growth and growing role of OER ............................................................................................18
4.2 Unbundling of Education .............................................................................................................19
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4.3 Rise of Non-University Providers in Higher Education ....................................................................20
4.4 Collaboration Networks to address Open Education challenges .....................................................21
4.5 Increasing Demand for Recognition and Portability .......................................................................22
5. Issues & Recommendations .................................................................................................................23
5.1 Open Access to Resources ...........................................................................................................24
5.1.1 Issue 1: Malta is lagging behind in Open Access Policies .............................................................24
5.1.2 Issue 2: Open publishing offers significant opportunities for Maltese education ..........................25
5.2 Unbundling of Education .............................................................................................................25
5.2.1 Issue 3: Unbundling allows for better student choice .................................................................25
5.3 Non-University Providers .............................................................................................................26
5.3.1 Issue 4: The current regulatory framework leaves lacunae with respect to non-university providers
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5.4 Collaboration Networks ...............................................................................................................27
5.4.1 Issue 5: Maltese Institutions can only reach scale in Open Education through collaboration ........27
5.5 Recognition & Assessment ...........................................................................................................28
5.5.1 Issue 6: Open Learning Certification is creating confusion ..........................................................28
5.5.2 Issue 7: Recognition of Prior Learning is not scalable .................................................................28
5.6 Teaching & Learning ....................................................................................................................29
5.6.1 Issue 8: Automating teaching is, in many cases, more efficient ...................................................29
5.7 Relevant Policy-Recommendation Documents ..............................................................................30
6. Bibliography........................................................................................................................................31
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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 - Types of Education Openness (Hodgkinson-Williams and Gray (2009) - adapted .............................. 8
Figure 2 - Comparison of volume of the three top u.s. mooc-platforms (Taneja & Goel, 2014) ........................12
Figure 3: European MOOCs by Country as at 03/09/2014. Source: European MOOC Scoreboard
(http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/european_scoreboard_moocs)...................................................15
Figure 4: Growth Rate of European vs non-European MOOCs as at 03/09/2014. Source: European MOOC
Scoreboard (http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/european_scoreboard_moocs) .................................15
Figure 5 - Open Access Repositories in Europe by Country and Size, April 2014. Source: repository66.org .......18
Figure 6 - Elements of a College Degree (Staton, 2012) ................................................................................19
Figure 7: Scenarios showing three different routes through which a learner may acquire and use university
credits (Haywood, 2012) ............................................................................................................................20
Figure 8 - Strategic pillars for policy development (Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014) ...............23
ABBREVIATIONS
EC - European Commission
ECTS – European Credit Transfer Scheme
EHEA – European Higher Education Area
ENIC - European Network of Information Centres in the European Region
ESF – European Social Fund
EQF – European Qualifications Framework
HE - Higher Education
HEI - Higher Education Institution
LMS - Learning Management System
MCST – Malta Council for Science and Technology
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MITA – Malta Information Technology Agency
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MOOC - Massive Online Open Course
MQF – Maltese Qualifications Framework
NARIC - National Academic Recognition Information Centres in the European Union
NCFHE - National Commission for Further and Higher Education
OAI-PMH – Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OCW - Open Courseware
OEP - Open Educational Practices
OER - Open Educational Resource/s
RPL – Recognition of Prior Learning
UNED - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
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1. FOREWORD
Strategies for education reform need to be flexible, ongoing, inclusive and embrace a vision that is democratic
(Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014). Flexibility, inclusiveness and democracy are also key values of
the open education movement – broadly speaking a set of initiatives to remove barriers to teaching and learning
for learners of all kinds, set in motion be the UNESCO OER declaration of 2002. In recent years, advances in
technology, and a squeeze on budget allocations and changing demand from students and business has led to
an explosion in innovation in the sector(“Creative destruction,” 2014), in particular with regards to Higher
Education, so much so that the New York Times declared 2012 “The Year of the MOOC”(Pappano, 2012). A loose
ecosystem of companies, HEIs, governments and entrepreneurs are using these innovations to change the face
of teaching and learning, rethink the structures set up to provide these services, and reimagine what it means
to be a true lifelong learner.
The rate of innovation being seen at the moment in HE, as accelerated by technology, is probably the highest
seen in decades. During the writing of this report, in several cases it was found that even information dating
from earlier this year had already become outdated, and needed to be updated. This report therefore aims to
give a high-level overview of Open Education, with a special focus on MOOCs, with the aim of allowing Maltese
policy makers to better navigate the policy landscape and identify key trends which may be leveraged to
strengthen Maltese HE, in line with the priorities set out by the Framework Strategy for the Education Strategy
of Malta for 2014-2024.
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2. INTRODUCTION TO MOOCS
2.1 Definitions and Classification of MOOCs
MOOC stands for ‘Massive Online Open Course’, and may be defined as a course which integrates the
connectivity of social networking, the facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of a study and a freely
accessible resource (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, 2010), while being designed so as to be offered via
the internet at scale. The elements of the model are that it is (EduCause Learning Initiative, 2013):
massive: with theoretically no limit to enrolment
open: allowing anyone to participate, usually at no cost
online: with learning activities typically taking place over the web
course: structured around a set of learning goals in a defined study area
MOOCs have been traditionally classified into xMOOCs and cMOOCs. xMOOCs come close to a ‘traditional’
course with predefined learning outcomes to learners, syllabi and structured OERs or to some extent also
proprietary material as well as homework and assessment. cMOOCs, on the other hand, emerged in the context
of connectivism, where learning is distributed, social and explorative (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013).
2.2 Defining Open Education
Hodgkinson-Williams and Gray (2009) propose a framework to analyse the degree of openness of OER policies
at the University of Cape Town, based on four factors:
Social openness: the degree to which pedagogy is didactic or participative, through the use of sharing,
collaboration, participation and contribution.
Examples: Here, lectures delivered in a theatre-like classroom would be considered most closed, while
cMOOCs would be an example of most open.
Technical openness: the degree to which software / platforms on which OER are based are themselves
open- or closed-source.
Examples: Taking examples of LMS, a proprietary LMS such as Blackboard would be considered most
closed, while the adaptation of an open source wiki platform such as mediawiki for the production of
MOOCs currently might be considered the ultimate example of technical openness.
Licence (or legal) openness: the degree to which the licence grants the user rights over the material,
ranging from copyrighted (no rights to user), including the full spectrum of creative-commons licenses,
up to no rights reserved (all rights to user).
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Examples: the majority of publications from traditional publishers such as Pearson, McGraw Hill etc.,
which include standard copyright declarations are examples of the most closed licenses. Wikipedia is an
example of a fully openly licensed set of materials.
Financial openness: this measures the charge for the education provided, ranging from full commercial
pricing, including several options for low-cost pricing and ending with gratis pricing
Examples: Courses offered by the Open University are examples of the most closed kind of financial
openness in this case. Free education offered by public universities is an example of the most open
model.
(Camilleri, Ehlers, & Pawlowski, 2014; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009)
In essence, the more an educational experience can be mapped to the right-hand side of the following
diagram, the more ‘open’ we can say it is:
FIGURE 1 - TYPES OF EDUCATION OPENNESS (HODGKINSON-WILLIAMS AND GRAY (2009) -
ADAPTED
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2.3 Open Access to Resources
It is becoming increasingly common for countries across Europe to implement policies for open access to
publicly funded research data. At European level, the Commission has obliged all participants in the Horizon
2020 programme to publish their results under open access licences. The initiatives for open access to research
data are based primarily on two principles, namely that:
Open Access facilitates scholarship and research, by removing barriers of access to knowledge
The public has a right to access the results of scientific data paid for with public money.
The Commission states that policies on open access to scientific research results should apply to all research
that receives public funds. Such policies are expected to improve conditions for conducting research by reducing
duplication of efforts and by minimising the time spent searching for information and accessing it. This will
speed up scientific progress and make it easier to cooperate across and beyond the EU (European Commission,
2012). Open Access to scientific data, comes in two types, a ‘gold road’ where publication occurs directly in
open access journals, and a ‘green road’ where articles are published in non-open journals, but are self-archived
in open access repositories (Harnad et al., 2004). As such, within the area of access to scientific data, the EC is
already actively urging member states to publish open access policies and set up open access repositories to
support publishing. As of September 2014, according to the OpenAire database of Open Access policies1, Malta
is one only three countries in Europe (along with Romania and Slovakia) to have no open access repository. It
also currently lacks a national open access policy.
2.4 Clarifying Terminology
Open Educational Resources (OER) describe any kind of digital media which are released under licenses which
allow for:
use and reuse/repurposing/modification of the resources
encompass all types of digital media
Depending on the definition, OER may include (Camilleri et al., 2014):
digital resources only, or a mix of digital and ‘traditional’ resources
resources produced with an explicit educational aim, or any resource used as part of an educational
process
1 https://www.openaire.eu
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resources which are e the public domain, or resources which allow use and reuse merely for
educational purposes
Open Courseware (OCW) describes a sub-set of OER, namely open course materials such as lecture notes,
assignments, reading lists, exams, problem sets and solutions, simulations or video lectures, published under an
open licence allowing for unrestricted use and reuse of the resources for non-commercial purposes, providing
the authors receive attribution and any that any derivative materials are published under the same
licence(Potts, 2005). Strictly speaking, open courseware is a brand name used by members of the Open
Courseware Consortium2 (recently renamed the Open Education Consortium), but it has become the de-facto
term to describe open course materials.
Open Educational Practices (OEP) are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of OER
through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as
co-producers on their lifelong learning path. (Ehlers, 2011)
MOOCs do not describe resources, but rather describe all the learning and teaching that takes place, mediated
by a set of resources, in an online open course. cMOOCs predominantly make use of OCW and apply
pedagogically open practices. On the other hand, xMOOCs do not necessarily need to make use of either OER
or OEP. In academic spheres, there is significant debate as to whether more ‘closed’ xMOOCs are strictly
speaking MOOCs, especially due to heavy criticism of the format from Stephen Downes, one of the creators of
the forma
2.5 History
The following table gives an overview of the key-dates in the development of OER and MOOCs
Spring 2002 MIT launches Open Courseware – the first online repository of freely licensed
courseware produced by a Higher Education Institution
July 2002 UNESCO hosts the first global forum on Open Courseware, and coins the term
“Open Educational Resources”
October 2006 The Open University launches “Open Learn”, its own version of the Open
Courseware concept, becoming the most notable European initiative in the field.
2 http://www.oeconsortium.org/
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June/July 2008 Dave Cormier drops the term ‘MOOC’ into a wiki to describe an upcoming course
at the University of Athabasca(Cormier, 2008).
September
2008
Connectivisim and Connective Knowledge course launched at the University of
Athabasca by George Siemens & Stephen Downes. 2200 students attend the
course online.
October 2011 Sebastian Thun and Peter Norvig from Stanford University launch “Online
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” (Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence ,
2011), which attracts over 160,000 students, and bringing the term (x)MOOC into
the mainstream.
April 2012 Coursera, an education platform that partners with universities and organisations
to produce MOOCs, is launched by two Stanford Professors with $22 million in
venture capital funding.
May 2012 edX, a $60 million venture to provide classes from Harvard and MIT is launched.
July 2012 UNESCO hosts the OER Global Congress in Paris, ten years after the definition of
the term.
February 2013 First 5 MOOCs recommended for college credit by the American Council on
Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service (“Five Courses Receive
College Credit Recommendations,” 2013)
April 2013 A consortium of ten European Universities launches OpenUpEd, a single ‘quality-
brand’ under which to release European MOOCs, with the support of the
European Commission.
September
2013
European Commission launches ‘Opening up Education’ to boost innovation and
digitals skills in schools and universities (European Commission, 2013b)
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3. PROVISION MODELS FOR OPEN EDUCATION
3.1 The role of ‘Silicon Valley’ MOOC providers (Coursera,
Udacity, EdX)
While any institution can develop MOOCs on a variety of learning software, in its early days the sector quickly
became concentrated into the hands of a few Silicon Valley based start-ups. Due to their ability to attract
significant venture capital funding and their association with top-name universities, they quickly dominated the
market.
Provider No. of Students Courses/Courseware Institutions
Coursera 7 million 640 100
EdX 2 million 175 45
Udacity 1.5 million 35 10
all numbers are minimums
FIGURE 2 - COMPARISON OF VOLUME OF THE THREE TOP U.S . MOOC-PLATFORMS (TANEJA & GOEL, 2014)
All three of the major providers were founded within a few months of each other in 2012, and operates
variations on the same business model3, although recently their paths have somewhat diverged.
3.1.1 Coursera
Currently the largest global MOOC provider, Coursera is a private company which has raised over $85 million in
venture capital funding (source: Crunchbase). It partners with reputable Higher Education Institutions, and/or
global NGOs to provide courses through its proprietary software platform. While Coursera acts in partnership
with institutions, relations between Coursera and the institutions is by contract – with Coursera providing
branding and the technology platform, and the institutions providing content and teaching. The institutions
have no say in the running of the company or the platform.
Its success is considered to be due to:
3 It should be noted that talk of ‘business models’ does not mean that these providers are currently booking a profit, or even that they are in a sustainable fashion. All examples listed here involve organisations who are currently working with various forms of venture capital, with the long-term aim of developing a profitable business.
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(a) Its first-mover advantage
(b) Its success in attracting venture capital
(c) Its software – which is considered to be better than other solutions
(d) Its connection with the ‘Silicon Valley’ movement – which leads to significant positive
media coverage by the Silicon Valley focused media segments
Notable Products and/or Initiatives by Coursera include:
Signature Track: Coursera pioneered a method of verifying student identity using web-cams, ‘typing
pattern’ – a biometric identification, and document verification. Signature track is a paid service, which
then leads to obtaining a certificate issued by the providing institution and Coursera in concert.
Specialisations: Coursera now groups sets of MOOCs together (including MOOCs offered by different
universities), and, upon completion of a final exam/assignment, will offer a specialisation certificate,
offered by all the institutions together in collaboration with Coursera
ACE Credits – The American Council of Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service, is the de-
facto system for credit transfer in the U.S. Credits that are admitted to their list, are widely accepted for
transfer credit across the country. Coursera has managed to have a number of its MOOCs admitted to the
list
At one point, Coursera considered ‘Career Services’ as a business model (see description below), however, this
seems to have been abandoned as no trace of it can be found on its web portal.
3.1.2 edX
edX was initially launched by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a not-
for-profit enterprise, with seed funding of $60 million from the two institutions. edX is understood conceptually
as a collection of three initiatives:
the edX Consortium is made up of a consortium of Higher Education Institutions, and operates the edX
portal, and offers MOOCs through that portal, much in the same way as Coursera
OpenEdX is an open source software community building the software platforms used by EdX. Anyone
can contribute code, but notable contributions are being given by Stanford University, Google, Harvard
and UC Berkley amongst others
MOOC.org is a joint venture between EdX and Google which will offer consultancy, course-development
and hosting/infrastructure services, likely at cost to educational institutions, companies and NGOs
Notable features of the edX model include:
edX is run by a consortium of participating universities, who become ‘Charter’ members, with several
universities contributing financially to the initiative as part of their agreement, and having some say in the
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running of the initiative. Unconfirmed reports indicate that such contributions can be in the hundreds of
thousands of Euros
edX also offers ‘verified’ certificates against a document and webcam identity-check, as well as XSeries
courses (equivalent to specialisations at Coursera). However, XSeries do not require a final exam, and are
only issued by a single school
edX has run several experiments in licencing content to schools for use in everyday courses, and in
offering blended learning modules using edX content with schools
edX has also recently expanded into the high-school market, with its university members producing a set
of courses with edX seed funding ($60,000 per course) directly aimed at high-school students
the edX software platform is open source are free to use, however edX partners often pay for support
contracts. MOOC.org seems to be an attempt to formalise this arrangement.
3.1.3 Udacity
Udacity was started by Sebastian Thrun, widely acknowledged as the creator of the first truly ‘Massive’ MOOC.
It has evolved over the years into a ‘hybrid’ provider – giving free access to its courseware, but charging access
to the actual course experience which is moderated by tutors. By virtue of its lineage, Udacity is usually
considered one of the three leading MOOC providers, however one of the distinguishing features of a MOOC
vis-à-vis a traditional e-learning course is the distinction between opening up the course vs. only the courseware.
At the same time, the word ‘MOOC’ can no longer be found on the Udacity website. As such, this report
considers Udacity to no longer be an Open Education / MOOC Provider in any meaningful sense.
3.2 European MOOC Provision Models (OpenupEd,
FutureLearn)
While lagging behind in MOOC development originally, European initiatives in the sphere have been multiplying
rapidly, especially in the last 24 months.
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FIGURE 3: EUROPEAN MOOCS BY COUN TRY AS AT 06/03/2015. SOURCE: EUROPEAN MOOC SCOREBOARD
(HTTP://WWW.OPENEDUCATIONEUROPA.EU/EN/EUROPEAN_SCOREBOARD_MOOCS)
FIGURE 4: GROWTH RATE OF EUROPEAN VS NON-EUROPEAN MOOCS AS AT 03/09/2014. SOURCE: EUROPEAN MOOC
SCOREBOARD ( HTTP://WWW.OPENEDUCATIONEUROPA.EU/EN/EUROPEAN_SCOREBOARD_MOOCS)
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3.2.1 FutureLearn
FutureLearn is a wholly owned company of the Open University (UK), and has evolved into a MOOC platform
consisting of (more or less) the top 20 UK Universities. FutureLearn is still in a piloting stage, with ‘production’
courses expected in the next few months. Notable features in its initial stage:
FutureLearn explicitly states that its business model currently revolves around charging for
assessment and certification services
For certain courses, it offers invigilated exams in physical test-centres, with successful participants
receiving a “Statement of Attainment”
Certificates of participation are not awarded automatically, but against a fee
3.2.2 OpenUpEd
OpenUpEd operates according to a significantly different model than all the previously mentioned examples.
OpenUpEd is platform independent leaving the choice of technology up to the host institutions, and does not
operate any learning-design or technology support services. The organisation operates as a consortium of
universities, who agree to list their MOOCs on a common platform. HEI Institutions who partner with OpenUpEd
must subscribe to the following conditions
Only HEIs which are part of the formal HE structure of the country of origin, fulfilling all national
requirements of quality assurance and accreditation.
The MOOCs offered within the OpenupEd partnership should be approved by their host institution
and evidence must be provided that a QA system is in operation for the MOOCs offering.
The institution should endorse the eight common features of OpenupEd provision4 and give evidence
of how those eight features are applied in its MOOCs. All MOOCs offered must comply with the
features 'openness to learners' and 'digital openness'.
The institution must obtain the OpenupEd label at entry (For details on the OpenupEd label please see
(Rosewell & Jansen, 2014)). This will be renewed periodically. The quality procedure will be based on a
self-assessment and a review.
The institution must evaluate and monitor its MOOCs offering at least in terms of participation,
appreciation, and completion, as well as regarding equity, quality, and diversity. The data and results
4 These are: openness to learners, digital openness, learner centred approach, independent learning, media-supported interaction, recognition options, quality focus and spectrum of diversity. For more information see: http://www.openuped.eu/mooc-features
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must be made available to the OpenupEd partnership on request in order to facilitate their
accumulation and overall presentation and publication.
By November 2013, OpenUpEd offered 173 MOOCs, and in stark distinction to U.S. MOOCs, 100 of these offered
ECTS upon successful completion(Rosewell & Jansen, 2014), thus offering an official pathway to recognition.
Thus, OpenUpEd is the poster-child for a ‘European Model’ of MOOC provision – where MOOCs are created
directly (and independently) by HEIs, usually using public funding, within the already existing systems of
certification, quality assurance and accreditation, and where Lisbon Recognition Convention / Bologna Process-
compatible credentialisation options are offered for students on a large scale.
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4. TRENDS & EFFECTS OF OPEN EDUCATION
4.1 The growth and growing role of OER
The same arguments which can be used for open access to scientific data, as outlined in Section 2.3 are also
applicable to open access of open educational resources. Open access to educational materials would also help
remove duplicate of efforts, improve quality and reduce the time spent searching for and accessing information
by students and teachers alike. At a policy level, national mandates for publishing publicly funded educational
resources are still not commonplace, although the EC has begun actively investigating the area by committing
to launch an impact assessment on the economic and social impact of an EU initiative to stimulate open access
to educational materials produced with public funds(European Commission, 2013a).
However, even without national/European policy interventions, publication of OER is becoming increasingly
commonplace. Repository66.org, a global tracker of OER in April 2014 lists 3045 global learning object
repositories with over 12 million individual resources stored within them. This is up 7% from 2841 repositories
a year earlier.
FIGURE 5 - OPEN ACCESS REPOSITORIES IN EUROPE BY COUNTRY AND SIZE, APRIL 2014. SOURCE: REPOSITORY66.ORG
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4.2 Unbundling of Education
A Higher Education qualification can be thought of a packaged bundle of content, services, experiences and
signals, made up of several component parts(Staton, 2012).
FIGURE 6 - ELEMENTS OF A COLLEGE DEGREE (STATON, 2012)
When exploring how learning based upon open learning materials might be implemented by traditional
universities, it is recognised that this will often involve unbundling of the academic processes which take place
inside a single institution(Haywood, 2012).
Several of the examples given in section 0 involve the disaggregation of the processes of study, assessment and
recognition. The OERtest project imagined eight probable scenarios for Higher Education Institutions in Europe,
linked to this process of disaggregation, of which the most likely three were considered to be:
OER traditional: here a student independently studies an OER module at their own university, and
have it assessed and recognised as part of a course in the same university. An example of this might
be of a university using MOOCs to replace theatre-style lectures for its own students.
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OER Erasmus: here a student studies and receives assessment for a module from a second university,
within the framework of an already existing university cooperation, while having it recognised for
credit at his home university.
OER Summer School: reflects OER Erasmus, except that in this case the credit is taken from a third
university without a pre-existing relationship with his home university
FIGURE 7: SCENARIOS SHOWING THREE DIFFERENT ROUTES THROUGH WHICH A LEARNER MAY ACQUIRE A ND USE
UNIVERSITY CREDITS ( HAYWOOD, 2012)
4.3 Rise of Non-University Providers in Higher Education
Non-HEI providers generally offer education that is mostly coursework or modules, with a range of courses that
could be career-focused or general education or general interest. They often have course assistants rather than
faculty, students attend episodically and up until now providers have relied on the market for judgements. In
particular, providers of adult and/or professional training have formed part of this group.
However, the rise of MOOCs, and the creation of hybrid providers such as Coursera, where HEIs and companies
collaborate on course design and provision, has created a significant new category provider, which neither
under the category of HEIs or of typical adult training centres. In addition, the open education movement is
serving as a catalyst for other types of company providing only specific steps in the process, including:
Companies licencing course content produced by universities
Universities who specialise in awarding credit for recognition of prior learning, and supplementing it
with a few taught credits to acquire a degree
Specialist examination and certification companies
Textbook providers who provide part of the classroom experience by creating online learning
experiences and communities to accompany their textbooks.
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In all the cases above, the non-HEI providers are offering some of the services offered by an HEI, in an unbundled
format. However, quality assurance standards and other regulatory instruments which apply to HE would likely
not apply, as they not designed to regulate such entities. On the other hand, limitations in legislation could also
hinder the same companies from offering services – e.g. currently only universities can offer ECTS, even though
other institutions are capable of offering individual modules at an EQF level of 5 or above.
4.4 Collaboration Networks to address Open Education
challenges
In traditional e-learning, institutions would either build their own learning management system, often using an
open source tool such as Moodle, or licence it from a company such as Blackboard, and operate it entirely in-
house. Thus, e-learning offerings were just an online extension of the institutions’ main offerings, and were
associated entirely with the brand and service-portfolio of the institutions in question.
The extremely rapid emergence of open education has meant that universities have often found themselves ill-
equipped to evolve at a matching pace. This has led to them to experiment with new partnerships to reach the
desired capacity and development speed. Three typologies of partnership can be identified:
University Networks publishing courses under a single brand such as OpenUpEd
University –Business collaborations for joint-provision of education such as Coursera
‘Living Labs’ to develop OE content, technology and pedagogy such as Opening Up Slovenia 5.
The reasons for these collaborations include:
Increasing visibility – releasing courses under a single brand which is shared by several universities
increases discoverability and searchability. The existence of such brands means that then other
institutions must form their own networks or join existing ones to reach appropriate scale to compete
Exploring commercialisation – the start-up culture of rapid prototyping, continual user testing and
disruptive innovation is better explored in collaborations run by start-ups then within rigid university
bureaucracy
Access to technical expertise – there are currently only a few computer-engineers which specialise in
the advanced learning software being used for automated course provision such as MOOCs. Living
5 Opening up Slovenia is a consortium of organisations made up of government bodies, schools, universities, research centres, companies and non-profit, aiming at foster research activities through all aspects of open education, allowing rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of open learning environments, scientific open education theories, new business models and organisational forms, open education computational tools, and new and emerging technologies for the educational technologies market place. (http://www.k4all.org/openingupslovenia/)
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labs, clusters and other similar collaborations allow universities ready access to this expertise, which
may not exist to sufficient degree in-house
4.5 Increasing Demand for Recognition and Portability
The introduction of open learning, rather than satisfy students with the range of free materials and non-
recognised qualifications available, has in fact served to create demand for further expansion and utilisation of
the concept. Thus, students have increasingly demanded to have their achievements recognised for what they
are – whether in the form of online badges, certificates or credits (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013). In addition,
increasing financial pressure on HEIs has led them to see out efficiencies in their operations and most
importantly, explore new business models (Estermann & Pruvot, 2011) such as those linked to certifying MOOCs
as described already under Section 3.1.
The types of certification on offer in Europe are well described by the case of UNED Abierta, which offers a
freemium model where;
badges are gained automatically as the course progresses, for having achieved specific
results/benchmarks.
a certificate, defined as a Credential, is awarded as a result of a student having finished the majority
(80% or more) of a given course and subsequently taking an online test.
full certificates (ECTS), which require a student to undertake a test similar to the online one but on a
computer in one of UNED’s regional study centres, where proof of identity is required and the test is
taken in authentic exam conditions, are offered against payment(Read & Rodrigo, 2014).
While data on the phenomenon is not yet available, it is logical to assume that, given the scale of MOOCs in
certifying millions of students with university or university-like qualifications, HEIs or other competent
authorities around Europe will in the very near future see marked increase in students requesting recognition
of:
ECTS earned through MOOCs using existing portability mechanisms and recognition agreements (as
described in Section 3.2.2, several hundred European MOOCs already offer ECTS for completion)
Learning which occurred through MOOCs, through RPL¸(the EU Recommendation on the validation of
non-formal and informal learning specifically mentions the recognition of learning occurring through
OERs (Council of the European Union, 2012))
Official qualifications awarded for MOOC-based learning, from non-EU institutions, through the
system of ENIC/NARIC centres
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5. ISSUES & RECOMMENDATIONS
The issues & recommendations in this section are set within the context of the framework for the education
strategy for Malta 2014-2024, so as to make a direct link between Open Education policy, and the broader policy
framework. The framework sets out the following strategic pillars for policy development:
FIGURE 8 - STRATEGIC PILLARS FOR POLICY DEVELOPMEN T (MINISTRY FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT, 2014)
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5.1 Open Access to Resources
5.1.1 Issue 1: Malta is lagging behind in Open Access Policies
Relevant to: Social Dimension – Open Access
Strategic Innovation – Managing the interaction of the Quadruple Helix
Amongst the many benefits of open access policies, are those that it gives the public access to research and
learning funded with their own money, as well as that such policies improved the dissemination of research and
learning. In particular, they help improve the dissemination of content, break down the barriers around walled-
content, improve the ability to analyse literature and open the doors for a host of new services to be built on
the databases such as citation-counting, plagiarism detection, text-mining and the like(Pinfield, 2005). In
addition, several EC documents, described already in Section 4.1, encourage member states to set up such
policies.
Rec 1: Set up a National Open Access Policy encompassing Education & Research
It is recommended that the NCFHE, together with the MCST and relevant stakeholders, set up a
committee to establish a National Open Access Policy for Research & Educational Materials. In each
area, the policy would need to establish whether to suggest or mandate access to OER and research
materials, and furthermore establish conditions for exemptions to the policy (such as for
research/education with a commercial potential for the institutions producing them).
Rec 2: Support the creation of an appropriate open education infrastructure
Malta is currently nearly unique in not having any large scale open access repositories. The NCFHE
(possibly in collaboration with the MCST) should therefore urgently incentivise the creation of one (or
several) repositories which are able to host:
dissertations, theses and other ‘student research’
original research produced by Maltese scientists
open educational resources produced by Maltese educational institutions
Such repositories could either be set up on a national level, or on an institutional level, with a MITA
then offering a harvesting service which would stich the institutional repositories into a national
database using technologies such as OAI-PMH6.
6 OAI-PMH is a protocol for repository interoperability. It allows harvesting software to collect data from any number of compliant repositories, and stitch them into a meta-repository, with very little effort.
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5.1.2 Issue 2: Open publishing offers significant opportunities for Maltese
education
Relevant to: Student Focus – Student Centred Learning,
To a large extent, open publishing of research already exists within Malta. Thus, the Xjenza – Journal of the
Malta Chamber of Scientists, the Malta Review of Educational Research and the Malta Medical Journal are
already open access. Within Maltese HE, an informal system of open textbooks has also existed for decades. In
many courses, the ‘textbook’ consists of lecture notes prepared by a lecturer and improved on a yearly cases.
In many cases, these notes are handed down from lecturer to lecturer, and also improved collaboratively by
students either in concert with the lecturer, or in informal networks7.
Rec 3: Encourage the creation of incentives for publishing of OER
In the current academic incentive scheme, an academic would receive credit for publishing his work as
a textbook with an open publisher. However, publishing the same work on a wiki, accepting
contributions from students and from other academics, and continually updating the work over a period
of years – effectively creating a much better resource, would earn him no comparable credit. Especially
considering the rich heritage of class notes already in circulation, an incentive scheme for open access
publishing would bring these within the formal system, maximise their learning benefits, and quite likely
lead to corresponding efficiency savings.
5.2 Unbundling of Education
5.2.1 Issue 3: Unbundling allows for better student choice
Relevant to: Student Focus – Different learning tracks
International Dimension – International openness to new systems and processes
Especially in a country such as Malta, which is home to only a single medium sized university, it is impossible for
students to be exposed to every topic area and/or niche speciality within their own institution. With thousands
of MOOCs for credit now available, it is possible to integrate these into local courses.
7 We refer to these as examples of peer-produced content, defined as “the (digital) content for learning created, edited , enriched by peers” (Auvinen & Ehlers, 2009)
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Rec 4: Consider implementing a scheme for implementing ‘OER Erasmus’
Under such a scheme, local HEIs, on a per-course level, would create a list of MOOCs whose certificates
may be accepted as part of the credit leading towards a qualification. MOOCs would usually be included
in the list either because they cover niche subjects not taught in Malta. So as to enable such inclusion,
the NCFHE would need to publish a set of quality guidelines for accepting such MOOCs, or suggest that
institutions align themselves with a consortium such as OpenUpEd, and accept credits from within the
said consortium.
5.3 Non-University Providers
5.3.1 Issue 4: The current regulatory framework leaves lacunae with
respect to non-university providers
Relevant to: Governance of Education Organisations: governance structure that enables modernisation and
innovation
Quality of Education Provision: continuous development of education providers
As already discussed in section 4.3, current legislation was not designed to handle the emergence of non-
traditional providers. This creates two problems: firstly that such providers may find regulatory barriers (such
as not being able to ECTS) prevent them from offering the services they would like, and secondly that current
quality controls which ought to apply to them may not necessarily do so. (In an example of the latter, were an
HEI to offer a non-credit bearing MOOC, it is unclear whether the same quality procedures as for a regular course
would be applied).
Rec 5: Establish a legislative framework incentivising non-traditional providers in HE, while assuring quality
Malta has significant expertise in designing legislative frameworks which (a) incentivise industry from
around the world to create new opportunities in Malta, and which (b) offer a respected quality ‘label’
guaranteed by the Maltese state. I-gaming, ship & aircraft registration and financial services are but a
few successful examples of this approach being effectively implemented already. Within HE, a similarly
designed legislative package could incentivise an entire ecosystem of social entrepreneurs focusing on
the field, and, thanks to the Bologna Process reforms, with a provision-scope across the EHEA.
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5.4 Collaboration Networks
5.4.1 Issue 5: Maltese Institutions can only reach scale in Open Education
through collaboration
Relevant to: Strategic Innovation: realignment and development of strategic objectives based on
international developments in education and feedback from stakeholders
Strategic Innovation: Training for educators on new teaching and learning methods
It is clear that quick advances within open education must happen within collaboration networks. Often,
collaboration with an inter-locking series of networks might be even more appropriate to achieve one’s goals.
Rec 6: Examine the possibility of providing MOOCs within an existing MOOC collaboration network
Should Maltese HEIs choose to go into MOOC provision (which, at current rate of development of the
field, currently seems inevitable), they will initially need access to the expertise and global reach offered
by MOOC collaboration networks. In particular, different networks may be required to (a) extend the
brand and reach of the offerings, (b) provide instructional design expertise with respect to MOOCs, and
(c) facilitate recognition pathways based on the MOOCs. We would therefore recommend the
commissioning of an impact assessment determining the appropriate network for the local context.
Rec 7: Create a Research & Innovation Cluster around Open Education
Malta has a rich variety of IT and IT Services companies, a developing sector of private distance learning
providers, a clear link between education and employment policy, a well-reputed and internationalised
public HE system, and a vision to become a larger player in the global education services market. Taken
together, these form an ideal basis for a research & innovation cluster around open education. At first,
such a cluster might take the form of a simple coordination body, such as an Open Education council
bringing together the various stakeholders to discuss possible joint initiatives. Alternatively, such
cooperation might take place through a special interest group set up within the framework of the eSkills
Malta Foundation, which already brings together all the relevant stakeholders for such an initiative,
albeit for a more narrow purpose.
With funding from the ESF, a roadmap towards a more ambitious programme might be considered
bringing together the typical elements of such clusters: grants for entrepreneurs, incentives to create
consortia for joint activities, physical co-location, living labs, international collaborations, etc.
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5.5 Recognition & Assessment
5.5.1 Issue 6: Open Learning Certification is creating confusion
Relevant to: International Dimension: International openness to new systems and processes
International Dimension: Harmonisation of qualification frameworks to European structures
Social Dimension: Open access to information on educational tracks and qualification
opportunities
Based on current legislative standards, with the exception of a graduate holding a traditional award based on
open learning, it is likely that a graduate holding an ‘open learning’ certification of the various kinds on offer
would find significant difficulty in having it recognised, with large discrepancies in recognition between different
HEIs and employers and across different jurisdictions (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013). The plurality of
certification options and types, in particular those being offered by MOOC providers, mean that students would
likely be confused as to the various certification options available, and their implications
Rec 8: Publish a “users’ guide to MOOC certification” aimed at Maltese students
A users’ guide or fact-sheet, explaining the different types of MOOC certificates offered by different
providers, and their likely acceptance or validity in terms of portability for education & employment
would be invaluable to Maltese students. Such an initiative might best be done in collaboration with
ENIC/NARIC and published on the Maltese ENIC/NARIC portal.
Rec 9: Oblige all educational providers to describe their offerings in terms of the MQF/EQF
As already described, certain providers may escape the definitions of HEIs in the Maltese legislative
sense. Therefore a blanket requirement for any institution claiming to offer educational offerings to
map them to the MQF may offer some clarity and protection to the market.
5.5.2 Issue 7: Recognition of Prior Learning is not scalable
Relevant to: International Dimension: Harmonisation of assessment and examination methods
Governance of Education Organisations: support for the development of administrative
processes
In theory, any open learning experience should be able to be certifiable locally in terms of RPL. However, in a
scenario where thousands of MOOCs are consumed a year, even a small percentage of users requesting RPL
could quickly overwhelm the system.
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Rec 10: Create an automatic RPL path where appropriate
Under this recommendation, a framework would be set up whereby certain MOOC providers, networks
and/or MOOCs covered by a quality label, would be considered to be ‘approved’. By this logic, a student
who would ask for RPL based on a MOOC which had (a) verified identity, (b) provided proof of successful
completion (including where appropriate assessment) and (c) was supplied by a provider on the
‘approved’ list, would have that MOOC automatically validated through the RPL procedure.
5.6 Teaching & Learning
5.6.1 Issue 8: Automating teaching is, in many cases, more efficient
Relevant to: Governance of education organisations: Sustainability of long-term financing
Governance of education organisations: Governance structure that enables modernisation and
innovation
Student Focus: different learning tracks and student centred learning
Strategic Innovation: training for educators on new teaching and learning methods
Throughout Maltese further and higher education, one can find examples of lectures being given to classes of
over one hundred students. Such classes are efficient in terms of teacher-effort expended, but require a large
physical infrastructure to host the classes. In addition, they involve zero to very little student-teacher
interaction, and essentially serve as one-way information delivery vehicles. It is hard to imagine that in such
cases, MOOC-style courses with high degrees of interactivity, built-in community features, the possibility for
self-paced study from anywhere and other features do not offer a superior, and due to the automation involved,
more efficient mode of study.
Rec 11: Conduct an audit of provision-modes
Theatre-style lectures, workshops, problem-based learning, distance learning and blended learning are
but some of the options available for learning-provision. Most of the time the mode of provision has
been determined by lecture preference and/or historical reasons. It is therefore recommended that
quality assurance criteria for courses include a requirement to justify the mode of provision currently
being offered on the basis of effectiveness and efficiency.
Rec 12: Reserve funding for the development of MOOC-inspired e-learning courses
A portion of the budget for HE should be reserved specifically for further development in this area, so
as to encourage institutions to more aggressively explore the field, in particular for their own students.
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Rec 13: Accelerate training of teachers and other support staff in e-learning
The University of Malta already offers a Masters’ programme in Technology Enhanced Learning, which
goes some way to providing the required specialists to run e-learning courses in Malta8. However, to
truly accelerate the adoption of e-learning, the training of specialists will need to be supplemented by:
mainstreaming of digital and open education topics into the B.Ed. curriculum
providing significant continuous professional education courses to current teaching staff to
modernise their e-skills
Ensuring an adequate supply of programmers, camerapersons, graphic designers, instructional
designers and other professions necessary to provide a high-quality digital education
experience
To this end, the eSkills Malta Foundation should produce a specific policy document looking at eSkills
for the Education Sector, and making appropriate recommendations as to how to implement these
priorities.
5.7 Relevant Policy-Recommendation Documents
The European Commission’s High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education published a report to
the Commission on New Modes of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in October 2014. Many of the
recommendations in this document echo and/or complement observations made in this report. As such, we
consider this an essential report for consultation. It can be accessed from:
http://ec.europa.eu/education/library/ebooks/learning-teaching/index.html
Other documents with relevant policy-recommendations on Open Access include:
UNESCO Policy Guidelines for the development and promotion of open access (2012). Available online
from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002158/215863e.pdf
EC Communication on Opening up Education: Innovative teaching & learning for all through new
technologies and open educational resources (2013). Available online from: http://eur-
lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1389115469384&uri=CELEX:52013DC0654
8 See http://www.um.edu.mt/educ/overview/PMTELPET3-2011-2-O for details of the course
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