‘The Why and How of Open Education‘

Session One: Service Concepts and Practices

By: Dr. Andreas Meiszner & Ruediger Glott, United Nations University UNU-MERIT – The Netherlands. Elmar Husmann, ELIG – European Learning Industry Group

Workshop on “The Why and How of Open Education: Service Concepts and Provider Perspectives” 15th MindTrek Conference and the International Academic Conference | 30 of September, Tampere – Finnland

•  Social Mission: Access to high quality education for all

• Partnering and collaboration opportunities with fellow higher education institutions from

the developed and developing world, including joint delivery of courses and programmes

•  Provides alternative economic models (e.g. freemium) and to unbundle the traditional

education package and to market its individual service components (e.g. support, in-class

lectures, assessment & certification)

•  Allows to potentially get into new markets

•  Allows to market course modules as part of qualifications awarded by other organisations,

notably from the developing world

•  Enables the creation of courses more rapidly to test the market

•  Great research possibilities, after all – the UN University is a research university

UNUOpen will provide a common platform and new standards

for the provision of higher education courses, programmes and educational services,

both for-free and for-fee, from UNU and third party education providers.

It will bring together traditional enrolled students and educators across institutions, free

learners outside of formal education, and the learning industry within one Open Education

market space.

•  Merge the traditional and the Open Education models, and bring together different

stakeholders of the Open Education domain.

•  Open the untapped potential of sustainable education models, targeting a range of players

from traditional providers (eg. universities) to newly emerging actors (eg. ‘learning collectives’)

to new services (eg. by un-bundling education) across the sphere of Open Education.

•  Combine the global reach of UNU, the vast experience of Open University UK, and the

expertise of major academic and commercial players.

•  Collaborate with key stakeholders from academia, the learning industry, informal learning

communities, governments and capacity building to work jointly towards a common goal.

1. Development of services around courses, programmes and other types of OER to allow

for self-sustaining educational offers. Enable learners to select their own services

components and education providers to create their own service portfolios.

2. Co-development of courses, programmes and services by developed and developing

country institutions (including but not limited through twinning arrangements); leading to

dynamic learning and knowledge exchange as well as peer-to-peer sharing of best practices,

and thus to empowerment.

3. Co-existence of different kinds of services (for fees/for free) in parallel; therefore blending

traditional higher education practices with new and open ones.

•  Access to the infrastructure needed for the global provision of high quality and locally relevant higher

education, to new partnerships with stakeholders from academia, industry and NGOs, and to support the

development and delivery of joint master, PhD, or short term training courses and programs.

•  Provision of a robust and self-sustainable framework to better coordinate teaching and learning, research

and capacity building activities and to allow for synergies of scale.

•  Opportunity to use of information and communication technology to support a more sustainable

development.

•  The decentralized model of education that UNUOpen would provide is expected to increase efficiency as

well as create synergies of scale.

•  Obstacles of today’s tertiary education (UNESCO Report 2005, p.188) are tackled by enabling the

optimized use of resources and supporting the systematic availability of information.

•  Academic preparation of learners is supported through an open pedagogical approach, all with a view to

harnessing available social capital, thus providing clear incentives for educational providers and learners.

Services to learners: •  Formal assessment •  Certification & Degrees •  Local in-class support •  Monitored study groups •  Online tutoring

Services to fellow academic institutions / education provider:

•  Training, course & programme development,

•  Hosting & maintenance

•  Online assessment and certification systems

•  Online spaces to provide tutoring

•  Billing systems

•  Physical ID verification & assessment control

In partnership:

•  With fellow academic institutions that help us to shape the Open Education market and to

blend it with the traditional formal higher education one

•  Together with the learning industry to assure sustainability and financial viability of such new

forms of educational provision

•  And close collaboration with governmental stakeholders to establish the supportive policy

frameworks

•  With donor and capacity building organizations to assure the availability of financial

resources to seed such new Open Education market and to build up capacity of its potential

users

•  With other formal and non-formal Open Education initiatives, such as P2PU and OERu

... what would be reasons and means for providing Open Education and

the Service attached to this, either as a standalone offer or embedded

within a traditional/formal education context?

Thank you for your attention!

Elmar Husmann ELIG – European Learning Industry Group

… Dr. Andreas Meiszner,

United Nations University UNU-MERIT

meiszner@merit.unu.edu