WLS 2017 Proceedings Full Text PDF PDF

Christian M.
Stracke
Michael Shanks
Oddgeir Tveiten (Eds.)
Smart Universities
Education’s Digital Future
λογος
Christian M. Stracke
Michael Shanks
Smart Universities:
Education's Digital Future
Official Proceedings of the International

WLS and LINQ Conference 2017
Organized by the University of Agder, the Open University of the Netherlands,
the University of Standford and by the International Community for Open
Research and Open Education (ICORE)
and supported by:
Christian M. Stracke,
Michael Shanks,
Smart Universities:
Education's Digital Future
Official Proceedings of the International

WLS and LINQ Conference 2017
Organized by the University of Agder, the Open University of the Netherlands,

the University of Standford and by the International Community for Open
Research and Open Education (ICORE)
Christian M. Stracke, Oddgeir Tveiten, Michael Shanks (Eds.)
Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future

Official Proceedings of the International WLS and LINQ Conference 2017
th th
held in Kristiansand, Norway, on 7 -9 of June 2017.
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek:
The German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) lists this publication

in the German National Bibliography (Deutsche Nationalbibliografie);
detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at <http://dnb.d-nb.de>.
ISBN: 978-3-8325-4595-6
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All information about the the International WLS and LINQ Conference 2017, held in Kristiansand,
th th
Norway, on 7 -9 of June 2017, see online at:
<http://www.learning-innovations.eu> and
<http://www.worldlearningsummit.com>
Contact:
Dr. Christian M. Stracke
Open University of the Netherlands
christian.stracke@ou.nl
Dr. Oddgeir Tveiten

University of Agder, Norway
oddgeir.tveiten@uia.no
Information about WLS and LINQ 2017 online: <http://www.worldlearningsummit.com>
© Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH

© Christian M. Stracke, OUNL 2017
© Future Learning Lab, UIA 2017
Table of Content
Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future........................................................... 7

Christian M. Stracke, Michael Shanks and Oddgeir Tveiten
Scientific Papers.................................................................................................... 11
Learning to learn: Beyond 2020.............................................................................. 13

Esther Tan, Christian M. Stracke, Marek Prokopowicz, Edit Kővári, Tamás
Kigyós, Tibor Csizmadia, Karin Kronika, Bea Fehérvölgyi, Krisztina Erdős
New Faculty Roles in Online Education: The Professor as Writer, Director, Actor
and Producer? ............................................................................................. 21
Terje Gaustad, Donatella de Paoli
Competency Alignment of Open Badges................................................................. 29
Johannes Konert, Ilona Buchem, Lucy Lewis, Grainne Hamilton, Tim Riches
Students experiencing flow in a Physics laboratory task using mobile phones and
free software............................................................................................... 37
Thomas Gjesteland, Pauline Vos, Margrethe Wold
Towards an Evaluation Toolkit for Asynchronous (Audio) Book Clubs ...................... 45
Vladena Bätge Jahn, Wolfgang Jacquet, Koen Lombaerts
Improving student approaches to Online Assessment in Higher Education with
Visualisation Software ................................................................................. 53
David Smith, Asim Qayyum
Leadership and Educational Change for 21st Century Schools ................................. 59
Maria-Antònia Guardiola López
Challenges of Openness and Quality for Smart Universities in the Post-Truth and
Post-Trust Era .............................................................................................. 65
Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić, Sir John Daniel
Understanding 'Smart University' through Incidental Learning Experience of Open
and Distance Education ............................................................................... 77
Jane-Frances Obiageli Agbu
Contact Education – a Theory Framework .............................................................. 85
Oddgeir Tveiten
The Quality of Open Online Education and Learning: A Quality Reference
Framework for MOOCs ................................................................................ 97
Mobile Technologies as tools for Learning in Non-formal contexts. Experiences
with Smallholders farmers in Resource Limited Settings ............................. 107
Dianah Nampijja
MOOCING journalism education: Notes on the emergent learning technology
industry..................................................................................................... 119
Oddgeir Tveiten
Project Presentations.......................................................................................... 129
Nordic EdTech: Vision, Evolution, Challenges & Opportunities .............................. 131

Eilif Trondsen
ALC: Measuring Learning Impact on Minority, Underserved & Disadvantaged ...... 139
EBE-EUSMOSI: Evidence-Based Education European Strategic Model for School ... 141
The ETH EduApp project ...................................................................................... 143
ICORE - The International Community for Open Research and Education .............. 145
MOOCs and TORQUEs at ETH Zurich .................................................................... 147
MOOQ: For the Quality of Open Education and MOOCs........................................ 149
Universal Design for Leaning Network (UDLnet) ................................................... 151
WLS and LINQ 2017 Scientific Programme Committee .......................................... 154
WLS and LINQ 2017 Keynote Speakers ................................................................. 155
WLS and LINQ 2017 Invited Speakers ................................................................... 160
WLS and LINQ 2017 Conference Chairs and Committee ........................................ 163
Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future
Christian M. Stracke, Michael Shanks and Oddgeir Tveiten

Institutions of learning at all levels are challenged by a fast and accelerating pace
of change in the development of communications technology. Conferences
around the world address the issue and research journals in a wide range of
scholarly fields are placing the challenge of understanding „Education´s Digital
Future“ on their agenda. The World Learning Summit and LINQ Conference 2017
proceedings that you are now reading, take this as a point of origin. Noting how
the future also has a past: Emergent uses of communications technologies in
learning are of course neither new nor unfamiliar. What may be less familiar is
the notion of ”disruption”, marking many of the conferences and journal entries.
Is “education´s digital present” as transformative as in the case of the film
industry, the music industry, journalism, and health? If so, clearly the challenge
of understanding goes to the core of institutions and organizations as much as
pedagogy and practice in the classroom.
Research from various fields now emphasize the effects of learning
technologies, texts and aesthetics, personalized learning experience, new means
of assessments, the potentials of globalized learning networks, if not to say the
futures of a work-life characterized much more than before by demands for
flexibility, media competence, problem-solving skills, and more. Scholars come to
the field of education technology from pedagogy and from a variety of other
fields, such as ICT, media studies, organizational studies, psychology, geography,
and anthropology. With the coming of sophisticated digital learning analytics, the
questions asked will also tell a great deal about the potential answers found.
Entrepreneurs in the education technology business often argue that more
education technology in the classroom makes for more effective students. But is
that really the case, generally? And is it the most pressing question?
If we take as point of departure the idea that media transformations of the
last few decades are transformative at the wide range of levels, then it follows
that the challenge of education transformation ought to be viewed accordingly.
Marshal McLuhan and his contemporary Harold Innis, once noted how
communication technologies and transition from one prototypical paradigm to
another is also an aspect of a deeper civilizational change. Conceptions of the
world change. Power relations change. Interaction conventions change. Taste
relations change. Aesthetics change. Ideas about learning and how human beings
learn, also change. Does not our very discourses on what it means to learn, in the
21st century reflect back profoundly on education as a social institution?
8 Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future
Concerns such as these frame the conference theme at the 2017 World
Learning Summit. An annual conference, WLS was held for the seventh time in
2017. This year, WLS joined forces with the Learning Innovation and Quality
(LINQ) Conference, to forge a new global meeting space for innovators and
critical thinkers to discuss and reflect on what is ahead in the world of learning.
We believe that a need for a change in future learning and education is apparent.
We also believe that formulating a framework for that change is an inter-
disciplinary challenge. Like other conferences and summits in this field, the WLS
and LINQ approach is an open and interdisciplinary one. What we add is a
consistent emphasis to merge critical research with practical innovation, as these
summit proceedings from 2017 amply illustrate. Previous and coming
conferences bring to the discussions global thought-leaders, interested in
contextualizing scholarship in education and learning within a broader frame of
social change and development.
Several challenges were formulated in the summit call: Learning
technologies are changing the face of learning, education and society, but a
surprisingly small number of world-encompassing companies own that world
change. So, is the future of learning and education open? Do we foresee a
sustainable future learning space available to all? Is learning and education the
last digital frontier in a world of disruption and change foreseen and owned by
the few – in a world of escalating digital divides? How do we respond, as citizens,
learners and custodians of education?
One approach to the pursuit of a critical debate is the concept of Smart
Universities – educational institutions that adopt to the realities of digital online
media in an encompassing manner:
Universities now co-operate globally in networked modes, bridging North
and South, High and Low – if not to say formal and informal learning. Would a
key perspective then seem to be our capability to understand learning
technologies from the point of view of the medium, mediation, and media?
Technology enables, but context is cultural. Smart universities address both. They
transfer the innovative process from the drawing board and the tools at hand to
the learning designs that in turn reflect on human interaction; what it is that
technology aims at helping us achieve.
How can we as smarter universities and societies build sustainable learning
eco systems for coming generations, where technologies serve learning and not
the other way around? Perhaps that is the key question of our time, reflecting
concerns and challenges in a variety of scholarly fields and disciplines?
Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future 9
These proceedings present the results from an engaging event that took
place from 7th to 9th of June 2017 in Kristiansand, Norway. First the scientific
papers submitted to the Open Call for Papers and selected by the international
programme committee in double-blind peer review followed by the invited
keynotes and articles:
Esther Tan et al. discuss the horizontal key competence "Learning how to
Learn" and its need to meet the future challenges in work and society.
Gaustad and de Paoli focus on the different roles of professors as writer,
director, actor and producer in online education.
Konert et al. research the use of open badges and how they can be applied
to competency alignment.
Gjesteland, Vos and Wold analyse the flow experiences by students in a
physics laboratory while using mobile phones and free software.
Jahn, Jacquet and Lombaerts present first steps towards an evaluation
toolkit for asynchronous book clubs and their provided audios.
Smith and Qayyum demonstrate in their short paper how visualization
software can improve the online assessment by students.
Guardióla Lopez discussing in her short paper the required change for 21st
century schools related to leadership and education.
Uvalić-Trumbić and Sir Daniel highlight the challenges of openness and
quality for smart universities in the post-truth and post-trust era that is based on
their keynote and introducing the section of invited papers.
Obiageli Agbu reflects on smart universities based on her incidental learning
experiences of open and distance education.
Tveiten proposes a new theory framework called "Contact Education" for
exploring media rich learning designs.
Stracke addresses the quality of open online education and learning and the
current efforts towards a "Quality Reference Framework" for online courses.
Nampijja provides empirical data on smallholder farmers in resource limited
and non-formal learning setting using mobile technologies.
Tveiten reflects on the emergent learning technology industry by discussing
MOOCs as a framework for thinking through journalism education.
From the Calls for Projects, seven projects are also selected and briefly
introduced in these proceedings. Opening this section of project presentations,
and ending the proceedings, Trondsen outlines his vision of Nordic EdTech – the
formation of a Nordic education technologies network: He discusses challenges
and opportunities relating to future Nordic collaboration, as studied in two
projects from 2013 to the present, aimed at fostering that joint Nordic arena.
This book volume contributes to the debate on the need and imperatives to
change education from a broader and more deeply embedded understanding of
how digital media now transform society. The future of education is digital, it is
online, it is open: Smart Universities may be a promising concept and a first step
on our long-term journey along that trajectory. We were pleased to welcome
experts and practitioners from all parts of the world at WLS and LINQ 2017!
Scientific Papers
Learning to learn: Beyond 2020
Esther Tan1, Christian M. Stracke1, Marek Prokopowicz2, Edit

Kővári3, Tamás Kigyós3, Tibor Csizmadia3, Karin Kronika4, Bea
Fehérvölgyi3, Krisztina Erdős5
1
Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands
2
Wrocław University of Economics, Poland
3
University of Pannonia, Hungary
4
BEST Institut für berufsbezogene Weiterbildung und Personaltraining GmbH, Austria
5
Europa Consortium Regional Development Non-profit Limited, Hungary
esther.tan@ou.nl
Abstract: The current discourse on staying relevant in the 21st century

workplace and lifelong learning is instrumental for this empirical work. This
research study has a two-fold objective. First, it identifies the skill-deficit in
our graduates when they enter the workforce: critical thinking, problem-
solving and managing one’s own learning process. Second, it captures best
practices of educational, non-educational and training agencies in
developing and evaluating the above-mentioned three core skill-sets. In-
depth interviews were carried out with 72 organizations: 34 educational
institutions and 19 non-educational institutions plus 19 training agencies
as specific third target group. Two main findings emerged: First, there is a
gap between employers’ expectations and graduates’ competences, and
second, the methods of developing and evaluating the three core skill-sets
differ between educational institutions on one hand and non-educational
institutions and training agencies on the other hand. This implies a need
for a more integrated planning system amongst the core stakeholders: the
HEI, industry players and governmental bodies.
Keywords: lifelong learning, critical thinking, problem-solving, managing
one’s own learning, global connectivity
1 Introduction
Technological advances has revolutionised not only the way we learn, but also
st
the way we work in the 21 century landscape. Global connectivity has created
not only borderless classrooms, but also virtual workplaces. Current discourse on
lifelong learning, future skills, and future-ready graduates imply a dire need to
revisit the existing Higher Education (HE) instructional programmes and rethink
how we might better equip and empower our graduates to increase their
st
employability and mobility in the 21 century workplace (Stracke, 2011). In the
face of rapid global changes, Davies, Fidler, and Gorbis (2011) identify 10 future
skills that would be much needed for a future-ready cohort of workers: sense-
making, novel and adaptive thinking, virtual collaboration, transdisciplinary,
cross-cultural competency, social intelligence, cognitive load management, new
media literacy, a design mindset and computational thinking. New competences
in the future workplace also imply the need for professional development and
training of our teachers (European Commission, 2012).
In Europe, the Education and Training 2020 strategy (ET2020) forms part of
the Europe 2020 strategy to promote growth and jobs (Kim, 2015). Similiar
trends can also be traced in Asia. In Japan and Korea, there is a clear vision to
improve tertiary education and to promote lifelong learners. In Japan, stronger
partnership and collaboration between the respective universities, corporate
world, governmental bodies have been enforced (Kim, 2015). And to the Far-
east, Singapore, its educational vision and mission statement, “Thinking Schools,
Learning Nation“, aims to develop creative thinking skills and to foster lifelong
learning. In a nutshell, education will remain a key driver for economic growth
and nation building in Asia. On the same note, the key research interest in the
European Union (EU) also foregrounds internationalization in higher education
(Yemini & Sagie, 2016). Likewise, Staley and Trinkle (2011) accentuate the need
for formal HEI’s commitment to general education, i.e., provision of training in
practical and vocational contexts.
In the light of the EU context, the research questions read:
1. What are the core skill-sets a graduate would need to possess when he
or she enters the workforce?
2. What would be the best practices (methods or tools) to develop and
evaluate the core-skill sets of our graduates?
Learning to learn: Beyond 2020 15
2 Methodology
2.1 Sample and design
The empirical study is conducted in two phases. In the first phase, desktop
research and establishing initial contacts with various organisations ranging from
formal educational institutions (such as schools and universities) to non-formal
educational institutions (such as enterprises) and including specialised training
agencies as third specific target group via an insight-card were carried out. Under
the overarching competence - ‘learning to learn’, three core skill-sets with their
respective subsets were identified as critical for graduates to enter the
workforce: critical thinking, problem-solving and managing one’s own learning
process (see figure 1).
Figure 1: Three core skill-sets in Learning to Learn
In the second phase, 72 structured interviews were conducted via face-to-face

interviews, Skype and other electronic forms over a period of three months (from
Feb to April, 2016). Table 1 provides an overview of the framework of the
structured interview and a summary of the core question items.
Table 1: Framework of the in-depth structured interview
Core aspects of Interview questions on the three core skill-sets:

structured interview critical thinking, problem solving & managing
one’s own learning
Importance & How important is the skill-set (e.g., problem
Implications of skill-set solving) in your organization?
In which areas is the skill-set (e.g., problem
solving) most essential? And why in those
specific areas?
Method(s) of assessing What method(s), tool(s) and/ or diagnostic
skill-set test(s) (if any) are used to identify potential
employees? Please elaborate on the strengths
and limitations of these means of assessments
Method(s) of Do you offer any training activities for your
developing & employees (e.g., related to developing the
evaluating skill-set ability to problem-solve)?
If not, why? What is the reason for not doing so?
If yes, could you elaborate on those solutions /
training courses / modules / methods/ tools
What possible problems / limitations could
emerge with regard to the solution(s)/
method(s)? How can they be countered or
overcome?
The structured interviews on the three core skill-sets and the overarching
competence of learning to learn involved schools, universities, teacher education
centres, adult education centres (continuing education centres), scientific
research centres, training institutions, psychological and educational counselling
services for adults, foundations, associations operating in the education and
continuing education field, career counselling services, job agencies, as well as
human resources departments in companies. In total, we obtained 72 structured
interviews across Europe (countries in alphabetical order: Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine): 34 educational institutions (e.g.,
universities, schools, i.e., so-called formal education); 19 non-educational
organizations (e.g., companies, workplace) and 19 training agencies (e.g.,
language and coaching schools, continuing education centres etc.).
2.2 Data collection and analysis
The structured interviews via Skype and face-to-face were audio-recorded and/
or field notes were also taken. The corpus of audio (Skype & face-to-face) and
written data (from the electronic format) were then analysed and coded with
respect to five thematic categories: (1) importance of the three skill-sets, (2)
areas/fields where the skill-set(s) is/are particularly needed, (3) methods of
assessing/ verifying the skill-set(s), (4) method(s) of developing the skill-set(s), (5)
method(s) of evaluating the acquired skill-set(s). For the scope of this paper, we
present the findings on the importance and implications of the three core skill-
sets, as well as methods on developing and evaluating these three skill-sets.
3 Findings
This section addresses the two main research questions. We will first present the
findings on the importance of the three core skill-sets in section 3.1. Next, we will
identify the method(s) to develop and to evaluate these skill-sets in section 3.2.
3.1 Importance of the skill-sets in future workplace
Findings from the insight-cards, as well as in-depth structured interviews

identifed a gap between employers’ expectations and graduates’ competences.
Employers have increasingly sought potential employees which possess the
“learning to learn” competence, i.e., the capacity to embrace and process new
knowledge and new skills, as well as to leverage new experiences to explore
unchartered terrorities and new entrepreneurial opportunities. The overarching
competence - “learning to learn” is foreseen to be even more pronounced in the
present Western labour markets which will empower the individuals both to
achieve set goals and to perform effectively and efficiently. And albeit domain-
specific knowledge acquired in formal education still serves a perfunctory role,
both educators and employers alike, foresee that the competence for continuous
learning and improvement shall remain a greater asset for progress and
development in all companies and industries.
Likewise, all interviewed partners identified critical thinking as one of the
core competences necessary for the workplace, as well as for one’s career
advancement. Notwithstanding interviewees differed in methodologies for
triggering and inculcating critical thinking skill in their employees, however, all
shared similar understanding of critical thinking and the related four sub-skills (as
shown in figure 1, page 3). The sub-skills carry important implications for
effective and efficient project task planning and execution.
On problem-solving skills, most interviews expressed that critical thinking
and problem-solving skills are inseparable in many ways. What essentially
distinguishes these two skills lies in possessing a positive attitude towards
problem-solving. Having the right attitude was emphasised as the most
important aspect to develop and to nurture.
Finally, managing one’s own learning process was thought by most
interviewees as being the most challenging to define. However, all unanimously
agreed that managing one’s own learning path involves work-life balance,
lifelong learning and career goals. In this competence, they included time
management skills, self-knowledge and reflective mind-set as important sub-skills.
3.2 Methods for developing and evaluating the three skill-sets
As shown in table 2, methods of developing and evaluating the three skill-sets

differ mainly between educational institutions and non-educational institutions
including training agencies. Educational institutions develop and evaluate these
three skill-sets in a less contextualised environment whereas non-educational
and training institutions give focus to developing and evaluating empolyees in
real-world contexts. Likewise, for non-educational and training institutions,
authentic workplace training is a recommended method of developing such skill-
sets and the appropriate method for evaluating the acquired skill-sets are task
performance, target observation and diagnostic test.
Table 2: Summary of methods to develop and to evaluate the three skill-sets
Methods of Development Methods of Evaluation
Educational Institutions
Case study; project/ research Periodic assessments; exams;
work; peer feedback; supervision task performance
Non-educational Institutions
Internal & workplace training; Competency tests; task
specific tasks performance
Training Agencies
Internal & workplace training; Diagnostic tests; targeted
mentoring; practical tasks; observation; periodic evaluation
problem solving; educational walks based on competency profile
Whilst the educational, non-educational and training institutions may vary in

their methods of developing and evaluating the three core skill-sets (as
illustrated in table 2), there is a general consensus on an ideal learning
environment which embodies three critical aspects: pedagogy, organisation and
communication. Here, emphasis is given to active learning and learner-centered
teaching, cross-curricular competences and appropriate assessments, and
importantly, all three types of institutions expressed the need for concerted
effort and the necessary infrastructure for effective communication, coordination
and collaboration of all key stakeholders, i.e., educational, non-educational and
training institutions, future employers and industry players.
4 Conclusion
This empirical study investigates the skill-deficit in our current HE graduates and
methods of developing and evaluating the core skill-sets that are pivotal as these
HEI graduates join the workforce. Two key findings were surfaced: 1. There is a
gap in existing HEI curriculum programmes and the type of skills that employers
desire and demand from their employees; 2. Albeit that some HEIs could be
attempting to develop and to evaluate the three core skills, the methods of
fostering and assessing these skill-sets vary between educational and non-
educational institutions including training agencies.
To bridge the gap between employers’ expectations and graduates’
competences, and to integrate the three core skill-sets into the existing HEI
curriculum, there are three important implications: 1. The Preparation: A new
infrastructure to faciliate communication, coordination and collaboration
amongst formal HEI institutions, non-educational institutions, training agencies,
industry players, as well as governmental bodies is imperative. This new
‘infrastructure’ requires a socio-technological approach to facilitate an effective
collaboration amongst the core stakeholders. To put in place a HEI curriculum
st
that prepares our graduates for the 21 century workplace, collaboration
amongst the key players in developing and designing the curriculum will be
pivotal. To this end, a knowledge sharing community model that facilitates virtual
collaboration, as well as face-to-face communication will be instrumental to

foster a concerted effort amongst the HEIs, governmental bodies and industry
players; 2. The Practice: Authentic tasks in real world settings are instrumental in
developing and evaluating those skill-sets in our graduates. This implies that
there should be greater alignment between internship, developing graduates’
competences and career interests; and 3. The Pay-off: An integrated planning
system involving all key stakeholders will foster closer links between educators,
industry players, and policy makers. This will work towards equipping and
empowering our graduates for the local and global marketplace, and importantly,
supporting them to develop their capacity for lifelong learning and going beyond
st
2020 to stay relevant in the 21 century.
5 Acknowledge
This article is supported by LELLE, the European Erasmus+ project for "Learning
how to Learn". LELLE is co-funded by the European Commission under the project
number: 2015-1-HU01-KA203-013619.
6 Reference
Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Institute
for the Future for University of Phoenix Research Institute, 540.
European Commission (EC). (2012). Rethinking education: investing in skills
for better socio-economic outcomes.
Kim, B. (Ed.) (2015). MOOCs and Educational Challenges around Asia and
Europe. South Korea: KNOU press.
Staley, D. J., & Trinkle, D. A. (2011). The changing landscape of higher
education. FormaMente: Rivista internazionale di ricerca sul futuro digitale, (1-
2011), 15.
Stracke, C. M. (2011). Competences and skills in the digital age: Competence
development, modelling, and standards for human resources development.
Communications in Computer and Information Science, 240 (34-46). Berlin/
Heidelberg: Springer.
Yemini, M., & Sagie, N. (2016). Research on internationalisation in higher
education–exploratory analysis. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher
Education, 20(2-3), 90-98.
New Faculty Roles in Online Education: The Professor as
Writer, Director, Actor and Producer?
Terje Gaustad, Donatella de Paoli
BI Norwegian Business School

terje.gaustad@bi.no
Abstract: Advances in online education requires higher education

institutions to develop and institutionalize new faculty role systems to stay
competitive and ensure educational quality. The use of video and other
online tools has introduced new faculty tasks demanding specialized skills
and qualifications. As it becomes difficult for any individual faculty
member to combine and fulfil all the requirements for developing an
online course, a clear system of roles is required to coordinate the work. In
this paper we provide a taxonomy of core online education roles by
developing an analogy to film production. We analyse the core roles in film
production of the writer, director, actor and producer in order to develop
the online education faculty roles of course developer, designer, instructor
and manager. Finally, we discuss implications of unbundling roles related
to faculty skills, qualifications and resources.
Keywords: Online education, distance learning, MOOC, SPOC, roles,
coordination, projects, university management, film production.
1 Introduction
As advances in online education are starting to shake up higher education

institutions, faculty roles are also changing (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016; Neely &
Tucker, 2010). Faculty members must perform new tasks requiring new
competences as classic lectures, classroom teaching, and text-based curriculums
are complemented or replaced by new educational tools within a richer media
environment. Acquiring and developing skills to fulfil the new tasks is necessary,
but not sufficient when tasks are specialized and divided between faculty
members. Consequently, universities also need to develop and institutionalize a
new set of faculty roles as a means to efficiently organize and coordinate tasks.
Without a clear understanding of these new roles, education quality is likely to
suffer and universities may struggle to stay competitive.
Nonetheless, very little of the literature on online education centers on

faculty, instructors and teaching (Arbaugh, Dearmond, & Rau, 2013; Veletsianos
& Shepherdson, 2016). In fact, our reference to “online education” may even
seem odd, as “online learning”, “e-learning” and “distance learning” are among
the more commonly used terms for the same phenomenon. However, these all
call attention to students and their learning, so our choice of “online education”
1
is made deliberately to emphasize educators (institutions and instructors) .
The need for new skills and competences is clearly demonstrated in the use
of recorded video as a course delivery tool. It has become an important element
in online education, particularly for massive open online courses (MOOCs), but
also for small private online courses (SPOCs) and as an element in blended
learning solutions (Singh, Mangalaraj, & Taneja, 2010; Whitaker, New, & Ireland,
2016). It allows for asynchronous online education where educators reach
students not only separated by distance, but also by time.
However, a good MOOC or SPOC is more than a filmed lecture and requires
new tasks and skills. It usually consists of several 10- to 12-minute videos filmed
from different camera angels, with an integrated use of course collaboration,
learning and assessment tools, such as questions and short quizzes, which can be
graded automatically (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016; Singh et al., 2010).
Based on these and other developments, Kaplan & Haenlein (2016) argue
that developing an online course has become similar to producing a movie,
implying that it involves coordinating a number of diverse and specialized tasks
demanding diverse and specialized skills. In this paper we pursue this analogy
further to better understand emerging faculty roles and organizational
requirements. Drawing on the film production literature’s description of core
roles in content production (e.g. Finney & Triana, 2015; Squire, 2017) we develop
a taxonomy of core roles in online education productions and discuss
implications at both individual and organizational levels.
1
This is not to say that a student‘s learning style is less important than the faculty teaching
mode. On the contrary, effective teaching modes (e.g. developing video material) require
a good understanding of learning styles (e.g. how students learn from video material).
New Faculty Roles in Online Education: The Professor as Writer, Director, Actor and Producer? 23
2 Learning Online Education from Film Production
Looking to the organization of film production for guidance is not only relevant
due to the increasing use of video in online education. There are well-known and
far-reaching similarities between knowledge-based industries, such as higher
education, and creative industries such as film production (see e.g. Florida, 2002).
Both involve highly professionalized environments, specialization of competence,
and clearly defined professionalized ethics and codes of conduct.
Looking at the nature of the work, developing an online course is similar to
producing a movie in its requirements for coordination. The tasks involved in
developing and running a course may be complex just in relation to one type of
tool, such as using videos for course delivery. But choices made within one
category of tools will also affect others. Choices related to video may affect and
depend on those related to course collaboration and learning and assessment
tools, and these will all depend on the staging tools that provide the basic
structure for managing and delivering courses. And finally, all these choices must
be made with the students and online learning in mind. It all adds up to the type
of interdependent, complex work that is characteristic of producing a movie.
In film production, a role-based system is developed that capitalizes on
specialized skills for diverse tasks (Bechky, 2006; DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998). A
clear and generalized role structure was developed during the Hollywood studio
era that evolved through the establishment of union rules, and this shapes the
structure of international film production today. It provides a mechanism for
coordinating work that allows filmmakers to move from project to project, still
immediately knowing their basic tasks, expectations and reporting relationships.
Then, within each project, nuances in the generalized role structure are
negotiated by the filmmakers in situ as they enact their roles in response to the
enactments of others. In this way roles develop and adjust to changing
circumstances. Sometimes roles are also combined, as when the same filmmaker
acts as both writer and director or as director and producer. From the individual
filmmaker’s perspective this offers opportunities to use roles as a resource in
pursuit of personal interests since the expansion or combination of roles may
provide new opportunities, greater creative influence and control, and so forth
(Baker & Faulkner, 1991). However, even though roles may be adjusted,
expanded or combined within a specific project, the basic generalized role-
structure remains relatively stable at an industry level, providing continuity
between projects (Bechky, 2006).
In online education, a clear and generalized role structure is not developed

(Bawane & Spector, 2009; Neely & Tucker, 2010; Williams, 2003). A number of
new faculty roles are identified, but they are typically defined within the setting
of a specific educational institution, seem to change as new technology becomes
available, and are not clearly related to individual and organizational levels.
Hence, online education lacks a role system that can both organize immediate
work and maintain continuity across different course projects and institutions.
There are structural differences between the contexts in which movies are
produced and in which online courses are developed. While movies are typically
produced in temporary organizations, course development usually takes place
within the boundaries of a permanent educational organization. Yet, since there
is a similar underlying project-based structure, where each course development
process may be defined as a project, the basic principals observed in the film
industry’s role-based structure are still applicable (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1998).
In sum, while the role-based structures in film production are well
established and institutionalized, the roles within online education are still very
much emerging. Herein lies the opportunity to learn by applying knowledge of
film production to online education.
3 A Taxonomy of Online Education Roles
The established core roles in film production are summarized in Table 1 below
along with our suggested generalized core roles in online education. Both
taxonomies are provided at a project level. For film, it focuses on production and
does not include roles in permanent organizations to which the temporary
production organizations may be connected, such as development and marketing
executives at a financing and distribution studio. Similarly, for online education, it
focuses on course development and does not include related roles in the school’s
ongoing administration, such as deans of online education or administrators of
staging tools.
Each of the core roles described in Table 1 will have support roles, which
may be filled by support staff, dependent on the scope of the production or
course. For instance, a film director is supported by assistant directors to handle
administrative tasks on the set, and similarly a course designer will sometimes
lean on technology experts or media publishers while instructors benefit from
support staff running tutorials or engaging with participants online.
Also dependent on scale and scope, as well as on each person’s strengths

and competences, roles may be combined and carried out by one filmmaker or
faculty member. Even so, the roles remain clearly defined and separated by
definition. This is evident by looking at very low-budget film production carried
out under the so-called DYI (do-it-yourself) model (Fleischman, 2017). Here
limited resources often force filmmakers to combine roles, but when doing so
they do not define newly merged roles, but rather take on the generally defined
responsibilities of each combined role. A filmmaker becomes the “writer-
director-producer” rather than the “auteur”. Similarly we would suggest a
“course developer and designer” rather than a “course creator” when the two
roles are combined in one faculty member, as this approach maintains and
enforces a generalized role based system.
Table 1: Core roles in film production and our suggested taxonomy of online education roles
(Sources: Finney & Triana, 2015; Neely & Tucker, 2010; Squire, 2017; Williams, 2003)
Film Production Online Education
Writer: Works with the creative concept or Course Developer: Works with the academic
“idea” of what will make a potential movie. concept or ‘idea’ of what will make a potential
Creates story, characters and settings -- the course. Develops the ‘idea’ into a lean and
elements required to convey the movie’s economical course curriculum outline by
concept in an effective manner. Creates and assembling academic literature and content in
delivers the work in the format of a screenplay, accorcance with specific learning goals. Leaves
which is a lean and economical description that delivery tool and other format choices to the
leaves creative format choices to the director. course designer.
Director: Has the creative and artistic Course Designer: Prepares the course curriculum
responsibility for turning the screenplay into a for online education, choosing teaching
movie and oversees its entire artistic production. strategies and models, as well as the appropriate
Interprets and expresses in film the intentions course delivery, collaboration and assessment
the writer and producer set out in the screenplay tools. Aligns and designs the course materials
by controlling the action and dialogue in front of with the instructor for the chosen channels and
the camera, the added visual effects, editing, tools.
sound and music choices, and so forth.
Actor: Performs the role of a character described Instructor: Creates course materials with the
in the screenplay as instructed by the director. designer. Teaches the course and assesses
Influences the character (and its actions) by his learning outcomes through the channels and
or her interpretation of the character description tools chosen by the course designer.
and the direction.
Producer: Initiates the movie, based on an Course Manager: Initiates the course, based on
original “idea” or on one submitted by a writer, “ideas” from developers, designers and instruc-
director or actor. Hires the writer(s), the director tors or from own “ideas”. Pitches the course
and actors, arranges for financing and oversees “idea” to school’s decision makers and secures
the production of the movie. Carries the ultimate resources for development and delivery. Assem-
responsibility for the original shaping and final bles the rest of the core team and oversees
outcome of the movie. development and delivery of the course.
Even though roles are clearly defined and separated, the tasks performed are
highly interdependent, requiring collaboration and interaction between them.
For instance, writers work closely with producers who provide script notes to
guide and improve the work. The collaboration also requires insight into the
other core roles. Writers are, for example, concerned with “producibility”
(whether something on the page can be translated to the screen), which requires
familiarity with direction, acting and production (Goyer, 2017). We would expect
similar levels of understanding and team-collaboration between course
developers, designers, instructors and managers.
4 Unbundling the New Roles
Our film production analogy and the ensuing taxonomy may not offer a definitive
blueprint for online education roles, but it indicates a direction towards greater
specialization with numerous implications for online education management. We
will briefly discuss some related to faculty skills, qualifications and resources.
Beyond the use of teaching assistants in the traditional classroom model,
faculty members are accustomed to filling bundled roles including everything
from course development to instruction and assessment. With higher
requirements for specialized skills and qualifications in online education it
becomes increasingly difficult for a single faculty member to combine all roles.
The online education roles structure will therefore most likely be unbundled
(Neely & Tucker, 2010) along the lines suggested in our taxonomy.
Just as some filmmakers will argue that the auteur’s role cannot be
unbundled into separate writer and director roles, some professors may argue
that some of their online education roles cannot be unbundles without losing
quality or the essence of the course. As in film production, this may be context-
dependent. For some courses and faculty members unbundling may be
undesirable, and even lead to deskilling, for others it may be unproblematic.
Kaplan and Haenlein (2016) note that to run a successful MOOC, professors
should be charismatic as well as telegenic (i.e. have good on-screen appearance).
In our taxonomy of roles, this would only be required of instructors. Course
developers, for instance, may be introverted and uncharismatic experts in their
academic fields as long as they are able to collaborate with faculty in other roles.
A more specialized and unbundled role structure may therefore open up online
education to potential success for a wider array of academics.
Unbundling is also likely to imply higher costs for better resources (Neely &
Tucker, 2010). In a competitive educational environment where courses are more
independent of time and space the professor creating course videos in her office
using her cell phone camera will not be competitive compared to those
supported by a team of specialists, and she may even tarnish her school’s image
by trying. Moving education online is also moving towards winner-takes-all
markets where the value and cost of top performers within each core role
increases (Elberse, 2013; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016).
5 Conclusions
The taxonomy of core online education roles suggested here offers both
guidance for practice as well as a framework for further research into new faculty
role structures. While based on a highly relevant but distant film production
analogy, it is also grounded in the existing literature on roles in online education
(Bawane & Spector, 2009; Neely & Tucker, 2010; Williams, 2003). It suggest that
online education will move away from traditionally bundled faculty roles as the
requirements for specialized skills increase, and it offers a way forward towards
defining the new roles.
6 References
Arbaugh, J.B., Dearmond, S., & Rau, B.L. (2013). New Uses for Existing Tools?
A Call to Study On-line Management Instruction and Instructors. Academy of
Management Learning & Education, 12(4), 635-655
Baker, W.E., & Faulkner, R.R. (1991). Role as Resource in the Hollywood Film
Industry. American Journal of Sociology, 97(2), 279-309
Bawane, J., & Spector, J.M. (2009). Prioritization of Online Instructor Roles:
Implications for Competency-Based Teacher Education Programs. Distance
Education, 30(3), 383-397
Bechky, B.A. (2006). Gaffers, gofers, and grips: Role-based coordination in
temporary organizations. Organization Science, 17(1), 3-21
DeFillippi, R.J., & Arthur, M.B. (1998). Paradox in Project-Based Enterprise:
The Case of Film Making. California Management Review, 40(2), 125-139
Elberse, A. (2013). Blockbusters: hit-making, risk-taking, and the big business
of entertainment. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company.
Finney, A., & Triana, E. (2015). The International Film Business: A Market
Guide Beyond Hollywood (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Fleischman, E.B. (2017). Producing in the DIY Model. In J. E. Squire (Ed.), The
Movie Busienss Book (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class: And How it's Transforming
Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Goyer, D.S. (2017). The Screenwriter. In J. E. Squire (Ed.), The Movie Business
Book (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kaplan, A.M., & Haenlein, M. (2016). Higher education and the digital
revolution: About MOOCs, SPOCs, social media, and the Cookie Monster.
Business Horizons, 59(4), 441-450
Neely, P.W., & Tucker, J.P. (2010). Unbundling Faculty Roles in Online
Distance Education Programs. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(6),
17-23
Singh, A., Mangalaraj, G., & Taneja, A. (2010). Bolstering Teaching through
Online Tools. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21(3), 299-311
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Veletsianos, G., & Shepherdson, P. (2016). A Systematic Analysis and
Synthesis of the Empirical MOOC Literature Published in 2013-2015. International
Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(2), 198-221
Whitaker, J., New, J.R., & Ireland, R.D. (2016). MOOCs and the Online
Delivery of Business Education What's new? What's not? What now? Academy of
Management Learning & Education, 15(2), 345-365
Williams, P.E. (2003). Roles and Competencies for Distance Education
Programs in Higher Education Institutions. The American Journal of Distance
Education, 17(1), 45-57
Competency Alignment of Open Badges
Johannes Konert, Ilona Buchem1, Lucy Lewis, Grainne

Hamilton, Tim Riches2
1
Beuth University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, Germany
2
DigitalMe, Leeds, United Kingdom
johannes.konert@beuth-hochschule.de
Abstract: In a networked world, achievements from formal and

informal learning need a representation format that is easy to
handle, can visualize competen-cies and can be transferred
between organizational structures as a certification of one's
abilities. Open Badges are a flexible way to certify a broad range of
person's qualities. One main problem of competency-aligned Open
Badges is the ambiguity of competencies in frameworks they refer
to. Consequently, it is hard for algorithms to decide whether or not
two different Open Badges might represent the same competency,
amend each other or build on each other. Second, badge issuers
cannot easily find the proper URLs to use as a reference in the
badge definition. To overcome the obstacles, an approach is
proposed that provides a competency directory as a service to find,
add and reference existing semantic competency definitions
worldwide. As a result, Open Badges (as digital micro-credentials)
allow automatic decisions, whether or not a person fulfills defined
requirements for a course or a position no matter which different
competency frameworks are used.
Keywords: open badge, competency frameworks, linked-data, semantics,
digital certificates, competency alignment
1 Introduction
Open Badges are representational digital tokens that can fulfil manifold purposes
such as visualizing membership, recording learning, and recognizing learning
outcomes, or communicating accomplishments. They build on a web-friendly
open standard and are created, awarded and displayed in a decentralized and
user-centered way (Casilli & Hickey, 2016). Open Badges are supported by the
Open Source Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) which enables anyone to create,
1
award and display badges across the web. The Badge Alliance (BA) promotes
badges to be used as digital indicators for credits, achievements, or skills (as
witnessed based on some evidences) of the badge owner. Open Bades as micro-
credentials allow to record, visualize and transfer skills in a more granular and
individual way as traditional certifications (Knight & Casilli, 2012). Technically,
Open Badges are bound to online identities of issuers and earners, but the (open)
formats behind are not bound to one authority, which allows Open Badges to
drive a digital disruption of more traditional global qualification and certification
systems.
The Open Badge Specification (OBS) Version 2.0 consist of BadgeClass,
IssuerOrganization and Assertion (Badge Alliance Standard Working Group, 2016).
A BadgeClass defines one specific type of badge token. The issuer field should
contain an URL pointing to an IssuerOrganization definition. If an individual earns
a defined badge, an Assertion object instance is created. This represents the
certification and links the BadgeClass, the earner (recipient), and a
VerificationObject to prevent forgery and build trust. Most relevant for this paper
are the two fields criteria and alignment of the BadgeClass. The criteria field
contains an URL to the definition what has to be fulfilled to earn the badge. No
further specifications about the format are made. The alignment field can be
empty or contain an array of AlignmentObjects. Since version 2.0 these objects
contain a targetName, a targetUrl pointing to some official standard description
of a competency , and may have a targetFramework or targetCode to precisely
identify an element in the targetURL website. In other words, an issuer states
that a badge represents one or several competencies. Further aspects of badge
collection, e.g. in backpacks, and displaying are not discussed here, but can be
found at http://openbadges.org.
2 Competency Frameworks
Competency frameworks play an important role in the European context. Given

the diversity of cultures, languages and educational systems in the world in
general and in Europe specifically, competency frameworks aim at enhancing
both domestic and cross-border transparency of qualifications. There has been a
1
http://www.badgealliance.org/, last accessed 01.03.2017
Competency Alignment of Open Badges 31
large number of EU-wide initiatives to establish common European qualification

standards and certificates (EU da Vinci project TRACE, 2012). One of the most far-
ranging EU initiatives is the European Qualification Framework (EQF) which is a
meta-framework aiming at increasing transparency and supporting mutual trust
to enable comparability of qualifications frameworks and systems (European
Commission, 2008). Further Europe-wide initiatives include (a) meta-frameworks
like the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET),
European ICT-skills meta framework, a Common European Digital Competency
Framework (DIGCOMP) and (b) sectoral frameworks related to a specific family of
professions, e.g. European Marketing Confederation Qualification and
Certification Framework (EMCQ), European Coaching/Mentoring Competence
Framework (EMCC), European Competence Framework for Industrial Pharmacy
Practice in Biotechnology (PHAR-IN). Additionally, (c) generic frameworks and (d)
domain-specific frameworks have been designed to describe cross-domain and
domain-specific competencies respectively.
3 The Current Body of Knowledge
In order to identify key requirements for the alignment of Open Badges with
competency frameworks, a number of activities have been undertaken the EU
Erasmus+ project Open Badge Network (OBN) since 2014. The key method of
requirements analysis is the application of use cases. The OBN has identified
eight use cases for the application of Open Badges in formal and informal
education in Europe (Rousselle & Jacyniuk-lloyd, 2016).
One of the use cases—Building a portfolio from badges—refers to Open
Badges as a digital micro-portfolio which can be easy searched by employers to
find suitable recruits for job openings. "By earning badges, young people become
more discoverable by tech sector employers, showcasing skills that are now in
high demand” (Ronan Dunne, CEO Telefonica UK) (Dunne, 2015). Another use
case—Open Badges in schools and higher education—addresses the problem of
school credentials hardly describing the competencies pupils achieved. Since
schools often fail to recognize prior informal learning of their students, e.g. from
employment context. Open Badges ecosystem, which has been growing in this
area, poses a challenge in creating parity between seemingly similar badges. In
this way, it becomes difficult for badge earners and badge consumers to compare
learning outcomes and understand what level of competence a badge represents.
Additional methods of requirement analysis applied in OBN project are
qualitative and quantitative online surveys. For example, a still ongoing online-
2
survey , which was started in Q1 2016, focuses on the quality and infrastructure
expectations on Open Badges. So far, 30 members of the worldwide Open
Badges community participated in this survey (50% issuers, 23% earners) and
were asked a number of questions, such as “What do you think is important for
building quality into a badge when you create it?”. Most responses (69%) to this
question selected the requirement “I should be able to indicate the level of the
badge, e.g. if it is part of a larger badge scheme or competency framework” out of
a list of five possible selections.
Additionally, the requirements analysis methodology applied expert
interviews to verify and specify in detail preliminary requirements elicited from
the general Open Badges community. For example, expert interviews were
conducted with ten professional members of the partner institutions or
associated members of the OBN project using the following three main
questions: (1) What is the relevant state of the art in competency definition and
alignment to Open Badges? (2) What requirements exist for a support of
competencies in Open Badges? (3) What obstacles and out-of-scope
functionalities are already known to be considered? The interview result were
condensed and transformed into a list of requirements, out-of-scope functionality,
and problems to solve (Konert, 2016, Chapter Requirement Analysis). Parts
relevant to the course of the paper are listed below. The full lists were reviewed
by the project members for approval. Still, it must be considered as not
absolutely objective as it covers only the experience and insight of the eight
partner organizations behind OBN.
Requirements to Open Badge competency alignment [R1-R7]
R1. Detection of badges that relate to the same competencies (unambiguous)

R2. Detection of alignments and similarity of competences between existing CFs
R3. Decentralized solution
R4. Support for a community wide directory of competency frameworks (CF)
R5. Alignment of OB to competencies remains optional (backwards compatible)
R6. Provision of a standardized vocabulary (multi-language support)
R7. Plugins for frontends, like Learning Management Systems (LMS), to allow
direct usage of CFs on badge definition
2
http://www.openbadgenetwork.com/fill-in-our-survey-about-the-quality-of-open-
badges/, last accessed 01.03.2017
4 Existing approaches
In 2015 the Badge Alliance has created an Open Source Open Badge directory
with the goal to increase transparency about existing badges and to support
3
discovery . The directory not yet supports any similarity search based on criteria
or alignment field of the BadgeClass, but the solution could serve as a basis. With
COMPBASE an approach exists to define a central competency database that is
generic enough to support all competency definitions (Dehne & Lucke, 2015). The
authors use Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples in their database,
which is accessible via web services and Representational State Transfer
Application Programming Interfaces (REST-APIs). The solutions lacks the support
for decentralized definition as demanded in R3, or alignment to existing
(external) CFs (R2), and has not (yet) a support for a standardized vocabulary (R6).
In 2013 the Integrating Learning Outcomes and Competences project (InLOC),
published its solution to a decentral definition of competency frameworks and
cross-referencing them by using Linked Data (LD) (European Commitee for
Standardization, 2013). This semantic web approach uses defined, machine-
readable reference links (International Resource Identifiers (IRIs)). Thus, it is
algorithmically possible to differentiate equality, similarity and dependencies
among competencies. To address the problem of referencing identical
competencies in several CFs, the InLOC exactMatch reference can be used
(European Commitee for Standardization, 2013, p. 41). Unfortunatelly, InLOC
lacks implementation and application of any existing framework. As a sucessor,
the European Classification for Skills, Competencies, Qualifications and
Occupations (ESCO) defined a new vocabulary and encodes a reference
framework of common skills and competencies. Like InLOC, ESCO allows
exactMatch relations to cross-reference other competency frameworks
(Balasubramaniam & Kangasharju, 2014). Even though this has currently not
been demonstrated, the already available competency definitions of ESCO are a
promisiong next step towards alignment of various competency frameworks.
3
https://badgealliance.github.io/openbadges-directory, last accessed 01.03.2016
5 Discussion
Based on the requirement analysis (R1-7) and the analysis of related work, we
propose the following approach to align Open Badges to (existing) competency
4
frameworks. The main element needed is a competency directory , which allows
the community to add, update and search competency definitions of manifold
frameworks.
The currently already possible semantic competency alignment of Open
Badges is ralely used due to the limitations in finding the proper competency
definitions. Moreover, the unique IRI to use for the targetURL is hard to find.
Initiatives like ESCO are valuable activities to ease the process of finding
competency definitions and their IRIs, but still manifold competency frameworks
exist beside and need to be found by Badge Issuers, if they want to link
targetURLs to them in AlignmentObjects. Thus, beside the decentralized, cross-
referencing web of linked data documents of competencies, one (or several)
directories of competency definitions can help to find the proper IRIs to link
Open Badges to. The directory is proposed to be fed by IRIs to documents using
ESCO vocabulary. The directory software application can then access and parse
the documents, index defined competencies and references, and update the data
by regular crawling (refresh) of the parsing. A (web-based) user-interface and
REST-API to the directory provides search functionality by e.g. keywords,
similarity, popularity, region or issuer of competencies. Especially issuers of
official competency frameworks are asked to provide a machine-readable format
of their frameworks that can be imported by the directory. Until this is
established common procedure, the Open Badge community can assist in
defining relevant existing competency frameworks in a semantic vocabulary. A
detailed proposal with schematic explanation can be found in (Konert, 2016)
6 Conclusion and Outlook
Open Badges can be used as representational digital tokens of competencies.

When used as micro-credentials for competencies in online learning
4
Open Source Release planned at
https://github.com/openbadgenetwork/competencydirectory/, last accessed
01.03.2017
environments, the current standard 2.0 allows targetURLs to be used that link to
semantic definitions of competencies an Open Badge is aligned to.
This paper proposes the use of semantic linked data, specifically the ESCO
and InLOC vocabularies, to align Open Badges to competencies they represent.
Thereby, processing tools can better decide which badges represent the same
(official) competencies, amend or contain each other, and might be accepted as
equal to official certification. Based on an analysis of the current standard and
existing approaches towards semantic definition and processing of competency
frameworks, this paper proposes a two-tier approach created as part of the Open
Badge Network project. This approach contains (1) a competency directory for
easy retrieval and search, and (2) an assisting tool to allow definition of existing
competency frameworks in the desired linked-data vocabularies.
Currently, the issue of OBI standardizations are under discussion in the
community (beside others with Badge Alliance). The IMS Open Badge Extensions
for Education (OBEE) Specifications and Compliance Taskforce is dissecting the
current Open Badge Specification as it relates to criteria, evidence, assessment
characteristics, and the like, and is exploring additional specifications (data
requirements or ‘rules’) that will clearly communicate the educational rigor of
Open Badges and ensure interoperability. OBN partners are directly contributing
to these Task Forces.
Next steps in the effort to align Open Badges with competency frameworks
in the Open Badge Network project will include the release of the currently
developed prototype of the competency directory. When it is established as an
way to find suitable competency IRIs to use, then assisting tools need to be
defined to allow release of new competency frameworks definitions in proper
semantic vocabularies.
Based on the requirement analysis (R1-7) and the analysis of related work,
we propose the following approach to align Open Badges to (existing)
5
competency frameworks. The main element needed is a competency directory ,
which allows the community to add, update and search competency definitions
of manifold frameworks.
Acknowledgement: This contribution is part of the Erasmus+ strategic
partnership Open Badge Network founded by the European Commission from
5
Open Source Release planned at https://github.com/openbadgenetwork/competencydirectory/,
last accessed 01.03.2017
2014 until 2017 under 2014-1-DE01-KA200-000675. We thank contributors of the

Badge Alliance, the InLOC standard, and ESCO for their support.
7 References
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Specification V2.0. Retrieved March 19, 2016, from http://openbadgespec.org/
Balasubramaniam, S., & Kangasharju, J. (2014). ESCO: Boosting Job Matching
in Europe with Semantic Interoperability. IEEE Computer Society, 10(October),
62–68.
Casilli, C., & Hickey, D. (2016). Transcending Conventional Credentialing and
Assessment Paradigms with Information-rich Digital Badges. The Information
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Dehne, J., & Lucke, U. (2015). An infrastructure for cross-plattform
competence-based assessment. In Prof. of Workshop Facing the Challenges of
Assessing 21st Century Skills in the Newly Emerging Educational Ecosystems
(CHANGEE 2015). Toledo, Spain.
Dunne, R. (2015). Welcome presentation at the O2 Badge Academy Launch
Event. Telefonica UK Offices London.
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Overview of European Competency Frameworks.
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Lifelong Learning (EQF).
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EDUCAUSE.
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Rousselle, E., & Jacyniuk-lloyd, M. (2016). Open Badge Network: O2A1
Collection of Use Cases.
Students experiencing flow in a Physics laboratory task
using mobile phones and free software
Thomas Gjesteland, Pauline Vos, Margrethe Wold

pauline.vos@uia.no
Abstract: In this paper we outline a study on an alternative to laboratory

learning. Normally, lab learning is part of engineering students’ courses on
Physics. Instead of making them work in a lab, we gave students an
inquiry-based, open task: to model the movement of an object. The
laboratory equipment consisted of their mobile phones for filming, and
free available tracker software. Students worked in groups and reported
their results on a poster. We studied the engagement of students with the
task and whether it generated flow, a state in which one forgets about
time. The results show that, indeed, students got into a flow, and this
related to their perception of challenge. Also, the experiment shows that
mobile and free technology can make Physics laboratory learning feasible
beyond university campuses and opens new possibilities in inquiry-based
laboratory learning, also for large numbers of students, distance education
or within less affluent institutions.
Keywords: engineering education - inquiry-based learning - laboratory
tasks - mobile technology - Physics education - free software
1 Introduction
At the Faculty of Engineering of University of Agder, we deal with large student

numbers (>300). This is a worldwide phenomenon as more and more students
gain access to higher education. A few years ago, the large numbers made the
faculty decide to abandon the laboratory training in the first-year Physics courses,
because the laboratory facilities and its staff could no longer harbour the
students. However, the students at our faculty will become engineers, managers,
or researchers, who will need skills to measure and model phenomena from the
real world so they can describe and analyse these, and eventually, make
predictions. For their proper training, it is insufficient to offer large-scale lectures,
instructional videos or tutoring sessions to train for written examinations. They
also need training to relate measurements to theoretical models. They need skills
to practically handle instruments, calibrate these, measure precisely, work with

error margins, and so forth. Therefore, we investigated whether lab training can
be done outside of laboratory facilities. If this is feasible, then laboratory training
can become independent of university campuses, and become feasible with large
student numbers, in less affluent areas, and within distance education.
Generally, laboratory learning in Physics is known as boring, because the
activities are like cooking from a cookbook. The students follow each step to get
a result and it does not involve any thinking. Domínguez et al. (2015) carried out
research at a university in Mexico, showing that laboratory learning can be done
differently. They asked their students in a Physics course: a child is throwing a
candy to another. Make a mathematical model of this movement. With such an
open-ended, inquiry-based task, students really have to think, because they need
to consider the what, how, and why themselves. Research has demonstrated the
advantages of such inquiry-based tasks over traditional lectures or teacher
demonstrations (De Jong, Linn, & Zacharia, 2013; Minner, Levy, & Century, 2010).
We adapted the open-ended, inquire-based task from Dominguez et al.
(2015) and added to it that students would use their mobile phones for filming.
Many students now have mobile phones that contain cameras with the quality to
film motion sufficiently precise for video analysis. Also we added the use of free
software available that can capture the motion from videos based on contrasts
and pattern recognition; this is known as tracker software. Such democratic
availability of equipment opens new possibilities for inquiry-based laboratory
training for which expensive laboratories are no longer needed.
2 The task
We carried out an experiment in a large-scale Physics course for first-year

engineering students. We gave the students an obligatory, inquiry-based
laboratory task, for which no expensive equipment was needed. The task asked
students to select a movement of an object (they could chose whatever:
throwing a ball, jumping their skate board, driving a car driving). They had to film
this movement with their phones. Thereafter, they had to use free tracker
software (http://physlets.org/tracker/) on their laptops to transform the
movement into measurements, approximate the movement with a mathematical
model, and then present this video analysis as a poster including a discussion of
the accuracy of their model in comparison to the measurements. The task had to
be done in groups of two or three. Collaboration was convenient, because one
student alone cannot easily create and film a movement simultaneously.
Students experiencing flow in a Physics laboratory task using mobile phones and free software 39
It was our first time to implement such an open, practical task. Therefore, we
did not want to focus on students‘ learning effects. We considered it a pilot study
to find out whether such a task was feasible with large numbers, without
expensive laboratory equipment, and with students who have litte experience
with open-ended tasks. We felt that we - as lecturers - should first take the
opportunity to learn and see whether the task activated students. Our research
question was: to what extent does an open task about video analysis of motion
with mobile phones and free tracker software activate the students in kinematics
and dynamics?
3 Flow
To study the activation of students, we used the concept of flow, which is “a

state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to
matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at
great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990, p.4). This
concept was developed in research on video games, but it also has been used in
other research (a.o. Armstrong, 2008, Drakes, 2012). Experiencing flow means that
one is absorbed, forgets about time, and even may pay a price for this state of
activation. Figure 1 illustrates how flow depends on the perceived challenge of a
task and perceived skills of a person engaging in the task. If the activity is too
challenging for the skills, then the task may cause anxiety. If the activity is too
easy for the skills, then the task may cause boredom. When challenge and skills
are aligned, a person engaging in a task may experience flow.
Figure 1: Flow, boredom, and anxiety as they relate to task challenge and a person’s skills.
Adapted from Csíkszentmihályi (1990)
4 Methods
In the Spring of 2017 we presented the task described in Paragraph 2 to the

students of the engineering department (Mechatronics, Electical Engineering,
Data Engineering, ICT, and others), as part of the first-year Physics course. There
were 346 students for whom the task was mandatory.
The research design for studying students‘ flow was a survey, whereby data
were collected through a digital questionnaire within the university’s Virtual
Learning System. We also conducted interviews and assessed students‘ work, but
those results will be reported elsewhere. Participation in the survey was
voluntary and encouraged with prizes of NOK 500 (approx $50) for three
randomly drawn participants. After removing irregular answer patterns (e.g. who
chose constantly a 3), we remained with n=239 students. Thes response rate 69%
is high for a web-based survey (Bryman, 2015).
Table 1: The scales in the questionnaire measuring Skills, Challenge and Flow
Cronbach
Scale Contributing questions Alpha
q3 The Tracker technology was easy to use.
Skills q4 (Inv.) It was complicated to find the right formula of the model.
0.55
(5 items) q5 The aims of the task were clear to me.
q10 During this task I had full control over what we did.
q15 Filming the movement of an object was easy.
q1 The “Modelling med Tracker Task” made me curious.
Challenge q6 Making a poster made me feel like a “real scientist”.
(5 items)
0.73
q8 (Inv.) This task is more suitable for Secondary Schools.
q9 This task helped me to better understand the theory.
q13 During this task I started thinking about other movements (what if.)
q2 (Inv.) This Tracker task took too much of my time
Flow q7 Time was flying when we worked in this task.
0.63
(5 items) q11 (Inv.) I was easily distracted when we worked on this task.
q14 I would do this task even if it wasn’t obligatory.
q16 I would like to have more of such practical tasks.
Based on instruments from earlier research we developped questions in

alignment with the task. We had 15 closed questions asking for (dis-)agreement
to statements on a 5-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree), see Table 1. Five questions were designed to measure students’
perception of flow. For this, we asked for example, whether they forgot about
the time, and whether they even would do the task if it wasn’t obligatory. By
asking several questions related to flow, a participant’s score is indicator of the
extent to which he/she had experienced flow. Five other questions were
designed to measure students’ self-perceived skills, and a further five questions

were designed to measure students’ perception of challenge.
We make a difference between flow as a concept (written in italics), and the
scale of Flow (with a capital letter). The concept of flow is a psychological state of
a person, and therefore it cannot be measured. However, we assume that it can
be approximated by a score on the scale of Flow, which results from answers to
five questions in our questionnaire. The score on the scale is found by adding the
scores on the five questions. As the score on one question ranges from 1-5, the
score on the Flow scale ranges from 5-25. Likewise for respectively, challenge
and the Challenge scale, and skills and the Skills scale. To increase reliability,
within each scale one or two questions were inversely posed, and the scoring
was inverted, too. As measure of internal consistency, we calculated Cronbach‘s
Alpha for each scale. If lower than 0.5, a group of questions is considered
inconsistent as scale (Bryman, 2015). It turned out that all three scales were
acceptable, especially the scales for Challenge and Flow, see Table 1.
5 Results
We observed students everywhere on campus, throwing apples, a cat, or balls.

We received more than 100 posters in our Virtual Learning System. However, in
this paper we don’t analyse the performance of the students (the precision of
their measurements, their understanding of modelling, the depth of their
analysis, etc.). Instead, we focus on their activation in terms of flow as measured
through the questionnaire. Appendix A shows the frequencies on the questions
pertaining flow. Table 2 shows the mean scores (1=low, 3= middle, 5=high).
Table 2: Scores on Flow questions (n=239)
Flow questions mean

(std dev)
q2 (Inv) This Tracker task took too much of my time 3.67 (0.88)
q7 Time was flying when we worked in this task. 3.60 (0.92)
q11 (Inv) I was easily distracted when we worked on this task. 3.55 (0.91)
q14 I would do this task even if it wasn’t obligatory. 2.60 (1.13)
q16 I would like to have more of such practical tasks. 3.70 (1.02)
The mean score on four questions is higher than 3.5, being well on the positive
side. This indicates that a majority of the students experienced a state of flow to
quite an extent. Only question 14 is answered below the middle range. This is the
question about doing the task even if at higher costs (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990).
When adding the students’ scores on the five questions, we obtain their score on
the scale Flow. On this scale, 31 students (13%) scored 13 points or lower, 67
students (28%) scored in the medium range of 14-16 points, and 141 students
(59%) scored 17 points or higher. This indicates that approximately three out of
five students experienced flow.
Table 3: Mean scores to Skills, Challenge, and Flow (n=239)

Scale mean (std dev)
Skills 18.8 (2.7)
(5 items)
Challenge 15.5 (3.3)
(5 items)
Flow 17.0 (3.1)
(5 items)
Table 3 presents the mean

scores on the scales for
Skills, Challenge and Flow
(minimal score = 5, medium score range = 14-16, maximal score = 25). The
histogram shows the frequencies of scores (number of students with certain
scores). The scores on Skills are highest: generally, students perceived
themselves as highly skilled; the low standard deviation indicates a high
agreement among students. The scores on Challenge are around the medium;
these scores are most “normal” (making a Gauss curve). The distributions for
Skills and Flow are skewed to the right, which means that students gave these, on
average, higher than medium scores.
We can make a scatter diagram similar to the Csíkszentmihályi-figure, see
Figure 1. We can take each student as a dot defined by his/her Challenge score
on the x-axis and the Skills score on the y-axis, see Figure 2. The diagram shows a
scattered distribution, which means that there is no correlation between the
scales Challenge and Skills (r = 0.097). In the diagram we added the scale for Flow
by coloring the dots depending on students’ Flow scores. These range from red
(low), via yellow (medium) to green (high). Roughly, one can discern red, yellow
and green areas with overlappings. The red area is on the left showing the
students who experienced little flow (13% of the students). These students
indicated that the task posed little challenge, independently of their perceived
skills. The yellow area runs from top left to bottom right showing the students
who experienced medium flow (28%). These students either indicated low
challenge and high skills, or medium challenge and medium skills. The green area
is the largest with the majority of students (59%), and it is in the top-right
showing the students who clearly experienced flow. These students indicated
that the task was challenging, and they perceived themselves skilled. This color
distribution of Flow does not confirm the Csíkszentmihályi-diagram; instead, the
figure suggests that the students in our study experienced flow depending on the
perceived challenge, and less depending on their skills.
Figure 2: Flow score indicated by color, as depending on Skills and Challenge
6 Conclusions
Our research question was: to what extent does an open laboratory task about
video analysis of motion with mobile phones and free tracker software activate
the students? Based on the results from the survey, we conclude that a majority
of the students (59%) experienced flow, forgetting about time and wanting more
of such activities. This result is confirmed by anecdotal evidence of students’
reactions in tutorial sessions and the high response rate to the survey. We cannot
confirm Csíkszentmihályi’s (1990) theory that flow depends on the alignment of
skills and challenge. This may be caused by the task characteristic of low floor,
high ceiling. This means that the task was accessible to all students, whether
excellent or not, and that they could adapt the level of challenge by chosing a
more complex movement to analyse. In this way, the task characteristic made
that the challenge directed the flow and the flow became independent of skills.
7 References
Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Institute
for the Future for University of Phoenix Research Institute, 540.
cal
Armstrong, A. (2008). The fragility of group flow. Journal Math Behavior, 27(2), 101-
115.
Bryman, A. (2015). Social research methods. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper &
Row.
De Jong, T., Linn, M. C., & Zacharia, Z. C. (2013). Physical and virtual laboratories in
science and engineering education. Science, 340(6130), 305-308.
Domínguez, A., de la Garza, J., & Zavala, G. (2015). Models and modelling in an
integrated physics and mathematics course. In Mathematical Modelling in Education
Research and Practice (pp. 513-522). Springer International Publishing.
Drakes, C. I. (2012). Mathematical Modelling: from Novice to Expert. (Unpublished
doctoral dissertation), Simon Fraser University, Burnaby.
Minner, D. D., Levy, A. J., & Century, J. (2010). Inquiry-based science instruction —
what is it and does it matter? Results from a research synthesis 1984 - 2002. Journal of
research in science teaching, 47(4), 474-496.
8 Appendix - Frequency results on Flow items of the survey

Towards an Evaluation Toolkit for Asynchronous
(Audio) Book Clubs
Vladena Bätge Jahn, Wolfgang Jacquet, Koen Lombaerts
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

vbaetgejahn@me.com
Abstract: As an additional opportunity for personalized learning,

within a university course, a new mobile learning module was
designed and implemented to facilitate students’ learning based on
elective course readings. Facebook Groups were launched as
shared learning spaces, each dedicated to one of the shortlisted
titles. Each Asynchronous (Audio)Book Club (AABC) was structured
via identical learning activities designed to foster cognitive and
metacognitive learning processes and provide social aspect to
reading. Creation of an Evaluation Toolkit is one of the objectives of
a larger research project. The first actionable and possibly
transferable evaluation and design principle is reported here,
offering an insight regarding the existence of somewhat separate
components of the learning experience students derived from the
module.
Keywords: asynchronous audiobook clubs, educational design
research, learning experience, mobile learning, personalized
learning, meaningfulness, enjoyability, evaluation principle.
1 Introduction
Current research points out the concurrence of increasingly ubiquitous use of

mobile technologies and social media among university students and faculty in
some parts of the world (Ally & Tsinakos, 2014; Brooks, 2016; Chen & Denoyelles,
2013; Farley et al., 2015; Gikas & Grant, 2013). Several authors stress the
potential of mobile technologies to support and facilitate personalized learning
(Grajek, 2016; Pimmer, Mateescu, & Gröhbiel, 2016; Sinen, 2015). Growing body
of research offers insight into the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ of mobile learning at
universities (Ally & Tsinakos, 2014; Farley et al., 2015; Gikas & Grant, 2013;
Pimmer et al., 2016; Sinen, 2015), but gaps in implementation and practice
remain (Brooks, 2016; Chen & Denoyelles, 2013; Chen, Seilhamer, Bennett, &
Bauer, 2015; Farley et al., 2015; Grajek, 2016). A recent systematic review of
empirical studies of mobile learning in higher education confirms gaps in
research (Pimmer et al., 2016), finding mobile learning designs to be mostly of
instructionist nature, with only a small numbers of studies focusing on situated,
collaborative or constructionist learning designs (Pimmer et al., 2016). There is
also a prevalence of research being conducted in language learning, health and
computer science courses. Pimmer et al. called for empirical demonstration of
affordances and constraints of mobile learning in other disciplines (2016).
While the trends towards mobile learning and personalized learning in
higher education are evident, university learning management systems are
mostly not yet ready (Grajek, 2016). On the other hand, social media tools are
available to serve as mobile learning platforms and facilitate instructionist,
situated, collaborative and constructionist learning. According to some research,
many academics and students do not believe in the capacity of social media as
learning platform (Madge, Meek, Wellens, & Hooley, 2009; Manca & Ranieri,
2013, 2016). To investigate potential gains and limitations, a new mobile learning
module was designed for a university course and implemented to facilitate
personalized learning based on elective course readings. Facebook Groups were
leveraged as a platform. An evaluation and a design principle is proposed here.
2 Asynchronous AudioBook Club module design
Providing students with meaningful personalized learning experiences is one of

the current design challenges for faculty in higher education (Grajek, 2016). The
Asynchronous AudioBook Club module was one of the outcomes of an ongoing
course redesign effort. Going ‘more mobile’ was an additional self-imposed
design restriction based on presumed and observed needs of students. The AABC
jointly answered following design challenges:
 How can we best facilitate personalized learning based on
shortlisted elective readings?
 How can we best provide students with credit bearing mobile
learning opportunities?
A book club, in its nature, is a shared learning space. In this case, a space
structured by ten generic micro learning activities designed to scaffold discussion,
collaborative meaning making and support students’ self-regulated learning. The
Towards an Evaluation Toolkit for Asynchronous (Audio) Book Clubs 47
learning activities gave high level of agency to students to further personalize

their learning within the AABC based on each student’s specific interests.
Decision was made to use Facebook Groups as platform for deployment of AABCs,
striving for easy online and mobile access independent of university learning
management system. The AABCs were fully asynchronous – students participated
at a time of their choosing within a period of four months. The AABC was
integrated as an opt-in (extra) credit bearing learning activity within the course.
Students decided to participate or not, chose freely from the proposed four book
titles according to own interests. Participants then made the decision to consume
the titles either as audiobooks, eBooks, books or combine the available media.
Considering the ubiquitousness of mobile devices among students,
accessibility of platforms, relative simplicity of deployment of the AABC and
availability of tens of thousands of non-fiction audiobooks and eBooks, podcasts
and playlists in diverse disciplines, there seems to be potential for diffusion of the
format within and beyond higher education. Use of social media as platform is
not necessary, but has some advatages and brings interesting opportunities, such
as merging learners from higher education and participants of professional
development and/or lifelong learners within one learning space. Production of a
body of diverse empirical research on implementations of AABCs would be
helpful to ground best practice in evidence.
3 Educational Design Research
After evaluation of some implementations in local context, the intention is to

scale up the endeavours into an Educational design research project, where
empirical investigations will be “conducted in real learning settings to craft
usable and effective solutions” (McKenney & Reeves, 2013). Engagement of
researchers and practitioner from diverse institutions in “iterative development
of solution” (McKenney & Reeves, 2014) seems to the best course of action for
achieving a durable and transferable design. If the Asynchronous (Audio)Book
Club, should present a viable, customisable solution to the widely present need
for personalized and/or mobile learning within university courses, it needs to
come with suitable evaluation tools for practitioners’ use. Thus, creation of an
Evaluation Toolkit is one of the key research objectives of the EDR project. The
guiding questions for this objective are:
1. What evaluation criteria and methods in general will be most
meaningful for AABC evaluation?
2. What tools and metrics can best inform maturing of the design and
its diffusion?
3. What (tools) do practitioners need to gain immediate and
actionable insights into their own implementations?
We begin to answer the questions here, with a proposition to evaluate the ‘book
related’ and the ‘club related’ components of the learning experiences separately,
versus gathering feedback only on the AABC module as a whole. The hypothesis
of existence of these components was formulated based on observation in an
ongoing AABC implementation and based on issues with interpretation of
feedback encountered during previous iteration of the course module.
4 Methods
Course, Students and AABC Deployment

AABC was piloted in Management for Educational Change course within the
Master of Educational Sciences Program and in Innovations in Education course
offered in Adult Educational Sciences programs of the university. For most
students, this was their first university course with English as a language of
instruction. Only 2 students identified as English native speakers. Students’ prior
exposure to Audiobooks was limited. Based on the beginning of term survey
(n=83), 72% have never listened to an audiobook before taking the course and
less than 5% have previously used audiobooks for a school reading assignment.
92% of respondents reported using a smartphone daily and 97% had frequently
used Facebook prior to start of the course. Less than half of the enrolled students
started participating in the module. Students were free to participate in any,
none or all AABCs at any time. Completion of the module was rewarded by 3
points out of 20 possible points (20 points = 100%). Maximum 2 AABC
participations per student were eligible for course credit rewards. The AABCs
were launched as full rollout in first week of the course via Facebook groups.
Each AABC was structured in twelve ‘posts’ by course staff. Two posts were of
organisational nature; ten posts facilitated requisite micro learning activities, e.g.
articulation of motivation for participation, formulation of learning objectives,
sharing of learning strategies or reflection of learning experience. Students also
uploaded three required digital learning artifacts – mindmaps.
Instruments
Bellow presented data regarding students’ perceptions of learning experience
was collected via an online survey embedded in the AABCs. Students filled in the
survey towards the end of their participation in the module. Among other diverse
qualitative and quantitative items, Likert scales were used for items measuring
meaningfulness and enjoyability as dimensions of the respondent’s perception of
the (audio)book and the learning activities within AABC. In the hypothesis,
meaningfulness was considered as a likely predictor of enjoyment of the learning
activity. The survey yielded 38 responses from 32 students who completed at
least one AABC module, 4 students completed two and 1 student completed
three AABC modules. Data was analyzed using the MAXQDA Analytics Pro v.
12.3.1. (Verbi GmbH, Berlin, Germany). A significance level of 0.05 was used. The
degree of correlation was classified as small (from 0.10 to 0.29), moderate (from
0.30 to 0.49) and high (from 0.50 to 1).
5 Results
To examine the hypothesis of existence of two distinct components of the

learning experience derived from participation in the course module, correlations
between the user survey responses were analysed. Identified significant
relationships between perceived a) meaningfulness of the book, b) enjoyability of
consumption of the book, c) meaningfulness of the learning activities and d)
enjoyability of participation in the AABC are presented in Table 1.
Table 1: Related but distinct components of learning experience within the module
(CORRELATION: SPEARMAN'S RHO using MAXQDA12; n=38, p-value: 1-tailed; Valid cases: 38; Missing cases: 0)
Fun participating Meaningfulness of Fun Meaningfulness

in AABC learning activities listening/reading of the book
of the book
Fun participating 0,634 (p=0,0000) 0,329 (p=0,0219) 0,099 (p=0,2774)

in AABC
Meaningfulness 0,634 (p=0,0000) 0,394 (p=0,0072) 0,253 (p=0,0626)

of learning
activities
Fun 0,329 (p=0,0219) 0,394 (p=0,0072) 0,612 (p=0,0000)

listening/reading
of the book
Meaningfulness 0,099 (p=0,2774) 0,253 (p=0,0626) 0,612 (p=0,0000)

of the book
The results show statistically significant positive correlations of perceived

meaningfulness of the book and enjoyment of the listening/reading. Another
strong relationship appears between the perceived meaningfulness of the
learning activities with the AABC and enjoyment of participation in the AABC. The
correlation of enjoyment of the book and enjoyment of the activities is only
moderate, but exists, as does the link between enjoyment of the
listening/reading and meaningfulness of the activities.
6 Discussion
The correlation pattern confirms the existence of two related but distinct
components of the overall learning experience derived from participation in the
course module. The first component is the ‘club related’ component of the
learning experience. Second is the ‘book related’ experience.
The distinction of components of the learning experience may play an
important role in practitioner’s decision making regarding relevant design
modifications between implementations. If analysis of the collected responses
reveals space for improvement in perceptions of meaningfulness of the book
among students, the relevance and usefulness of the content can be discussed
with the cohort and/or different book titles can be considered and students can
be engaged in curating the shortlist. If the book is perceived as meaningful, but
students report not enjoying the experience, it may be an indication of usability
issues. If lack of perceived meaningfulness of activities occurs, their relevance
and objectives can be discussed with the cohort and/or different activities can be
considered and students can be engaged in proposing these. Perceptions of
meaningful but not enjoyable activities may indicate interpersonal or usability
issues.
Without recognizing the distinct experience components during feedback
collection, what conclusions can practitioner draw? What modifications should
be made to improve students’ learning experiences in next iteration if only
overall module experience is evaluated?
In case of a ‘perfectly tuned’ implementation, with excellent feedback on all
four variables, the distinction of the two components will statisticaly disappear,
but till that time, a more detailed understanding of possible issues of a specific
implementation can be gained by gathering detailed, rather than only overall
module feedback.
7 Conclusions
Although the small scale of the pilot could be considered an important limitation
for drawing ecologically valid claims or conclusions regarding learning
experiences derived from participation in Asynchronous AudioBook Clubs in
general; the presented study provides potentially valuable and transferable
design and evaluation guidelines. The existence of two related but distinct
components of the overall learning experience derived from participation in the
course module – the ‘book related’ and the ‘club related’ component. In this EDR
project, learners’ perceptions of meaningfulness and enjoyability of the book and
the learning activities will be tracked and analysed as linked, but separate
components of the AABC learning experience. Further dissection of the two AABC
learning experience components will be necessary to gain even more clarity on
specific implementation issues in diverse contexts.
8 References
Ally, M., & Tsinakos, A. (2014). Increasing access through mobile learning.
Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver.
Brooks, D. C. (2016). ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information
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Chen, B., & Denoyelles, A. (2013). Exploring students’ mobile learning
practices in higher education. Educause Review, 7.
Chen, B., Seilhamer, R., Bennett, L., & Bauer, S. (2015). Students’ mobile
learning practices in higher education: A multi-year study. Educause Review.
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Koronios, A. (2015). How Do Students Use Their Mobile Devices to Support
Learning? A Case Study from an Australian Regional University. Journal of
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Gikas, J., & Grant, M. M. (2013). Mobile computing devices in higher
education: Student perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones &
social media. The Internet and Higher Education, 19, 18–26.
Grajek, S. (2016, March 7). Trend Watch 2016: Which IT Trends Is Higher
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Madge, C., Meek, J., Wellens, J., & Hooley, T. (2009). Facebook, social
integration and informal learning at university: “It is more for socialising and
talking to friends about work than for actually doing work.” Learning, Media and
Technology, 34(2), 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439880902923606
Manca, S., & Ranieri, M. (2013). Is it a tool suitable for learning? A critical
review of the literature on Facebook as a technology-enhanced learning
environment. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 29(6), 487–504.
Manca, S., & Ranieri, M. (2016). “Yes for sharing, no for teaching!”: Social
Media in academic practices. The Internet and Higher Education, 29, 63–74.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.12.004
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2013). Conducting educational design
research. Routledge.
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2014). Educational Design Research. In J. M.
Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of Research on
Educational Communications and Technology (pp. 131–140). New York, NY:
Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5_11
Pimmer, C., Mateescu, M., & Gröhbiel, U. (2016). Mobile and ubiquitous
learning in higher education settings. A systematic review of empirical studies.
Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 490–501.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.057
Sinen, H. B. (2015). A literature review on mobile learning. International
Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, 3(3), 219.
https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSMILE.2015.072266
Improving student approaches to Online Assessment in
Higher Education with Visualisation Software
David Smith, Asim Qayyum
Charles Sturt University

davismith@csu.edu.au
Abstract: Studying via the Internet using information tools is a common

activity for students in higher education. With students accessing their
subject material via the Internet, studies have shown that students have
difficulty understanding the complete purpose of an assessment which
leads to poor information search practices. The selection of relevant
information for particular learning assessments is the topic of this paper as
it describes a case study that focuses on the information tool use of a small
group of participants and is a continuation of similar research studies. The
study and discussed research findings point to the benefit of students use
of a visualisation tool to provide relevant learning cues and improve
engagement with online assessment.
Keywords: visualisation, open source, online
1 Introduction
Customising technology use and practices to enhance learner experience

provides students with an affordance (Jones & Shao, 2011) to capitalise their
learning and benefit from technology. Yet many students still struggle with
aspects of information literacy even though their access to technology has
improved and they appear to be very familiar in its daily usage (Jones et al., 2010).
Selecting the correct search tool, determining constructive search criteria and
evaluating the retrieved information is still problematic for many students.
Students persist in using search platforms such as Google or Wikipedia instead of
using technologies in a sophisticated manner to make use of the increasing set of
information platforms. Students rather conform to a conventional pedagogy
using generalist information platforms (Judd & Kennedy, 2010). Springer (2016)
found that teaching staff who do experiment with newer technologies, usually
revert back to established tools and methods and are reluctant to use emergent
social technologies. The students are then influenced in their technology and
internet use by the guidance and professional practice set by their instructors
(Beckman, Bennett & Lockyer, 2014).
A challenge in learning from internet-based material is the sheer amount of
information available online that can potentially hinder deep reading. In a
comprehensive study of web browser logs of 25 participants, Weinreich et al.
(2008), analysed nearly 60,000 first page visits to conclude that 17% of new
pages were visited for less than 4 seconds, while nearly 50% of the first page
visits lasted less than 12 seconds. It seems that users generally scan or glimpse
over the information to locate keywords rather than doing any actual reading.
Most user stops on Google search results were even shorter (ranging from 2-12
seconds), and there were no lengthier stays. Thompson (2013) reports similar
searching trends from a survey of 388 first year university students and
recommends students be given explicit instruction in forming search terms and
evaluating the discovered information.
This paper showcases the use of a visualisation tool to influence information
retrieval by describing a third phase pilot study that examined how university
students use information tools to answer assessment tasks. The study
investigated how students interacted with first the visualisation tool and then
online information tools as they approached a learning task. Some of the data
from the study will be presented along with some initial key findings and serves
as a forerunner to a larger intended piece of research.
2 Methodology
The study was undertaken at Charles Sturt University in Australia in the Faculty of
Arts and Education and continues the methodological approach adopted for the
first two phases of the research. In this case study, student volunteers were
required to undertake a 45 minute usability study in a computer lab located on
one of the university campuses where their information searching was recorded
using eye tracking software and then participate in a 10 minute interview with
one of the researchers.
Phase three of the study focused on using a visual intervention to assist
students in refining their information searching. There 5 participants who were
enrolled in the K-12 B Ed degree. During a one-week period in an arranged
mutually convenient time, students met with one of the researchers in the library
located on one of the university campuses. The method of collecting the data
was identical to the previous two phases where students were requested to
Improving student approaches to Online Assessment in Higher Education with ... 55
employ their usual study approach for information searching and their computer
activity was recorded using eye tracking software followed by a 10 minute
interview. However, before the students started their information search process
they were asked to use a software program called ‘Wordsift’ which is open
source software developed by Stanford University. The user inserts text into the
software’s dialog box and the program will identify the 50 most used words in
the text as a word cloud. The program will also highlight words used in their
original context along with Google image and visual thesaurus results.
The research plan was to paste the assignment text into Wordsift and
observe students using the results in their information searching. Due to casual
work pressures, only one student was able to arrange a meeting with the
researcher before starting their assessment. The other 4 students participated
after they had started their assessment and this timing of their participation did
affect the finding.
3 Findings
The initial findings are divided into three categories; wordsift, information
searching and information synthesis. The use of the wordsift program showed
that an online intervention strategy does provide an extra layer of scaffold to
assist students with their assessments. In the use of wordsift three of the five
participants carefully checked some of the words from the word cloud in the
contextual sentences and the visual thesaurus. The eye tracking response
showed these three participants reading every line of the results. The first
participant selected one word from the word cloud result and then used one of
the context sentences as a search term. The interview with this participant
confirmed that the word selected corresponded with an assessment section and
the focus provided by wordsift enhanced the search results. The interviews with
the other two participants who used wordsift revealed that they would have
liked to have used the software at the start of the assessment but still found the
software useful as they were able to confirm that they had used words in the
correct context confirming that the use of contextual visualisation confirms the
student engagement with the task (Brookes, Gilbuena & Krause, 2014). Of the
remaining two participants one found the visual thesaurus useful and did state
that they could see it as a benefit at the start of the assessment but the last
participant said they did not like using that type of software.
The searching behaviour of the participants showed a more focused search
by participants compared to the previous two research phases. All participants
entered productive search terms that yielded results connected to the

assessment and the eye tracking software showed that they read every result on
the first result page of their saerch. In all cases references from the first results
page were opened for further investigation and use. Accompanying the data
searches were findings showing increased elements of higher order thinking
where students displayed behaviour that indicates evaluation of the material
they were reading (Hung et al., 2010; Smith & Qayyum, 2015).
Characteristics of higher order thinking are apparent in the comparison of
sites behaviour, comparison to annotated notes and point to some indication of
information evaluation and analysis by the participants in the formation of their
answers. There were other observed behaviours such as 7 instances of returning
to a website to compare an overall result and in some cases specific pieces of
information when answering the assessment question. All participants were
rigorous in carefully checking responses.
4 Conclusion
The findings from the third phase of this case study provides some evidence that
the use of specific formatting interventions can scaffold the way university
students approach researching the answers for online assessment. Observation
of participants showed that after using Wordsift, students searched for data with
clearly focused search terms resulting in information results that could be used
to answer the assessment and thereby reducing the amount of time searching for
suitable information. This pilot study highlighted three outcomes that were
beneficial for students studying online. The suitability of the software available to
all students highlighted keywords for participants to seek and engage with
information during their online research for the assessment, including their tool
usage, search strategies and reading behaviours. Using the visualisation software
influenced the way higher education students approach their investigation for
assessment, either in focusing their initial strategy to answer the assessment or
to confirm their answers. Finally using such software increased the efficiency and
effectiveness in the way that the students approached the assessment enabling
better use of time to investigate and interrogate information at a greater depth.
Clearly when students are studying online any automated assistance that
students can rely on to assist them in providing greater understanding for
academic tasks is of benefit. Such results point to the need to involve a greater
number of students engaged in an online subject to compare and validate
findings to the previous case study. Such findings will provide direction to those
Improving student approaches to Online Assessment in Higher Education with ... 57
areas of the university involved with either designing online assessment pr

providing assistace to students in the online environment and may lead to an
evolution of the wordsift program to custom built software targeting the learning
needs of higher education students.
5 References
Beckman, K., Bennett S. & Lockyer L. (2014). Understanding Students’ Use

and Value of Technology for Learning. Learning, Media and Technology, 39(3):
346–367.
Brooks, B., Gilbuena, D., Krause, S., & Koretsky, M. (2014). Using word clouds
for fast, formative assessment of students’ short written responses. Chemical
Engineering Education, 48(4), 190-198.
Hung, M. L., Chou, C., Chen, C. H., & Own, Z. Y. (2010). Learner readiness for
online learning: Scale development and student perceptions. Computers &
Education, 55(3), 1080-1090.
Jones, C & Shao, B. (2011). The net generation and digital natives:
implications for higher education. Higher Education Academy, York.
Judd, T., & Kennedy, G. (2010). A five-year study of on-campus Internet use
by undergraduate biomedical students. Computers & Education, 55(4), 1564-
1571.
Springer, J. A. (2016). The development of effective online pedagogical skills
among higher education faculty in three private California universities (Doctoral
dissertation, University of La Verne).
Thompson, P. (2013). The digital natives as learners: Technology use patterns
and approaches to learning. Computers & Education, 65, 12-33.Here are some
examples:
Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Herder, E. & Mayer, M. (2008). Not quite the
average: an empirical study of Web use. ACM Transactions on the Web, 2(1),
Article no. 5.
Leadership and Educational Change for 21st Century
Schools
Maria-Antònia Guardiola López
Open University of Catalonia (UOC)

mguardiolalop@uoc.edu
Abstract: All current school reform efforts aim to improve teaching and
learning. But there are huge differences in how this is done. All approaches,
however, depend on the motivations and capacities of leadership. Any
reform creating innovative schools to meet the challenge of the 21st
century is difficult unless leaders share its aims and are prepared to make
it work. So “effective” or “successful” leadership is critical to school reform.
Evidence suggests that successful leadership can play a highly significant
role in improving school reform and learning. Social change requires
leadership that encapsulates vision as well as achievable practice. This
paper investigates the key elements of identified change in educational
networks and how do they relate to the employment market (existing and
anticipated). It examines the link to external social and demographic
change. Within this framework we look at how leadership will play a key
role in determining choices as well as in energizing existing and emerging
networks and in driving change.
Keywords: Leadership; Change; Teacher training; School transformation;
Educational networking; transformation; innovation.
1 Introduction
All current school reform efforts aim to improve teaching and learning. But there
are huge differences in how this is done. All approaches, however, depend on the
motivations and capacities of leadership. Leadership essentially concerns itself
with and is all about organizational improvement. In more precise terms,
leadership concentrates on establishing widely agreed, valued and worthwhile
directions (both strategic and tactical) for the organization and implementation
of all that is required doing to stimulate, motivate, guide and support people to
move in those directions. A generic definition of leadership – especially impactful
and effective leadership – is quite elementary - it is about direction and influence.
Stability could be described therefore as the goal of what is often called
“management.” In that context it can be said that Improvement is the goal of

leadership.
st
Any reform creating innovative schools to meet the challenge of the 21
century is difficult unless leaders share its aims and are prepared to make it work.
So “effective” or “successful” leadership is critical to school reform. Evidence
suggests that successful leadership can play a highly significant role in improving
school reform and learning. Social change requires leadership that encapsulates
vision as well as achievable practice. This means leadership needs to be
investigated at intermediate levels, as it is conceptualized and developed within
the following frameworks:
 Networks of educational centres
 Administrative coordination networks
 Professional bodies and associations
 Policy bodies.
There is much to be learned about who provides such leadership, how it is
productively distributed across the school system and what stimulates and
sustains its development. There is much to learn about which forms of leadership
are most likely to foster learning and how such successful forms of leadership
contribute to school reform and innovation. One key issue in what we know
about successful school leadership is that much of the educational leadership
literature does not focus on actual leadership practices but rather on the leaders’
values, beliefs, skills or knowledge felt necessary to act in an effective manner,
inferred from observation of leaders at work. Accumulated empirical evidence
has a great deal to say about effective leadership practices, but this must be
developed. The key research question is to investigate leadership practices at the
intermediate level in K-12 schools and how this contributes to an agenda of
educational reform in Catalonia.
The aim of this paper is to provide evidence of productive, helpful or
successful leadership practices and how they interact to improve student
learning and school reform. This means describing those successful practices, as
well as their relationship to the school organization and to enhanced learning
outcomes for students.
2 Leadership in Emerging Schools
The focus of this research investigation can be looked at from twin perspectives.
On one hand, there is the need for a new model of school organization that can
Leadership and Educational Change for 21st Century Schools 61
provide students with life skills required in our emerging knowledge society. On
the other hand, there is the importance of understanding the critical nature and
role of leadership in this change process. Specific attention focuses on schools in
Catalonia and their performance in a process of profound educational policy
change.
The development of schools in a way that facilitates the kind of learning
needed in the new knowledge society means configuring forms of versatile
organization to accompany this transformation. Flexible organizational structures
facilitate possibilities for change and refocusing of these organizational structures
(Martín-Moreno, 2007). Students of the 21st century must learn continuously to
develop self-directed basic skills to achieve their full potential as citizens. The
challenge is that schools need to develop and extend new forms of leadership
essential to organizing centers capable of promoting educational environments
based on the Principles of Learning (Dumont et al., 2010).
Leadership in the field of education is one of the key factors of this change.
Indeed, the OECD report, Innovative Learning Environments, added three new
learning principles to the seven pre-existing ones, with leadership being one of
these (ILE, 2013). Thus, leadership in education is one of the basic principles of
learning as established by the provisions of the OECD (Instance, 2015). For this
reason, to be interested in the transformation of the existing education and
learning system also means the need for a strong focus on leadership. Leadership
is critical to improve practice and to implement new educational policies that
facilitate schools to provide young learners with environments and learning
experiences geared to the current demand for "rethinking education" (UNESCO,
2015). This is also a demand of large international organizations in seeking to
ensure a proper and relevant education for society and the knowledge economy
(Martinez et al., 2013).
In this regard, the Education Law of Catalonia (LEC Law 12/2009 of 10 July)
promotes a shift towards improving educational organizations. In particular,
Article 100 states that the administration should promote the leadership capacity
of the education professionals who organize and manage learning centers, under
the aegis of the draft Decree of Autonomy Teaching and Management Centres. A
central question of this paper focuses on how this leadership is both understood
and operationalized. While the Law provides for the independent evolution of
each center and the implementation of strategic plans for improving educational
offers available to schools based on their uniqueness, it encourages development
of advanced educational settings where leadership constitutes a decisive factor.
An added critical aspect is geared towards training center directors so that they
meet planning, participation, improvement, efficiency evaluation and school
goals. Therefore, the LEC provides a framework to promote a Catalan education

system that can take appropriate steps to respond to the demands of the twenty-
first century with flexibility. These steps include the power of systematic and
structured pedagogical innovation, recognition of good educational practices, the
promotion and support of educational leadership, teacher training,
infrastructures for digital learning and the provision of centers for pedagogical
excellence (Preamble, LEC, 2009).
In this process of change and evolving legal frameworks, the specific role of
leadership is crucial. Leadership for effective learning is an essential factor for
improving the models of learning and sustainable academic success in Catalonia
and internationally (Martinez et al., 2013). As we have seen, the OECD has
stresses that development of learning environments needs to go beyond the
seven principles that underpin the nature of learning (OECD, 2010). We need to
remember three complementary aspects to understand change, innovation and
educational reform:
 Research on learning
 Practice, analysis and design of innovative practices
 Implementation and system change through leadership, innovative
strategies and expansion of change into widespread sustainable
best practice (Instance, 2015).
This paper investigates the importance of leadership in development of
educational models and networks at the intermediate level of policy change and
renewal. These networks will drive the process to ensure schools incorporate
change into their operating systems so they can respond adequately to the need
to rethink education (UNESCO, 2015). Leadership plays a key role in determining
choices as well as in energizing existing and emerging networks and in driving
change. The nature, type and role of this leadership is critical in determining the
success of networks in achieving goals and targets. The focus can be classrooms,
but the structures and networks are emerging and expanding rapidly in Catalonia.
The research adopts a Grounded Theory perspective in its methodology
using theoretical sampling to undertake in-depth interviews, observations, data
collection, materials and document reviews, analysis of results, and identification
of leading indicators to provide evidence of strategieswhich link to the type of
educational leadership used by each intermediate network in Catalan schools.
Leadership and Educational Change for 21st Century Schools 63
3 Conclusions
Recent research has emphasized that leadership in education is a subject that

deserves to be analyzed because of its impact on implementation of policy but
also on the functioning of schools and academic results of students (TALIS report,
2013). Moreover, in today's context, analysis of the leadership issue relates to
the need for school organizations to develop into more flexible and dynamic
organizations where all stakeholders (Teachers, directors and students) are able
to adapt to the changes and challenges of education in an interconnected world,
which is also uncertain and complex.
This context requires a framework which increasingly sees a gradual
transition from traditional organization and uniform centers to a new model of
"versatile school", an educational institution without definitive or permanent
organizational structures, organized with sufficient flexibility, providing
opportunities for change and reorganization of part or all of the educational
programs on offer.
Schools are not isolated from society, but form an intrinsic part of it (Fullan,
2006). Changing one part may have a certain impact, but not as much as if the
transformation occurs in all parts simultaneously or in coordinated joint effort,
especially if schools or if they are working in shared and complementary ways.
For this reason, it costs more to make reforms in education through rebuilding
the social structures that promote and implement reforms in schools rather than
partial and piecemeal individual efforts. But evidence demonstrates that
leadership is the single meta-systemic strategy to ensure that every school can
be a great school (Hopkins, 2007).
4 References
Dumont, H., Istance, D. & Benavides, F. (2012). The nature of learning.

Practitioner Guide. How can the learning sciences inform the design of 21st
century learning environments? pp. 6-7. OECD Publications: Paris.
Fullan, M. (2006). Turnaround Leadership. Jossey-Bass Leadership Library in
Education: U.S.A.
Hopkins, David. (2007). Every school a great school. Realizing the potential of
system school. Open University Press. McGraw-Hill Education. McGraw-Hill
House.
Instance, D. (2015): Innovative Learning Environments: Implementation and

change. Draft Report. EDU/CERI/CD7RD. OCDE: Paris.
Martínez, M. et al: Lideratge per a l’aprenentatge. Estudis de cas a
Catalunya. (2013). Polítiques: 81. Fundació Jaume Bofill.
Pont, B., Nusche, D. & Moorman, H. (2008). “Improving School Leadership. “
Volume 1: Policy and Practice. OECD Paris, 2008.
Martin-Moreno Cerrillo, Q. (2007): Organización y dirección de centros
educativos innovadores. El centro educativo versátil. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.
Challenges of Openness and Quality for Smart
Universities in the Post-Truth and Post-Trust Era
Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić1, Sir John Daniel2

1
Formerly Head, Higher Education, UNESCO
2
Formerly Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO
odlsirjohn@gmail.com & suvalictrumbic@gmail.com
Abstract: A ‘smart university’ is a university that exploits education’s

digital future. What is their role at a time when universities are accused of
being on the ‘wrong side of history’? Contemporary 'post-truth' and 'post-
trust' attitudes undermine higher education's historic commitment to
rigorous knowledge, academic openness, professional expertise and
international collaboration as the basis for human progress. We explore
the political developments behind these attitudes. Despite these trends,
however, humankind will depend on universities for its healthy
development into the 21st century. Whereas the Millennium Development
Goals of 2000 were limited to basic education, the Sustainable
Development Goals for 2030 have higher education as one of their targets,
namely: “by 2030, ensure equal access for all to affordable and quality
technical, vocational and tertiary education including university
education.” This means that smart universities must offer greater
curricular diversity. Degrees are a useful foundation, providing evidence
that a graduate has learned to think, but today’s hybrid jobs require extra
skills. People must learn to dissect post-truth discourse and post-trust
attitudes so as to position themselves on the continua between
open/closed and inclusive/exclusive that are successors to the older
left/right political distinctions. Measuring learning outcomes in these new
curricular contexts challenges traditional quality assurance methods, not
least when shorter courses on specific items of knowledge and expertise
are delivered online. Online learning is also a powerful tool for opening up
institutional reach, especially to older part-time students. By making
people more aware of their thinking processes online study helps them be
more purposeful in pursuing lifelong learning, which in turn makes for
better persistence and outcomes. The combination of online technology
with the philosophy of openness, as exemplified in open source software,
open access to research findings and open educational resources is of
particular relevance to would-be smart universities.
Key words: Openness, Quality, Smart university, Post-truth, Post-trust
1 Introduction
This World Learning Summit is about ‘Smart Universities’. What is a smart

university and how does a university merit the title? Exploiting ‘education’s
digital future’ is a common theme. The University of Glasgow (Catapult Future
Cities, 2016) declares that its smart campus: ‘actively learns from and adapts to
the needs of its people and place, unlocking the potential of e-technology and
enabling world-changing learning and research.’
Hwang (2014) states that ‘a smart learning system can be perceived as a
technology-enhanced learning system that is capable of advising learners to learn
in the real world with access to digital resources’, adding that ‘the rapid progress
of mobile, wireless communication and sensing technologies has enabled the
development of context-aware ubiquitous learning environments, which are able
to detect the real-world learning status of students as well as the environmental
contexts.’ We shall focus first on the terms ‘real world’ and ‘context-aware
ubiquitous learning’.
The contemporary situation in the ‘real world’ is that surges of nationalism,
nativism and populism aim to make societies more closed. An egregious example
was the legislation passed in Hungary in April, 2017 threatening to remove the
right to operate from the Central European University, which was set up
expressly as an ‘island of liberal thought’ in former communist states (The
Guardian, 2017). This and similar events are inimical to higher education's
historic commitment to global openness and rigorous knowledge as the basis for
human progress. Such political trends discount the importance of experts, elites
and internationalism. They challenge would-be smart universities, not least
because ‘digital world resources’ and ‘mobile wireless communication’ can
promote ‘alternative facts’ as readily as verifiable knowledge.
Our first section examines the trends that have brought us to this ‘post-truth’
and ‘post-trust’ era, noting the impact of populism of both left and right. As a
result, the old left-right political spectrum is no longer as salient as continua
between open/closed and inclusive/exclusive.
In the second section, we argue that despite this dispiriting context,
humankind will depend greatly on universities for its healthy development into
st
the 21 century. The inclusion of higher education in the 2030 Sustainable
Development Goals is just one indicator of a global consensus on its importance
(UNESCO, 2015; 2016). But how should higher education respond to this new
context? The core objectives of universities are to stand up for evidence, stand
up for facts and stand up for the truth (Glover, 2017). University graduates
Challenges of Openness and Quality for Smart Universities in the Post-Truth and Post-Trust Era 67
should acquire an attitude of systematic scepticism. This requires curricula that

put less emphasis on didactic teaching and more on debate, both online and face
to face.
Section three explores how our understanding of quality in higher education
- and the means of assuring it - have evolved in recent decades. How can quality
assurance adapt to these new challenges? The current emphasis of quality
assurance on articulating and measuring student learning outcomes is well suited
to the teaching methods now required.
In a final section, we urge that the various trends towards openness in
academe (e.g. in software creation, access to research results and the sharing of
educational resources) can be powerful forces for nourishing diversity and
countering trends to close down debate.
3 The Post-Truth and Post-Trust Era
We start with the post-truth and post-trust era. Each year the Oxford dictionaries
choose a 'word of the year'. For 2016 that word was 'post-truth'. They define
post-truth as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are
less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal
belief". Their example is the sentence: "In this era of post-truth politics, it is easy
to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire.”
Loss of trust in institutions is another feature of our times. This can be a
gradual process. Over 50 years the trust that Americans have in government has
declined from 80% to 20%. Trust in government is one of many measures that
the Economist Intelligence Unit conflates to produce its annual democracy index
(Economist Intelligence Unit, 2016). In 2016, for the first time, the US no longer
ranked among the world’s 19 ‘full democracies’, but has been demoted to
‘flawed democracy’.
In his book, Trust and the Reconstitution of Social Order, Francis Fukuyama
(1995) demonstrated persuasively that the economic, social and cultural success
of nations relates directly to the trust that their people have in each other and in
their institutions. Some countries flourish because strangers learned to trust one
another when signing contracts, allowing them to do deals outside the circles of
family, tribal or in-group kinship relied upon in low-trust societies. Contrast
Sweden and Sicily or Norway and Nigeria.
The rector of the University of Oslo, Ole Petter Ottersen, argues that
universities should be trust building as well as truth seeking. "In our age of
turbulence”, he argues, “these two words – trust and truth – are inextricably
intertwined" (Ottersen, 2016).
Populism is the political expression of these trends away from truth and trust.
It combines nostalgia for the past, post-truth rhetoric, lack of trust in experts and
institutions, a desire to divide and, above all, hostility to whatever can be labelled
elite, usually by an accuser from another elite.
Populism can develop on either side of the conventional left/right political
spectrum. Its common factor is an attempt to mobilise ordinary people against
elites that are perceived to be self-serving. Right-wing populism also accuses
these elites of coddling a third group, usually immigrants and other minorities
(Judis, 2016).
Trump and Sanders stood for the right-wing and left-wing versions of
populism in the 2016 US election campaign. In Europe, the right wing has the
National Front in France and UKIP in Britain, while the left wing has Podemos and
Syriza in Spain and Greece.
Recent events in Hungary are an alarming example of the threat that
populist politics poses to universities. On April 4, 2017 the Hungarian Prime
Minister, Viktor Orban, pushed a bill through parliament aimed at closing the
Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, a prestigious university with an
international mission and staff and students from over 100 countries.
Transforming it into a Hungarian institution with a different name will, in his view,
eliminate nefarious influences from abroad. Academics around the world have
reacted angrily to this blatant attack on academic freedom and internationalism.
The CEU’s Rector, Michael Ignatieff, has pledged to keep the university and its
values alive at all costs. Can this be achieved in a closing society? We note, as
examples, two symptoms of the threats to truth and trust in closing societies.
First, 'expert' was used as a pejorative term in the 2016 referendum and
election contests in the UK and the USA. British Leave-the-EU campaigners told
people to disbelieve expert projections about the impact of Brexit, whether from
economists, newspaper columnists or diplomats. In the USA, the Trump
campaign denigrated the work of the intelligence services and the Bureau of
Labour Statistics. Some Brexiteers cheered the post-referendum resignation of
the UK's representative in Brussels, Sir Ivan Rogers, the top expert on UK-EU
relations. In his farewell letter to staff he wrote: "I hope you will continue to
challenge ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking and that you will never be
afraid to speak the truth to those in power". He added “I hope that you will
continue to be interested in the views of others, even where you disagree with
them, and in understanding why others act and think in the way that they do”
(BBC News, 2017).
That is good advice to Smart Universities. The business of higher education is
to produce experts in all fields of human endeavour. We must teach them use
their expertise confidently and fearlessly.
A second but less obvious symptom of post-truth and post-trust thinking is
loss of belief in progress. Higher education is grounded in a belief that change is
welcome because, on the whole, it is for the better. The students in our
universities believe that, by pursuing truth, they will operate from a higher base
of knowledge and skill than we did, whether in dentistry, ecology, history or
philosophy. They expect that their more advanced knowledge and skills will
create a better world.
Although they do not always call them 'the good old days', many
contemporary politicians hark back to a time when things were supposedly
better. Wisely, they don’t usually specify when that time was, because surveys
show that most people think the world was at its best when they were in their
early twenties. Dating the good old days is subjective. Nevertheless, nostalgia has
resurfaced in a big way. People and movements are reaching back to an illusory
past and trying to chart the future through a form of retreat (Kelly, 2016).
There are two antidotes to this: facts and knowledge. “Nothing is more
responsible for the good old days than a bad memory", so higher education must
be a good memory for humanity. All graduates should leave college with a grasp
of the broad sweep of human development. We recommend a recent summary
by the Swedish historian Johan Norberg, who documents the enormous progress
achieved, not just over previous centuries but also over the decades since the
badly remembered 'good old days'. His book, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look
Forward to the Future, is a powerful antidote to the temptation to generalise
from the latest news report about a famine, a war or the health challenges of
modern life and think how awful things are now (Norberg, 2016).
Arguing that ‘the Good Old Days are now', Norberg documents long-term
trends for the better in vital areas of life all over the world. These underlying
trends are persistent and will continue despite occasional setbacks or bad
choices.
However, populist campaigns are usually advance warning of political crises.
There are many such today and our higher education graduates will have to live
through them and solve them.
4 How should Higher Education respond?
Despite the challenges we have outlined, humankind will depend crucially on

st
universities for its healthy development into the 21 century. One indicator is
that whereas the Millennium Development Goals of 2000 were limited to basic
education, the Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030 has higher education
as one of the targets of Goal 4, namely: “by 2030, ensure equal access for all to
affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education including
university education” (UNESCO, 2015).
As regards what universities teach, degrees are a useful foundation,
providing evidence that a graduate has learned to think, but today’s hybrid jobs
require extra skills. People must learn to dissect post-truth discourse and post-
trust attitudes. They should cultivate an attitude of systematic scepticism and
they must position themselves on the continua between open/closed and
inclusive/exclusive that are successors to the older left/right political distinctions.
To quote Ottersen again: “what role can a truth-seeking university play in an
era characterised as 'post-truth'?" His answer is that: "Faced with the prospect of
a post-factual society, universities have to re-establish a respect for objective
truth and powerful arguments – through our educational programmes and
through our public outreach. We have to create many more arenas for debate –
arenas that are open and inclusive so as to give a voice to those who feel left
behind too” (Ottersen, 2016).
Pollsters noted that in the 2016 political campaigns in both the UK and the
US, university graduates were much less likely than those without degrees to
support populist positions. This suggests that higher education, in and of itself,
acts as an antidote to post-truth and post-trust thinking. But we suggest that
smart universities should be more explicit in challenging their students to
position themselves along the continua of open/closed and inclusive/exclusive.
We should not tell them where to position themselves but, as Ottersen said,
create arenas for debate where they must address this issue personally, possibly
arguing for different positions, whether they agree with them or not, rather as
students do in Model United Nations simulations. More generally, smart
universities must offer greater diversity in what they teach and how they enable
people to learn.
Whatever the positions that individual students take, universities as
institutions must stand for openness. Their motto could be the 50-year old slogan
of The Open University: open to people; open to places; open to methods; open
to ideas. Their challenge is to maintain openness in the post-truth era when
politics can have such a negative influence on higher education policies and
practice as we can see in states like Hungary and Turkey.
5 Quality Assurance in the Post-Truth and Post Trust era
How should quality assurance change in this post-truth and post-trust era?
In fact, quality assurance (QA) is itself a victim of post-trust attitudes. In
countries where governments play the major role in quality assurance many
allege that it is either too formulaic or wrongly focused. However, in jurisdictions
where the responsibility for QA is left largely to the higher education community,
as in the USA, some politicians argue for more state control, arguing that there is
too much mutual institutional backscratching. Academics oppose political
interference in accreditation fiercely because they consider that governmental
pressure on accreditors makes the processes more burdensome, with
increasingly uniform nationwide standards. Their greatest concern is the
disregard for diversity, especially at a time when more diverse higher learning is
required (Ekman, 2017).
We argue here that the times require less focus on didactic teaching and
more on challenging students to debate issues and argue their emerging
positions and conclusions. How can higher education ensure the quality of
learning in these circumstances? Are current methods of quality assurance
appropriate and adequate?
In reality, QA is constantly evolving. It developed strongly through the 1990s
and by the 2000s a general model had emerged with common elements based on
regulation and guidelines set by the QA agency, a self-review by the institution,
an external peer review and publication of the report.
This basic model is now spreading throughout the world and methods are
converging in most systems. However, as QA methods converge the focus of QA
is shifting to reflect the diversification of higher education itself. Not very long
ago quality was judged by inputs – grades of incoming students, qualifications of
teaching staff, number of books in the library and so on. Today quality
assessment focuses more on the outputs: students' learning outcomes. What
have the students really learned?
Multilateral organisations, such as the OECD (2015) and the EU (CALOHEE,
2017) are supporting this development because both private companies and
distinct units within public universities are now creating a new sector of higher
education with offerings that are usually online and often much shorter than
traditional programmes. This has been called ‘post-traditional higher education’.
Students’ Learning Outcomes are the most solid basis for assessing the quality of
such alternative provision.
In the USA Judith Eaton, President of the Council for Higher Education
Accreditation (CHEA), wants ‘to encourage fresh approaches to quality review of
traditional providers and expand quality review to new providers and new
credentialing’ and to ‘maintain and enhance the academic leadership of
institutions and programs, peer review and the commitment to academic
freedom.’
In this spirit, as an approach to QA for alternative, non-traditional providers
that serve an increasingly large number of students, CHEA’s International Quality
Group (CHEA/CIQG) developed a Quality Platform. This is an outcomes-based
review using simple standards, a self-review by the provider and external peer
(expert) review. Successful candidates are designated as Quality Platform
Providers for a three-year period.
The Quality Platform was pilot-tested successfully in 2015 with Shanghai’s
DeTao Masters Academy. This private company is not part of China's traditional
higher education system and mostly uses teachers and distinguished experts
(Masters) from outside China in a wide variety of disciplines. The programmes
are run in partnership with the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, but since they
are enriched majors, rather than full degrees, they are not covered by China’s
normal QA frameworks.
The CHEA/CIQG Quality Platform is now being piloted by the US Department
of Education in a new programme, EQUIP (Educational Quality through
Innovative Partnerships), designed to counterbalance what the Department itself
called the “inflexible and unaffordable options” of traditional higher education
for working adults. A partnership between Dallas County Community College
District and Straighterline, an online content provider, is the first pilot.
Although focusing quality assurance on the articulation and achievement of
student learning outcomes is a better match to the styles of learning and
teaching required today than the former emphases on inputs and processes, that
does not make it easy. We have argued for learning environments that place
greater focus on debate and argument to help people learn how to ferret out the
truth from a welter of information and ‘alternative facts’.
6 How can technology help?

Our earlier definition of a smart university talked of using ‘a technology-
enhanced learning system that is capable of advising learners to learn in the real
world with access to digital resources’ (Hwang, 2014).
Online learning is a powerful tool for opening up institutional reach, notably
to older part-time students. By making people more aware of their thinking
processes, online study helps them to be more purposeful in pursuing lifelong
learning, which makes for better persistence and outcomes.
For smart universities in the post-truth era, technology is both part of the
problem and also part of the solution. We have noted that ‘access to digital
resources’ can turn up ‘alternative facts’ just as readily as verifiable knowledge.
However, technology can also greatly facilitate the debates in which students
should engage in order to develop their own positions and an attitude of
scepticism. It can also traverse national borders and offer quality content and
verifiable knowledge even where nationalistic policies attempt to shut out ideas
from the external world.
The combination of online technology with the philosophy of openness, as
exemplified in open source software, open access to research findings and open
educational resources is of special relevance to would-be smart universities.
Target 4.3 of the Incheon Declaration cited earlier (UNESCO, 2015) refers
explicitly (item 43) to Open Educational Resources as a tool for promoting higher
education, noting that ‘a well-established properly regulated tertiary education
system, supported by technology, open educational resources and distance
education can increase access, equity, quality and relevance.
Both authors were involved in preparing UNESCO’s 2012 World Conference
on Open Educational Resources and in drafting of the Paris Declaration on OER
that was adopted by acclamation. Noting that the wider use of OER can also
facilitate the achievement of UN goals in many areas, the Declaration argued that
‘governments can create substantial benefits for their citizens by ensuring that
educational materials developed with public funds be made available under open
licenses (with any restrictions they deem necessary) in order to maximize the
impact of the investment.’
Although the Paris Declaration did not include any formal monitoring
mechanism, reports show that the use of OER by both teachers and learners is
increasing steadily (University Affairs, 2017). Although OER have not spread as
rapidly as open access to research publications, open textbooks are very popular
with students and substantially cut the cost of higher education in those
jurisdictions that make them available.
There will be a second UNESCO Conference on Open Educational Resources
in Ljubljana, Slovenia in September 2017. This will be a good occasion to assess
progress and we hope it will lead to better formal mechanisms for monitoring the
spread of OER in higher learning.
7 Conclusion
We have argued that the post-truth and post-trust attitudes engendered by
populist politics pose a serious challenge to higher education. Smart universities
must re-establish a respect for objective truth and powerful arguments and put
more of the onus on students to develop their own antibodies to alternative facts
through lively debate. However, we remain optimistic that the importance of
higher education to human development will continue to increase and that the
momentum to greater openness in education is unstoppable.
8 References
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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38503504 Accessed 2017
CALOHEE (2017) Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning
Outcomes in Higher Education in Europe. https://www.calohee.eu/ Accessed
2017-04-12
Catapult Future Cities (2016) http://futurecities.catapult.org.uk/project/
smart-campus-university-of-glasgow/ Accessed 2017-03-18
Hwang, GJ. (2014) Definition, framework and research issues of smart
learning environments - a context-aware ubiquitous learning perspective, Smart
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Glover, Barry (2017) Standing up for the facts in an era of post-truths,
University World News, 2017-03-17 http://www.universityworldnews.com/
article.php?story=20170306234144724 Accessed 2017-03-19
Eaton, Judith (2017) Regulatory Relief for Accreditation, CHEA Occasional
Position Paper http://www.chea.org/userfiles/Occasional%20Papers/Regulatory-
Relief.pdf Accessed 2017-04-2017
Ekman, Richard (2017). Burdensome Accreditation System needs overhaul.
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cms/review.html?Action=CMS_Document&DocID=1031&MenuKey=home.
Accessed 2017-04-12
Fukuyama, Francis (1995) Trust and the Reconstitution of the Social Order,
Simon & Schuster, New York.
Judis, John B. (2016) The Populist Explosion, Columbia Global Reports, New
York.
Kelly, Cathal (2016) The New Age of Nostalgia, The Globe and Mail,
December 23. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-politics/the-
new-age-of-nostalgia/article33421337/. Accessed 2017-03-16
OECD (2015) AHELO Main Study. http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-
school/ahelo-main-study.htm Accessed 2017-04-12
Ottersen, Ole Petter (2016) How should universities confront a post-truth
world? University World News, December 9. http://www.university
worldnews.com/article.php?story=2016120519520037. Accessed 2017-03-16
Norberg, Johan (2016) Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future,
One World Publications, London.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (2016) Democracy Index 2016: Revenge of
the “deplorables”. http://pages.eiu.com/rs/783-XMC-
194/images/Democracy_Index_2016.pdf. Accessed 2017-03-16
The Guardian (2017) Hungary investigated by EU over law threatening top
university, April 12. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/12/frans-
timmermans-eu-commission-central-european-university-budapest-hungary
Accessed 2017-04-12
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http://en.unesco.org/world-education-forum-2015/incheon-declaration
Accessed 2017-04-12
UNESCO (2016) Global Education Monitoring Report 2016, Education for
People and the Planet, Creating Sustainable Futures for All
(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002457/245752e.pdf )
University Affairs (2017) The open educational resources movement is
redefining the concept of online textbooks. April 4.
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/open-educational-
resources-movement-redefining-concept-online-textbooks/ Accessed 2017-04-12
Understanding 'Smart University' through Incidental
Learning Experience of Open and Distance Education
Jane-Frances Obiageli Agbu
National Open University of Nigeria

oagbu@noun.edu.ng
Abstract: In this years’ Summit, the 7th edition, we are enjoined to

deliberate on the concept and our understanding of ‘Smart Universities’.
The questions posed are: Is technology changing the face of learning,
education and society? Is the future of learning open? Do we foresee a
sustainable future of learning space available to all? How do we respond as
custodians of education? And how do we collaborate within our regions
and beyond? This paper hopes to add to these deliberations from the
perspective of experiences from Open and Distance Education. My
presentation, which is titled “understanding ‘Smart University’ through
incidental learning of Open and Distance Education (ODE)’’ draws on
unplanned and unstructured observations and subsequent activities in the
course of my work at the National Open University Nigeria (NOUN). It
starts with a short narrative of how I encountered and embraced the
practice of ODE, how improved access to education through ICT became a
smart option for equity and justice in society; it discussed the smart
technologies that enriched my experience and practice as an academic,
and finally, ways through which we can share experiences and collaborate.
Key words: Smart University, Incidental Learning Experience, Open
Education, Distance Education
Introduction
My name is Dr Jane-Frances Obiageli Agbu. I am from the National Open

University of Nigeria. I am currently the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences
and also an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology. Finally, I hold the
International Council for Distance Education (ICDE) Chair in Open Educational
Resources (OER), (2017-2021).
I want to sincerely thank the organizers of the 7th World Learning Summit
(WLS) for reaching out to me. Thank you for finding me worthy to speak in this
summit and hoping to share my experience and my understanding of ‘smart

University’. I am not an expert and I have listened attentively from previous
presentations and have learnt a lot too. I hope that my insight will be helpful.
I was asked to speak from the broad perspective of “Learning at scale: Global
development perspectives”, an opening session presentation for the academic
track of the summit. To my understanding, learning at scale described
educational initiatives that provide learning experiences to large number of
learners. Coming in from the perspective of e-Learning or Open and Distance
Education/Learning (ODE/L) my presentation is titled: “Understanding ‘Smart
University’ from Incidental Learning Experience of Open and Distance Education.
Just a year ago, I read an report shared by the Institute of Educational
Technology of the Open University UK titled: Trends in Learning”. This report
analyzed 7 innovations in teaching, learning and assessment that shaped the
education landscape in 2016, and they were
• Adaptive learning
• Adaptive teaching
• MOOCs
• Accreditation badges
• Analytics,
• e-books
• mobile learning
• Incidental learning.
But indeed I found the section on Incidental learning which they titled
“harvesting incidental learning” most intriguing. The report described “Incidental
learning as - learning without needing to be taught, in ways that are instinctive,
unplanned, and at times, unintentional”. The report therefore stressed the need
to recognize the role of incidental learning in personal, professional and
workplace development. (see the report online at: http://www.open.ac.uk/
business/sites/www.open.ac.uk.business/files/files/OU_TrendsInLearningReport
2016.pdf)
At this summit we are encouraged to ponder on these questions: Is
technology changing the face of learning, education and society? Is the future of
learning open? Do we foresee a sustainable future of learning space available to
Understanding 'Smart University' through Incidental Learning Experience of ... 79
all? How do we respond as custodians of education? And how do we collaborate

within our regions and beyond? I could easily identify with these questions, as I
have pondered on them for quite a while through my incidental learning
experience of the Open and Distance Education. My presentation therefore
draws on my unplanned and unstructured observations and subsequent activities
in the course of my work at the National Open University Nigeria (NOUN). It
starts with a short narrative of how I encountered and embraced the practice of
Open and Distance Education (ODE); how improved and inclusive access to
education became a smart option for equity and justice in society; It discussed
the smart technologies that enriched my experience and practice as an academic
and finally, ways through which we can share experiences and collaborate.
It was unplanned!
How I embraced Open and Distance Education
My initial encounter with the Open University system was unplanned. The
conventional (traditional) University system was all I knew and in 2006, just
about rounding up my Ph.D programme, I decided that it was time to engage in
full-time employment. Also as a mother to three young children, with the
youngest aged just 3 years then, I knew it would be challenging to work far from
home. The nearest was the newly established National Open University of Nigeria
(NOUN) which was located just few minutes from home. I applied for a position
as a course facilitator and was pleasantly surprised when I got the job. Since
NOUN was relatively new back then, and the only Open University in Nigeria, it
opened its door to new entrants. The trainings were intense but we quickly
adjusted to the practices of Open and Distance Education (ODE).
But there were misconceptions and Resistance
First from my Supervisor who screamed when I asked for the mandatory
recommendation letter for employment: “What is Open about Open University!”,
“So you want to waste all your years of training in an Open University?” He asked,
“You want to be faceless and unclaimed”, he groaned and was genuinely worried
for me. There were indeed little respite from colleagues so used to the
conventional face-to-face mode of teaching and learning. I was unanimously
voted as the least likely to succeed professionally. There were also resistance
from conventional universities around Nigeria whiles phrases such as: “The
National Open University of Nigeria is a Fraud”, “Their certificates must be fake”,

“It is not possible to study from a distance”, “Government, please close down
NOUN” were commonplace in the national dailies. Also staff and students, who
were hitherto not used to teaching and studying via the Open and Distance
Learning (ODL), questioned the practice with reactions to tiny challenges
overblown. To my understanding, these are natural reactions to change, which
are characterized by reluctance to accept new innovations and thus the tendency
to act out. This was further heightened by lack of insight in Open and Distance
Learning (ODL) as NOUN was the only single-mode ODL University in Nigeria.
How improved access in Education became a smart option for

equity and justice in society
Thus at the peak of resistance and misconceptions from friends and significant
others, and while lost in thought one day on the lift up to my office, a student
asked “Do you work here? I nodded, he responded “thank you for giving me the
opportunity to work and learn” I looked up, smiled, and I am still smiling, really
thankful to be part of this vision.
UNESCO’s vision for education asserts
“Towards 2030, our vision is to transform lives through education, recognizing

the important role of education as a main driver of development and in achieving
the other proposed SDGs. We commit with a sense of urgency to a single,
renewed education agenda that is holistic, ambitious and aspirational, leaving no
one behind. This new vision is fully captured by the proposed SDG 4 “Ensure
inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all” and its corresponding targets. It is transformative and
universal, attends to the ‘unfinished business’ of the EFA agenda and the
education-related MDGs, and addresses global and national education challenges.
It is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development based on
human rights and dignity; social justice; inclusion; protection; cultural, linguistic
and ethnic diversity; and shared responsibility and accountability. We reaffirm
that education is a public good, a fundamental human right and a basis for
guaranteeing the realization of other rights. It is essential for peace, tolerance,
human fulfillment and sustainable development. We recognize education as key
to achieving full employment and poverty eradication. We will focus our efforts
on access, equity and inclusion, quality and learning outcomes, within a lifelong
learning approach” (see online at: http://www.unesco.org/
fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/ED/pdf/FFA_Complet_Web-ENG.pdf)
It is important to note that the Open Universities by their philosophy, design
and practices has triggered massive admissions into Universities all over the
world as learners now have the opportunity to study from anywhere and at
anytime. This sure is a veritable tool for the development of citizens in any
country. In Nigeria for example, the admission capacity of the 128 Universities is
not more than 400 thousand yearly, with yearly application averaging 1.6 million.
This shows that more than 1 million students are left unplaced in Nigerian
Universities and the backlog continues. However the National Open University of
Nigeria, with 76 study centers in all states in Nigeria (including special centres in
prisons), has increased student enrolment of 16,000 in 2004 to over 469,132 by
June 2017. This indeed is smart.
What of Classical Openness?

‘Open’ in ‘Open University’ refers to the following set of classical features:
(1) Open entry (no formal requirement)
(2) Freedom of time
(3) Freedom of place
(4) Freedom of pace
(5) Open programming (i.e., curriculum variety in size and composition) and
(6) Open to all population and target groups (i.e., heterogeneous
population of all ages, and in difference context, generally involving
some type of combination of study with job or domestic and care tasks)
Though not a single Open University is fully open in all six aspects of openness,
but derived from their missions, OUs definitely score higher in these classical
notions of openness. This classical notion of openness creates room for flexible,
inclusive and lifelong learning opportunities. This indeed is Smart! (Agbu et al,
2016; see online at: www.oerafrica.org/system/files/12272/noun.pdf?
file=1&type=node&id=12272).
What of the Smart Technologies and Concepts that Enriched

my Experience?
Online facilitation for me was novel and exciting as I could reach out to students
synchronously and asynchronously. The practice of uploading of computer-based
assessment for students became less mysterious as the training gave digital
confidence to a digital migrant such as me. And I encountered OER and MOOCs:
Digital openness that flanked the classical openness. Cathy Casserly from the
Creative Commons noted in her presentation at this summit that, “When we
think about economy, we think about scarcity, but in the commons, we think
about abundance”. This statement depicts the beauty of sharing knowledge for
common good, the vision of Open Educational Resources (OERs). Also while
listening attentively to earlier presentations and comments at this summit, a
panel discussant from ICDE narrated how irritated her colleague gets whenever
she pushes for capacity building, citing her, “capacities are everywhere, we just
need to identify, build on it and share it”! And I pondered; “yes, capacities are
everywhere, but who identifies it?” I asked rhetorically, but somebody has to
identify and share it.
In 2013, I attended a UNESCO/COL/ECOWAS capacity building workshop on
OER for West Africa. We were made to understand that the term OER, coined at
UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on Open Courseware and describes “teaching, learning
and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the
public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost
access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited
restrictions. Open licensing is thus built within the existing framework of
intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and
respects the authorship of the work” (see online at:
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/WPFD2009/English
_Declaration.html).
UNESCO 2012 Paris declaration on OER therefore recommends that States,
within their capacities and authority should:
1. Foster awareness and use of OER
2. Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and
Communications Technologies (ICT)
3. Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER
4. Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks
5. Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality

learning materials
6. Foster strategic alliances for OER
7. Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of
languages and cultural contexts
8. Encourage research on OER
9. Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER
10. Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with
public funds (see online at: http://www.unesco.org/new/
fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/WPFD2009/English_Declaration.html)
After this intense experience, I realized that my institution, the National Open
University of Nigeria (NOUN) being a public funded University has a quantum of
course materials that could be shared for common good and also is well-position
to embrace OER. I wrote a proposal on this and a year and half later, my
institutions made a decision to join the OER movement. To my colleagues, I must
have been crazy embracing and championing OER, but I keep stressing that; “it is
in our nature to share, so why are we not sharing knowledge? Also, “it is more
fulfilling to share than to hoard” Just like the ‘Rs’ of OER, this summit provides us
with opportunity to share, revise, remix, reuse and redistribute knowledge. There
is really no new knowledge, just fresh perspectives. Also through collaboration
with UNESCO, COL, EADTU, OpenupEd, OERu, I and my colleagues experienced
first-hand the excitement of instructional design and digital navigations by
learning how to convert materials into formats of EPUB, ODT and PDF for
accessibility as OERs and also how to use OERs to enrich our course materials.
In 2016, due to the plight of unplaced students in University, NOUN designed
an OER-based Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on “History and Philosophy
of Science”, a general study course taken at 100 level in Nigerian Universities.
This was aimed at introducing students to online learning, keep them
constructively occupied as they wait for the next year for another Joint admission
exam and also get them a bit conversant with a course they will be taking in the
University. This I found fulfilling.
Access to education is not success in learning, it is about

meaningful instructional design
Numerous training in course material writing and design in the course of my
work experience made me realize that course materials should be written by
experts, should be extensively reviewed, should be current, interactive,
conversational with clear formative and summative assessment linking the
learning objective and outcome. It is important to note that NOUN course
materials are online and visible to all and thus open to public consumption and
scrutiny.
I also realized that being guide on the side and by leveraging

on technology, you become a better teacher
In 2001, when I was invited back at my former school as a visiting lecturer, I
taught how I knew best by simply identifying lesson objectives, expected
outcome and linking all the classroom experience to these expected outcomes,
just like in our course materials. I introduced my students to ebooks, flipped
classroom, OERs, stimulating their interest in being creators of knowledge. I also
encouraged them to try out MOOCs, which heightened their curiosity and
excitement. I realized that finally I could understand and teach the digital natives
all thanks to navigating the Open and distance education terrain.
And how do we share experiences and collaborate? – Simple, leverage on
networks.
Finally
Observations have shown us that technology is indeed changing the face of
learning, education and society so there is need to quickly adjust and adapt to
this changing trend. Also in order to provide learning space for all, thus
stimulating access, equity, inclusive lifelong learning, the future of education
should indeed be open, flexible and smart. There is also the need for
stakeholders to collaborate across the globe for insight and good practices in this
regard. Cathy Casserly in her plenary presentation noted that, universities of the
future needs to: reach out to students wherever they are; engage in continous
learning; work transparently; provide micro-credentials; stimulate permeable
boundaries; be highly collaborative and encourage co-creation/co-learning. This
makes a lot of sense!
Thank you!
Contact Education – a Theory Framework
Oddgeir Tveiten

Abstract: The paper outlines the concept “Contact Education”, as a

framework for exploring media rich learning designs. At the University of
Agder, Norway, attempts are made to foster a campus-wide dialog and
collaboration towards education´s digital future. What concerns,
challenges, concepts and conclusions come into focus in such a wide
attempt to develop a common arena? In seeking to refine a framework,
the paper presents and appraises key research perspectives from that
point of view.
Key words: Future Learning, media-rich learning and education,
multi–media, hypertext, narrative, multimodality, Contact Education
1 Introduction
How can research on educational uses of new technologies contribute to the

development of progressive teaching and learning methods in an age of media
and mediation? How can exploration of new learning designs assist in lowering
threshold for teachers and students in applying media from outside of school,
inside the classroom? To what extent do digital learning platforms challenge or
support current pedagogical paradigms – given societys' increasing media
immersion? How can the notion of a “digital pedagogical paradigm” successfully
be wed to classic humanistic concerns with narrative, curation and performance?
These are the questions underlying a project to develop an interdisciplinary
approach to the study of education´s digital future, at one particular university.
This paper offers no space for methodological considerations, other than to say
that a discourse analytic approach was used to review a much wider variation of
literature than what the paper format allows us to report.
What is reported below are nodal clusters or themes of issues and research
concepts in the area of emergent digital learning. The background is simple: In
2009, a proposal was fielded to establish a Future Learning Lab at the University
of Agder (UiA), Norway, to follow a previous cross-university endeavour called
Learning Arena 2020. Future Learning Lab did not become a center but still
thrives as a research group, amongst several others. A university-wide PhD
student network was set up under the name Agder Digital Learning Arena
(ADILA). The university´s media center dug in a foothold and began adapting to
the new digital learning eco system. The UiA Teachers Training College, and
several research groups and centers did the same. For a designated period, the
university became a national hub for exploring digial assessments.
But the question remained: Where is the common arena – indeed; what is
the common arena? Universities are complex organizations embedded in
teaching, administration, policy building knowledge production, regional change,
and more. They adapt slowly, and ought to. They are hierarchies where traditions
and paradigms cultivate and clash. Transforming the entire organization becomes
a key change parameter, partly at odds with cultivating the diverse inter-
disciplinary arena where research develops more unruled. Accordingly, certain
challenges in parsing research with development often remain critically
undercommunicated, falling between the cracks, so to speak. This paper first
outlines some theoretical perspectives and concepts that would seem to inform
an interdisciplinary endeavour to scrutinize and critique that fact. This particular
framework is what we label Contact Education. The paper nexts presents a brief
1
discussion, as the basis for a research agenda in the making.
2 Contact Education: Discourses in the literature
In 2007 a FutureLab report asked whether we as a society and as educators are

prepared for the massive changes in human capabilities that digital technologies
are likely to enable in the next few years.2 They concluded that we are not, in fact
that our models of society and of education require reassessment if they are to
adequately reflect the kinds of changes that are now taking place in our modes of
communication. As research within many areas of the social sciences and
humanities show, digital (or ”new”) media are ushering in a post-print paradigm,
1
The format does now allow for extensive referencing, which is a limit in a concept review. Hence,
the emphasis is on identifying clusters of ideas, perspectives, and mutually linked frameworks.
The full report eventually available from Future Learning Lab on request.
2
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications-reports-articles/literature-reviews/Literature-
Review383
Contact Education – a Theory Framework 87
shattering established frameworks of thinking about research, teaching, and

learning (Korakakis et.al. 2008). The argument is not all that recent (i.e. Toffler
1993). Hill and Hannafin note how ”... individuals evaluate vast numbers of digital
resources located in expanding information repositories” (pp.38, 2001).
However, in 2011, when Stanford University developed their first on-line
university course to exceed 10 000 students, one might say that a qualitatively
new era was beginning. That course had 165 000 students, leaving anyone to
reflect on what that means (Norvig, 2016). Scale comes to mind as does hyper-
narrative. Formal education today is more flexible, more networked and more
monitored than at any time in human history. And meanwhile, a changing labor
market also demands adaptive learning to ensure as good a fit as possible
between formal education, informal learning, and ever-changing knowledge
needs at the work place. Individual motivation to become and remain a ”life-long
learner“ perhaps catches the mood of contemporary discourse (Christensen,
2011).
The term “Contact Education” may offer a conceptual model of thinking in
the current Future Learning Lab project to derive a broadly interdisciplinary
framework for exploring digital learning designs. UiA opens two functional
learning and interaction labs in 2017. Accordingly, might we refine a passable,
over-all framework to fit? Coined by Tveiten and Bundsgaard, (Tveiten, 2008),
the general hypothesis behind Contact Education is that students learn more and
deeper, and do it more permanently when being in contact with: a) Each other
and people from outside of school; b) Important problems from real life; c)
authentic ways of investigating and acting related to the problems. Points like
these summarise a great deal of learning research. The question then is how
technology and ICT-rich environents configure into that perspective (Bundsgaard,
2009)?
The concept Contact Education was coined as a counterpart to the term
"Contact Journalism”, as labeled by Mark Kramer at the Harvard Nieman
Foundation’s Program for Narrative Journalism: 3 News does not engage
sufficiently, according to that argument, so the question becomes; how does one
re-think story-telling in journalism to engage people? Needless to say it is a big
question. As noted in a research proposal we filed as a Nordic team this year
(Viteli, 2017), the same question can be raised in studies of learning: How does
3
http://nieman.harvard.edu/books/telling-true-stories/
one create engagement? The notion of 21st. century skills is high on the
education-political agenda as an attempt to articulate particular skills needed to
succeed in a highly digitized society. The term denotes those skills that children
and young people are required to have in order to be competent, active and
empowered citizens in the digitalized society of the 21st century (OECD, 2009;
Binkley et al, 2012 cited by Viteli, 2017). The vision is, in part, to foster more
interactive-, collaborative- and self-paced learning.
2.1 Mobility and virtual networks
Therein lies the challenge of engagement (Erstad, 2013; Iversen et.al. 2017 cited
by Viteli, 2017). 21st. century skills as a concept also reflects back on a expanding
as well as more flexible boundaries between formal education and learning more
generally. To elaborate, five dimensions of future learning are highlighted in this
paper, the first being the concept of mobility: Education´s digital future reflects
fundamentally how people, ideas and information now travel further and faster
than at any time in human history. Education and learning is becoming more and
more immersed in constantly evolving networks. Likely, students in the future
will be very different in their expectations than education institutions today is set
up to deliver (Barbour and Reeves, 2008). They travel more in real time.
Knowledge will travel even more comprehensively in virtual time. From YouTube
and other social media to more complete eco systems like Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs), three facts emerge: 1) Students have more comparative
insight than they used to, 2) formal education melds with informal learning in
new ways, 3) while insight and competence in using technology poses new forms
of stratification and variation (Sappa and Aprea, 2014; Dunleavey et.al., 2009;
Brennan er.al., 2003). Indeed, a well-documenteds book notes in the
introduction how “seamless learning”;
“…implies that a student can learn whenever they are curious in a variety of
scenarios and that they can switch from one scenario to another easily and
quickly using the personal device as a mediator. These scenarios include
learning individually, with another student, a small group, or a large online
community” (Wong, et.al., 2015, pp.v).
2.2 Communities of learning
Accordingly, in our search for Future Learning Lab foundations, we identified

Situated Learning as a means to defining that interdisciplinary framework of self-

paced learning and engagement: In their seminal book on the topic, Lave and
Wenger (1991) developed the concept Community of practice. A community of
practice is a group of individuals participating in communal activity, continuously
creating their shared identity through engaging in and contributing to the
practices of their communities and thereby developing a shared repertoire
(Wenger, 2008). Shaffer worked with the concept in relation to computer based
learning, arguing that different communities develop different ep istemic frames,
that is “[…] different ways of knowing, of deciding what is worth knowing, and of
adding to the collective body of knowledge and understanding of community”
(Shaffer, 2006, p. 10). Similar concerns are noted by Erstad (2013), as well as
Casserley (2017). In short, professions like those of doctors, engineers,
journalists, etc., each have a particular learning practice, or practicum. By
simulating such a practicum an epistemic frame makes it possible for students to
learn to think like doctors, engineers, journalists, etc. That is, they learn to be a
part of a particular community of practice. As the thinking goes, situation and
explorative interaction amongst participant learners fosters autonomy and
interest in learning. And one might add the prospect of globalized learning which
also entails globalized, virtual and digital communities of learning (McLoughlin
and Lee, 2010, Alexander, 2006).
2.3 Hypertextual curation
Third, Hatfield and Shaffer (2006) extend the notion of an epistemic frame,
discussed above, to the idea of an epistemic game: “An activity structure (the
things players do) and a computer-based epistemic game engine (the technology
players use). The point of view opens new avenues of thinking beyond
classrooms: As illustrated by Liestøl (2009), the notion of epistemic game engine
can be understood as a prototyping of meaning-making software; a genre
environment, interaction environment. Liestøl deploys his insight to locationary
media and GPS-based outdoors exhibits. His insights are fundamental also to the
design of classroom curatorship, content co-production, spontaneous and
creative co-collaboration understood as performance.
The term ”hyper-text” is central to Liestøl´s discussion and it refers of course
to the structure of texts and images connected though electronic referencing and
simulation, giving the reader a means of reorganizing the totality of text either by
will or by serendipity (Piccoli, 2001) similarly notes that such phenomena alter
the balance between the writer and the reader, the narrator and the audience,
mediated through a kind of text that we as educators do not quite yet know how
to handle. The fragmentation of classical sequential reading, the re-embedding of
text and visual communication, and the reframing processes inherent in hyper-
textual narratives clearly is an aspect also of an emergent pedagogical paradigm
whose relevance for education and education planning is still poorly understood
(Tveiten, 2016). Reading and learning in a multi-narrative framework where one
option it to ”click and change your direction“ may be analog to exploring
knowledge in a library, the difference being that the“ library“ is everywhere and
that it suggest where you ought to go through detailed monitoring og your
search habits.
Fig. 1: A framework for co-creation in digital learning and application (Liestøl, 2009).
Hyperlinked texts introduce reader choice into sequential narrative, thus
interfering with the revelatory nature of text-audience interaction. It creates a
presence of bifurcality, leading in turn to concerns with contemporary pedagogy
and basic understandings of how we read and write (Luke, 2009). The changing
context of social media in education and learning (McLoughlin and Lee, 2008)
leads to concerns as well with educational management (Dimmock and Walker,
2004). A hyperlinked text is a kind of narrative that constantly introduces Y-
crossings where the reader must either go one way, or the other. It organizes
images, sounds, objects and other inputs in the ways that differ from the
narrative paradigm of Gutenberg and the book. While the Gutenberg revolution
in a sense brought silence and individuality to the act of reading, the post-print
revolution may by a stretch of the imagination be said to take us back to the
monastery where monks once read their text aloud, not realizing there was an
alternative. We have yet to fully explore this emergent interactive, networked
mode of reading, where learners pursue serendipity together (Tamin, 2011,
Tveiten 2016).
2.4 Performative interaction
It would follow from the above that Contact Education as a concept of digital
learning closely observes explorative learning as a communal, cultural practice; a
mediation of meaning through mediums. A discussion point may be to assume
with Carey (1987) that communication and culture are surprisingly unclear
concepts, despite our everyday usage of them. He famously introduced a
distinction between a transmission view of communicaton and a view of
commmunication as culturally embedded ritual. One might understand co-
collaboration and co-creation of learning as profoundly cultural and social modes
of exchange, in which Carey´s critique of communication studies is equally
relevant to a ciritique of learning studies. How do we approach the study of
collaborative learning as the co-production of meaning – what does that term
imply?
If we do not employ a transmission model of communication
where ”meaning“ is transported sequentially from one place or person to
another, then some other ”meaning-making“ model is implicitly assumed. If we
do not study observable effects of technology use in behavior, what other
aspects of effect are relevant? Digital learning by definition require that
educators store, retrieve and disseminate information in a manner more akin to
the functions of the librarian or archivist. With that comes a sense of place, a
sense of role, routines, expectations and the effects or consequwnces of
technologies in a much more profound and less easily quantified way. The
emergent digital learning eco system in turn also means that educators have at
their disposal tools for curation and exhibition that (a) are not yet central in
educational curriculum planning and (b) not very well conceptualized in the social
sciences or humanistic tradition where space, place and scale are not really key
concepts in learning studies. The short version is this: To plan learning interaction
as performance and co-production of meaning, requires a sense of curation, and
a sense of place. To study it, may require what anthropologist Clifford Geertz
famously once dubbed “thick description“ – the deeper layers of interpersonal
and symbolic interaction.
3 Discussion: Exploring new leaning designs
From the Contact Education point of view, this emergent view becomes one of
curating a more complex, open-ended kind of narrative. One aspect of this would
observe media ubiquity as a basic precondition (Bachmair and Pachler, 2015). A
second would perhaps emphasize virtual and augumented reality as locations of
digital collaboration (Dunleavy et.al., 2008). A third would certainly address the
basic distinction between learning as a cognitive proccess and learning
understood more as a continuous process of nourishment (Hodgins, 2002). Co-
creation is distributive: It connects and re-connects those present. Co-creation is
associational: There is competition for attention, some pathways more open and
levelled than others. How does one as an educator not become overwhelmed,
caught in the maze of possibilities?
How does one parse the Gutenberg paradigm with what comes after? One
aspect of it is the multimodal interaction invited by multimedia expressions. A
framework placing emphasis on the dynamics of collaboration and interaction in
digital learning designs, invites the networked world into the classroom. But how
does one? What is the “digital learning revolution” all about, if not observing the
fact of media ubiquity and how that reality is changing the fabric of learning
institutions? Dede (2005) notes how the future of education is challenged to use
”... these emerging technologies to deliver instruction matched to the
increasingly “neomillennial” learning styles of their students”. Note, also, that the
date of publication was 2005. More than a decade later, one might still ask the
same question.
One final discussion frame to collect these questions in a way that perhaps
breakes down some of the fence between a more orthodox and emergent digital
learning pedagogy, may be the concept of Problem Based Learning (PBL), a
research framework sharing a common assumption: The emphasis on students
solving real life problems, treated through both investigation and action (Barron
et al. 1998). Needless to say, each subject taught and theme curated for media-
rich learning interaction, will be different. What is shared is a narratological
approach, observing the richness of interaction potential. Learning designs based
on real life problems, mobilize engagement. Observing how gamers game, the
lesson is simple: It´s the story that counts.
4 Conclusions
Contact Education inivites a number of frameworks and perspectives, coming

together perhaps best in the the idea of co-curation. A short literature review
does not offer the full prospect of any clear conclusion as to how to envisage that
inter-discipinary co-curation space and agenda, but it does make room for
reflection on some of the dimensions that would be in need of further pursuit.
In summary, research abounds on what motivates and engages students to
learn on their own, in media rich environments. It would seem that a key
challenge is to focus a great deal on counteracting our scholarly penchant for
discipline thinking. In this paper, we have sought to outline some elements that
point to ways and means of exploring the kind of collaborative learning designs
and co-curation for which Future Learning Lab was set up.
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The Quality of Open Online Education and Learning:
A Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs
Open University of the Netherlands

Korean National Open University
East China Normal University
christian.stracke@ou.nl
Abstract: Societal, educational and personal changes are shaking

economies, working and living conditions as well as the whole world. The
raise of the world-wide internet and social media including online
communities is affecting societies and people’s lives as well as personal
learning. Open (Online) Education has experienced a major development
raising awareness amongst all actors including global grass-root
movements, events, communities and associations as well as international
policies and implementations in national and regional educational systems.
During the last years Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) became very
popular: Since the year 2008 with the first MOOC the number of MOOCs is
constantly increasing. The year 2012 was considered as the "Year of the
MOOCs" leading to a global debate about their quality as an educational
tool that is increasing since then. To address the quality issues, MOOQ, the
European Alliance for the Quality of MOOCs was initiated. Based on a
literature review and analysis of existing quality approaches and indicators
for MOOCs, the first Global MOOC Survey was designed and conducted for
three target groups (MOOC learners, designers and facilitators) with the
support by the leading international associations and institutions.
Afterwards the results from the survey were complemented by qualitative
and semi-structured interviews with MOOC designers, facilitators and
providers to gain more in-depth details and insights. The final objective is
the development of the Quality Reference Framework (QRF) with quality
indicators and tools in close collaboration with all interested stakeholders
worldwide. This paper presents the first QRF draft for further discussion.
Key words: Open Education, Online Learning, MOOCs, Quality
Reference Framework, MOOQ
1 Introduction
The societies and their economies, working and living conditions are facing global
challenges and changes. They are affecting all parts of our lives including the
ways how we learn and educate. Even though that the individual process of
learning is not changing completely, the circumstances and modes of learning
and education are becoming more diverse (Stracke, 2018). In particular the
educational systems are challenged by moving objectives and development
targets (Nyberg, 1975, Stracke, 2018). Citizens have to acquire and develop much
different skills and competences due to competing businesses and interests at
national, regional and international scales are demanding for new work forces.
That requires a shift towards core horizontal competences including new kinds of
literacy and many public authorities in education are accepting and following this
request (OECD, 2016). It is claimed that new economies and jobs are emerging
that are not yet existing or fully developed and public education should prepare
for it by personality and competence building.
On the other hand there are also considerable changes of the individual lives
and conditions, not only related to labour market opportunities and increasing
workload pressure but also regarding individual communication, collaboration
and learning. Internet and social media were appearing like a star introducing
online communities and service that are affecting people’s lives as well as
personal learning. Even though the limitations of technology and Internet access
are still avoiding balanced and equal situations mainly in Southern countries,
online learning and collaboration have been established and many new
opportunities for online education and learning were developed and are
available for many interested people all over the world (Stracke, 2017a & 2018).
Therefore it can be called a global movement given the continuous deployment
of technology and Internet access and use worldwide (World Bank, 2016).
All these societal, educational and personal changes have led to the growth
of Open (Online) Education that has experienced a major increase of raising
awareness amongst all levels and stakeholders (European Commission, 2011,
Stracke, 2015). Global grass-root movements, events, communities and
associations and international policies and implementations in national and
regional educational systems were successfully created and sustained. Major
milestones were the UNESCO declarations on Open Education and in particular
the policy on Open Educational Resources (OER) (UNESCO, 2012). In Europe, the
European Commission is strongly supporting it by the communication on
"Opening Up Education" (European Commission, 2013) demanding a change and
improvement in European education and society.
The Quality of Open Online Education and Learning: A Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs 99
Within Open Online Education the phenomenon MOOC (short for: Massive
Open Online Courses) became very popular: The first MOOC was provided in the
year 2008 and since then, the number of MOOCs is constantly growing (Gaskell &
Mills, 2014, Stracke, 2017a). A first peak could be discovered in the year 2012
that was labelled as the "Year of the MOOCs": It introduced a debate that is
questioning the quality of MOOCs and their value as learning experience and
educational tool (Daniel, 2012). The drop-out rates as the typical measure in
traditional distance education courses and in all formal education settings are
discussed in MOOCs as they are very low and often below 10 %: Therefore first
demands for re-booting the design of MOOCs and their research and quality are
formulated (Margaryan, Bianco & Littlejohn, 2015, Onah, Sinclair & Boyatt, 2014,
Reich, 2015). But this discussion results is mainly based on an improper use of
drop-out rates as a formal evaluation concept of face-to-face education for
MOOCs that allow mostly non-formal learning experiences (Onah, Sinclair &
Boyatt, 2014). Thus, alternative evaluation measures have been proposed for
MOOCs and are discussed to address better the learners and their personal
intentions and goals (Stracke, 2017a, Teixeira & Mota, 2014).
To directly focus these quality issues, MOOQ, the European Alliance for the
Quality of MOOCs was initiated and is taking up several key aspects of the 2011
EU Modernization Agenda such as digital skills and competences orientation
(European Commission, 2011). The founding partners of MOOQ are: The Open
University of the Netherlands (OUNL, NL) as the MOOQ coordinator, Hellenic
Open University (HOU, GR), National Quality Infrastructure System (NQIS, GR),
Universidade Aberta (UAb, PT) and Ecole Normale Supérieur (ENS, FR). In close
collaboration with leading European and international associations and
institutions (including: UNESCO IITE, ITCILO, FAO, UNITAR, ICDE, CoL, ICORE,
EADTU, EDEN, EATEL, OEC, Contact North, EAPRIL) the MOOQ alliance aims to
improve the adaptation and quality of future Open Education and MOOCs
(Stracke, 2017b).
2 How to improve Open Online Learning and MOOCs?
The vision of MOOQ is to improve and to foster the quality in Open Online
Education and Learning and in particular in MOOCs that it will lead us to a new
era of learning experiences. MOOQ’s mission is to develop a Quality Reference
Framework (QRF) for the adoption, the design, the delivery and the evaluation of
MOOCs in order to empower MOOC designers and MOOC providers for the
benefit of MOOC learners. The main goal of MOOQ is therefore the development
and the integration of quality approaches, new pedagogies and organisational

mechanisms into MOOCs with a strong focus on the learning processes,
methodologies and assessments.
To enhance the unique digital market in Europe, MOOQ will introduce a new
"Q-generation of MOOCs" that will be designed, organized and tested as
"qMOOCs". This is done in close collaboration with all interested partners and
stakeholders in Europe and beyond. Therefore MOOQ commits to help providers
to design and deliver better MOOCs in close collaboration with all interested
stakeholders worldwide. The particular needs addressed by MOOQ are:
 Massive offerings of MOOCs, stimulated by unprecedented publicity,
will soon lead to ranking of courses and Universities offering the
courses: Ranking will rely on the increased quality of offerings as
perceived by both learners and educational professionals. Thus, there is
a need for a QRF for MOOCs with a focus on sustainability by way
continuous improvement.
 Learning effectiveness will be the ultimate test for the MOOC education
model as it was for the classic distance learning approach. Alignment of
learning objectives, measurement and assessment, educational
materials, interaction and engagement of learners, and course
technology to ensure achievement of desired learning outcomes is
essential. Hence there is the need for the development, application and
testing of criteria, indicators, methods and tools for measuring
achievement in MOOC learning.
 The MOOC educational model is being shaped as courses are offered,
and so far, most initiatives still use traditional pedagogical techniques,
although emerging pedagogic models in Europe bear much promise.
There is a lack of really innovative practices particularly in crowd
learning, personalization equity and inclusion in a massive context.
Hence, the need for creative use of the new learning tools for flexible
and responsive education and application of the principles, criteria and
standards of quality.
 Educational professionals and HE institutions are lacking support for
designing, deploying, managing and assessing high quality MOOCs.
Dissemination of techniques on the appropriate use of learning
outcomes when describing and defining qualifications, parts of
qualifications and curricula in massive learning is vital. Consequently
MOOQ addresses the need for tools and courses on MOOC learning
scenarios, content design, quality assessment and organizational

development.
Next to design patterns and best practices of MOOCs, two multilingual MOOC
pilots and a pre-standard for a European MOOC Quality Framework, the main
result of MOOQ is a Quality Reference Framework (QRF) for the design,
comparison, evaluation and improvement of MOOCs (Stracke et al., 2017).
The QRF will provide an organisation-wide system to help Higher Education
Institutions and external stakeholders to design, develop, monitor, evaluate and
improve the effectiveness of MOOCs along with the quality management
practices. The QRF will define the requirements for the formation and enactment
of internal and external evaluation mechanisms of processes and content. Based
on flexible, configurable quality criteria and indicative descriptors, monitoring
and reporting is adapted to organisational needs.
The QRF will be practical to encompass a wide range of approaches to
quality assurance emphasizing that it is the quality of the outcomes (in terms of
internal and external stakeholder satisfaction) that matters most in the design of
MOOCs. Therefore, it will use a multi-facet approach with quality indicators and
tools for the design of future MOOCs to achieve fitness of purpose and improve
them for better learning experiences by MOOC learners. To this end, MOOQ will
use and apply the first international ISO quality standard for e-Learning
ISO/IEC 40180, the revision of ISO/IEC 19796-1 approved and published in the
year 2005. The QRF will cover the five phases adapted from the quality standard:
analysis, design, implementation, learning process plus evaluation that embraces
all other four phases for their continuous improvement.
3 Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs - A first draft
The Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs is the main objective and result
expected and planned by MOOQ, the European Alliance for the Quality of
MOOCs as mentioned above. First, an in-depth literature review and analysis of
existing quality approaches, evaluation instruments and quality indicators for
MOOCs were conducted and their findings are currently under publication. Based
on them, the first Global MOOC Survey was designed in two steps: First, a small
pre-survey with set of potential questions was realized for a short period of time
(n=45) revealing that many MOOC learners do not share the intentions of the
MOOC designer and have got their own goals (Stracke, 2017a). Afterwards the
big international survey (www.survey.MOOC-quality.eu) was conducted for three
target groups (MOOC learners, designers and facilitators) with the support by the
leading international associations and institutions and over a period of three
months. More than 500 participants shared their experiences and expertise
(n=584) and most of them reported positive experiences with MOOCs.
Afterwards the results from the survey were enriched by complementary
qualitative and semi-structured interviews with MOOC designers, facilitators and
providers to gain more in-depth details and insights. In parallel several interactive
workshops for feedback and discussions were and will be organized at European
and international conferences (such as OE Global 2016 and 2017, EC-TEL 2016,
DRDC 2016, IEEE EDUCON 2017, LINQ and WLS 2017) to facilitate the close
collaboration with all interested stakeholders worldwide for the development of
the Quality Reference Framework with its quality indicators and tools.
The first draft of the Quality Reference Framework is outlined in the
following for further discussions that was developed by MOOQ and updated after
the interactive workshops at European and international conferences. Currently
the QRF consists of five phases (Analysis, Design, Implementation, Learning
Process and Evaluation) as illustrated in the figure below:
Figure 1: The phases of the Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs

The five phases will cover and be applied on all three levels (micro, meso and
macro) of education and will address the relevant target groups as shown in the
following figure:
Figure 2: The target groups of the Quality Reference Framework for MOOCs
Next step towards the Quality Reference Framework will be the identification of
the tools and instruments valuable and relevant for these different target groups.
4 Future work and outlook
MOOQ will intensify the efforts to develop the Quality Reference Framework and
related tools and instruments and to involve all interested organizations and
people: Next to the two planned MOOCs, the MOOQ alliance is developing a
MOOC on the quality of Open Education in close cooperation with many
stakeholders worldwide to join forces for facilitating and increasing high quality
Open Education. In addition a renewed version of the first Global Survey on the
Quality of MOOCs is planned for the year 2018 to allow comparison of the results
and analysis of potential progress. And also the MOOC on the Quality of Open
Education will be updated and repeated in the year 2018.
Finally new drafts and versions of the Quality Reference Framework will be
published for online discussion at the MOOQ website (www.MOOC-quality.eu)
next to the other results from the surveys, interviews and interactive workshops.
All these publications will be published online under an open and free license of
course.
5 References
Daniel, J (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth,
Paradox and Possibility. [see: http://sirjohn.ca/wordpress/wp-
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European Commission (2013). Opening up Education: Innovative teaching
and learning for all through new Technologies and Open Educational Resources.
[COM(2013) 654 final] [see: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52013DC0654&from=EN]
European Commission (2011). Supporting growth and jobs – an agenda for
the modernisation of Europe's higher education systems. [COM/2011/0567 final]
[see: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52011DC0567]
Gaskell, A., & Mills, R. (2014). The quality and reputation of open, distance
and e-learning: what are the challenges? Open Learning, Vol. 29 (3), pp. 190-205.
Margaryan, A., Bianco, M., & Littlejohn, A. (2015). Instructional quality of
massive open online courses (MOOCs). Computers & Education, 80, pp. 77–83.
Nyberg, D. (1975). The philosophy of open education. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
OECD (2016). Education at a Glance 2016: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD
Publishing.
Onah, D. F., Sinclair, J., & Boyatt, R. (2014). Dropout rates of massive open
online courses: behavioural patterns. EDULEARN14 Proceedings. pp. 5825-5834.
Reich, J. (2015). Rebooting MOOC research. Science, 347 (6217), pp. 34–35.
Stracke, C. M. (2018). How can Open Education improve learning quality and
achieve impact for learners, organizations and in society? In T. Amiel (Ed.),
Utopias and Dystopias in Education. Sao Paulo: UNICAMP. (in print)
Stracke, C. M. (2017a). The Quality of MOOCs: How to Improve the Design of
Open Education and Online Courses for Learners? In P. Zaphiris and A. Ioannou
(Eds.), 4th International Conference, Learning and Collaboration Technologies
2017, Part I, LNCS 10295 (pp. 285–293). Berlin, Germany: Springer. DOI:
10.1007/978-3-319-58509-3_23 [online at: http://www.opening-up.education]
Stracke, C. M. (2017b). Open Education and Learning Quality: The Need for
Changing Strategies and Learning Experiences. In Proceedings of 2017 IEEE Global
Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). IEEE Xplore. pp. 1044-1048. DOI:
10.1109/EDUCON.2017.7942977
Stracke, C. M., Kameas, A., Vassiliadis, B., Sgouropoulou, C., Texeira, A. M.,
Pinto, M., & Vidal, G. (2017). The Quality of Open Online Education: Towards a
Reference Framework for MOOCs. In Proceedings of 2017 IEEE Global
Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). IEEE Xplore. pp. 1712-1715. DOI:
10.1109/EDUCON.2017.7943080
Stracke, C. M. (2015). The Need to Change Education towards Open Learning.
In C. M. Stracke & T. Shamarina-Heidenreich (Eds.), The Need for Change in
Education: Openness as Default?. Berlin: Logos. pp. 11-23. [online at:
http://www.learning-innovations.eu]
Teixeira, A., & Mota, J. (2014). A Proposal for the Methodological Design of
Collaborative Language MOOCs, In E. Martín-Monje & E. Bárcena (Eds). Language
MOOCs: Providing Learning, Transcending Boundaries. Berlin: De Gruyter Open.
pp. 33-47. [online at: https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/books/
9783110422504/9783110422504.3/9783110422504.3.pdf]
UNESCO (2012). 2012 Paris OER Declaration. 2012 World Open Educational
Resources (OER) Congress. Paris: UNESCO. [online at:
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/Paris
%20OER%20Declaration_01.pdf]
World Bank (2016). World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends.
Washington, DC: World Bank.
Mobile Technologies as tools for Learning in Non-formal
contexts. Experiences with Smallholders farmers in
Resource Limited Settings
Dianah Nampijja

dianah.nampijja@uia.no
Abstract: Recent developments in mobile technologies offer

promising opportunities in combating the chasm of educational
inequalities, especially in developing regions. Although relative studies
trace mobile learning in informal and non-formal contexts; there limited
attempts to situate mobile learning in non-formal contexts with farmers.
Yet, in the face of changing climate, farmers could benefit from frequent
updates about learning for livelihoods which mobile technologies like
mobile phones can support. This paper attempts to account for the
learning experiences as they evolve when smallholder farmers interface
with mobile phones as tools for learning. This exploration traces learning in
resource limited settings where marginalisation and limited inclusion in
most learning provisions characterise such locations. A qualitative study
with Grameen Foundation-Community Knowledge Worker (CKW) project
in Uganda was adopted. A total of fifty smallholder farmers and ten key
informants was used through data collection techniques like informal
interviews, focused group discussions, and participant’s observation.
Experiences in form of farmers narratives showed that mobile phones
allowed learning to take place in the farmers’ usual environment, and
strongly nurtured farmer engagements. Given their peculiar
characteristics; farmers’ learning on mobile phones was tailored to address
livelihood challenges where knowledge and the knowing process was
highly situated, and contextualised. Despite learning being transformative
and empowering, negative experiences like; intermittent network, cultural
hindrances, limited capital, negative bonds, and unstable weather patterns
affected the use of attained knowledge.
Key words: Mobile learning, Resource limited settings, Community of
Practice, Smallholder farmers
1 Introduction
“Underlying many gaps in the current educational framework is the fact that is
fails to address education in a holistic and integrated manner. More achievable
goals are privileged, and others, such as adult literacy, are relegated to lower
priority. The goals are also not adequately targeted to reach the poor and
marginalised, thus underserving those in hard to reach” (UNESCO & UNICEF,
2013 P.7-8).
As every month goes by it becomes increasingly clear that there are new
technological inventions we need to exploit as educationists. Such exploitation is
inclusive of how we can make mobile technologies meaningful, and impactful to
the less privileged in society. The post 2015 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) came forth after realisation that most communities in developing regions
need adaptive strategies to strengthen their resilient capabilities and enhance
livelihoods. This study is situated in the SDG Goal 4: ‘Ensure inclusive and
equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’
(United Nations 2015). The current global society needs an empowering and
transformative type of education that does not only focus on education in
formalized environments but rather inclusive of education in non-formalized
contexts; like the case with smallholders in resource limited settings .
Smallholders who constitute the majority in most developing regions heavily rely
on agriculture at a substance scale; yet their livelihoods are greatly affected by
impacts of climate change (Norad, 2013; Wright et al., 2016). These farming
communities however have access to mobile technologies like mobile phones
that can provide bridges to support learning for secure livelihoods. Mobile
learning allows learning to take place in the learners’ usual environment, fosters
people engagement, promotes learner centeredness, knowledge centeredness,
and community centeredness (Sharples, Taylor, & Vavoula, 2007). To attain
equitable education and promote learning for all, emergent technologies like
mobile devices need to embrace learning for the marginalised in society. Thus, by
exploring the nature and type of learning supported by mobile technologies, this
study attempts to show case farmers’ mobile learning experiences in non-formal
contexts. This exploration also recounts for the negative experiences associated
with the use of mobile phones for learning in resource limited settings.
The first section of this paper briefly explains the applicability of mobile
technologies in non-formal learning contexts, with an overview of mobile
learning. The discussion about farmers’ mobile learning experiences in non-
formal contexts in light with the community of Practice - social learning theory
then follows. The paper ends with a conclusion that appreciates the impact of
Mobile Technologies as tools for Learning in Non-formal contexts. Experiences with ... 109
mobile technologies use in non-formal learning contexts. It suggests that

appropriating mobile learning in resource limited settings is not only justifiable in
such contexts with limited access to better infrastructure, but rather an ethical
undertaking in increasing access to educational opportunities; a driver to
attaining the lifelong learning opportunities to smallholder farmers in developing
regions.
2 Mobile Technologies in Non-Formal Learning Contexts
Mobile technologies are considered to bring educational and learning

opportunities to even marginalised populations (Grimus & Ebner, 2013) in
developing regions. Such technologies have supported the transformation of
traditional societies into knowledge societies (Oladele, 2011). In this study, the
mobile technologies used are (smart) mobile phones, as these are amongst the
fastest technological diffusion in communication history (Castells, 2011). 6 billion
people out of the 7 billion on earth have a working mobile phone according to
recent global statistics (UNESCO 2014). Mobile technologies are effective tools to
support learning and communication to broad range of learners in a variety of
contexts (Kukulska-Hulme, 2010), as the case with learning in non-formal
contexts. ‘Mobile technologies support learning in different contexts and are
particularly beneficial in informal and semi-formal learning contexts’ (Jones,
Scanlon, & Clough, 2013, p. 1). Mobile learning is learning that is personalised,
informal, contextual, with the aid of mobile devices (Kukulska-Hulme & Traxler,
2005). Mobile learning is not only restrictive to learners’ mobility, but also
incorporates an appreciation of active involvement of learners in different
contexts (Brown, 2010). Winters (2007) for example has broadened the term to
not only focus on the affordances of the mobile device, but rather, capture
mobility affordances in multiple contexts. To clearly exemplify how learning on
mobile technologies unfolds among smallholder farmers, the case study below
depicts the situation in rural Uganda, Greater Bushenyi Region.
3 Research Context and Methodology
Uganda is a land locked Country located in Eastern Part of Africa with a

population of 38 million. The country is predominantly agrarian, with agriculture
(75%) the main provider of peoples’ livelihoods. In the country, mobile phone
subscriptions have reached up to 19.5 million mobile users, where mobile
coverage is up to 90% even in rural areas (Mwesigwa, 2016; UCC, 2014). Despite
the low literacy levels, with English as the formal language, the mobile economy
in the country is blossoming than ever before. This study was conducted in
western Uganda, in the Districts of Lubirizi and Mitooma (Katerera and Mitooma
sub counties), greater Bushenyi region. Agriculture (smallholder) is the main
economic activity, supporting 80% of rural households. In the country, the
agriculture extension system is at its low performance which makes farmers lack
the necessary agricultural information. The ratio of extension officers to farmers
is 1:18,000 (Balasubramanian, 2013) where, over 30 per cent of smallholder
farmers are unreached.
The Grameen Foundation - CKW project sees the proliferation of mobile
phones as a way to get information and services to and from poor communities
in rural Uganda. Launched in 2009, the project serves farmers in remote
communities through a network of peer advisors (locally termed Community
Knowledge Workers - CKWs). The initiative combines mobile technology and
human networks to help smallholder farmers get accurate and timely
information to improve their businesses and livelihoods. The programme
considers phones as a powerful two-way communication device and the
organisation puts emphasis in generating innovative ways to collect and
disseminate information (Nampijja & Birevu, 2016). CKWs who are often farmers
themselves, are trusted local intermediaries serving farmers who frequently lack
basic access to up-to-date information on best farming practices, market
conditions, pest and disease control, and weather forecasts. By creating a
network of CKWs throughout Uganda, Grameen aims to revolutionize agricultural
knowledge-sharing and, in turn, improve yields, reduce losses, and increase
incomes of poor smallholder farmers. In addition, CKWs collect agricultural
information from farmers, providing a vital link between farmers, government
programs, non-governmental organizations and other entities focused on
improving agriculture in Uganda (Grameen Foundation, 2015).
Qualitative methodology through an interpretivist and social constructivist
perspective from multiple case sites of CKW project in Katerera, and Mitooma
parishes in western Uganda was adopted. Data collection was aided through
interviews, informal discussions, Focused Group Discussions (FGDs), note taking,
and participant observations. Primary data collection entailed series of semi-
ethnography interactions where the research team stayed and lived with the
communities to clearly analyse the nature of learning and learner interactions
with the mobile phones. Secondary data sources included organisational reports,
local government reports, and locally generated materials from the different
parishes. To obtain primary data, 50 farmers and 10 key informants were
included. The farmers included the CKWs, both men and women aged (25-60
years) with access to smart phones fully installed with agricultural content. The
60 participants were a representative sample in a purely qualitative study given
emphasis on thick and deep data with socially constructed analyses. NVivo tool
aided the analysis through code classification themes like, nature and type of
learning, and farmers’ experiences (both positive and negative), regarding the
use of mobile technologies. To ascertain reliability and validity of information
obtained, several follow up discussions with study participants, and feedback
meetings with the CKWs were conducted.
4 Nature and Type of Learning on Mobile Technologies
UNESCO views learning as a lifelong process and a central aspect in addressing

the global challenges like, for instance, poverty and food insecurity. The
Commission emphasizes four pillars of learning: ‘learning to live together’,
‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’, and ‘learning to be’ (UNESCO, 2011, p. 6),
which are elements visible in the CKW project. Taking the non-formal learning
perspective, learning is embedded in practice based context where learning
becomes a problem-solving initiative. As Ngaka et al claims, ‘‘opportunities for
integrating formal and non-formal education are not ubiquitous, but (rather)
deliberate efforts to respond to communities’ identified and expressed needs’’
(2012, p. 116). Although the CKW project aim was to alleviate poverty through
access to actionable information, from an educational point of view, non-formal
learning takes. Learning here is informed by ways of managing pest and diseases,
how to manage crops, and animals, market and weather knowledge sharing; as
aspects of extension education.
Based on the findings, smallholder farmers learn through face to face
individual and group meetings, as well as online interactions. The mobile phones
carry agricultural content which they use to ignite further discussions. The mobile
phones act as digital libraries which facilitate a spiral over effect in information
access and sharing with other farmers in the community. Mobile phones also
support conversational learning where learning becomes a process of coming to
know and the ability to share knowledge with others in the network. For
smallholders, ‘learning is not just acquiring skills and information; it is becoming a
certain person-a knower in a context where what it means to know is negotiated
with respect to the regime of competence of a community’ (Wenger 2000, p. 2).
Mobile learning in this context places learning in people’s environment and
context which the social learning theory agitates for. Here, learning is
participation in the social world where farmers experiences are integrated in

learning.
5 Farmers’ Learning Experiences on Mobile Technologies
To situate learning as a lifelong process, the communtiy of practice theory was

used. “Communities of practice are a group of people who share a passion for
something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”
(Wenger, 2006:1). The CKWs are a ‘community of practice’ in their locality. These
possess a shared passion of learning together with other fellow farmers who
have no access to mobile content. In this social learning theory, individuals and
social institutions are not a focus of analysis, but rather; communities of practice.
The theory explores systematic intersection of learning components: community,
practice, meaning, and identity which provide a conceptual framework of
analysing learning as a social process (Wenger, 1998). Figure 1 exemplifies the
community knowledge worker - community of practice as viewed from project
interventions in the rural community visa vie farmers’ day to day learning
experiences.
Fig. 1: Community Knowledge Worker - Community of Practice adapted from Wenger

(1998)
The farmers in Katerera and Mitooma sub counties where the study was
conducted deal in similar enterprises like banana and coffee plantations, at a
subsistence scale. These similar enterprises situate farmers in the community
and identify them as farmers with sameness. ‘Knowledge here is about
competence with respect to valued enterprises’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 4). Learning in

this case is defined as ‘belonging’ and as ‘becoming’ for the community and
identity components respectively. Farmers here want to become not only
knowledgeable farmers; but also, food secure farmers who broadly look at
farming both for subsistence and as a business. For the ‘practice’ and ‘meaning’
strands, ‘‘Knowing is about active engagement in the process of learning where
meaning is ultimately what learners produce’’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 4). In Practice,
learning is about doing and in meaning; learning is about experience sharing. The
CKWs share this information with farmers in different villages in form of one-on-
one and through group meetings where learning is a shared and highly
coordinated process.
In group meetings, the content on mobile phones ignite further discussions
which is tailored to local circumstances and takes into account other farmers
experiences. The more experienced farmers discuss and agree with the CKWs on
what works and what cannot work depending on availability of farm inputs,
indigenous resources and money. This working relationship amongst farmers is
possible with the availability of agreements, relationships and group norms
agreed upon by the community of farmers. For example, each group (usually of
50 farmers) decides to agree on when to meet, where and on whose farm land.
These meetings are rotational where at the end of the season; each participant
must have had a chance to host a group learning. Quite interesting is that as
these relationships advance, they give birth to newer relationships. ‘When I host
a group meeting, I feel empowered since learning comes to my plantation. This
makes me invite my other friends who are not part of the project, but can also
benefit from the discussions’ said a farmer. Here, learning transcends beyond
project boundaries, to benefiting others in the community. Such learning
organised non-formally in rural contexts needs to map and maximise the
available assets in rural learning ecologies (Hlalele, 2013). In doing this, Hlalele
claims the need to exploit the available community assets where innovative
technologies like problem solving learning and high level of volunteer support
from significant others in communities is vital. In the project, not all farmers have
access to smartphones with mobile content. This by implication means that team
work and strong bonds facilitate the learning process. ‘I am not part of the
Grameen farmers, but during group meetings, I asked the CKW to join. So, I have
gained farming knowledge and my plantations are looking healthy’ said a non-
project farmer . Here, learning is a process of coming to know and the ability to
share knowledge with others in the network. Learning involves change in
knowledge and attitudes, which leads to acquisition of new skills and new ways
of relating to practice (Ekanayake & Wishart, 2014).
Authentic learning was visible as farmers interacted with the mobile phones.
In this learning, learning tasks are practical and in real-world contexts’(Herrington,
Reeves, & Oliver, 2014). Learners are given a chance to use their experiences,
where learning is problem solving. ‘We used not to have extensionist reach down
in our plantations, but with the CKWs, I can learn from my plantation with others
which makes learning practical and more meaningful’, said a female farmer in
Katerera parish. During group discussions, farmers engage in real life hands-on
activities that is, learn by doing. Access to expert performances and modelling is
central in authentic learning (Herrington et al., 2014). The CKWs, farm experts,
researchers, and model farmers show different farming techniques which make it
possible for other farmers to model behaviours and replicate on their farms.
Reflections, coaching and scaffolding are all available techniques employed in the
CKW project which in turn facilitate deep learning among farmers. Also, given
that the project had farmers whose livelihoods relied on farming, these came
with vast experiences which the project upheld. From a focused discussion with
the CKWs, many attested to the fact that, some farmers in their groups had very
experienced information, which they too utilised to strengthen learning in group
meetings. This is in line with Paul Freire’s thinking that ‘whoever teachers learns
in the act of teaching, and whoever learns, teaches in the act of learning’.
Learning amongst CKWs and farmers was reciprocated and highly interactive
with other farmers in the community of practice.
However, it is important to note that while as mobile phones supported
learning for livelihoods, it is only one element amongst the different technologies
and interactions (Kukulska-Hulme, Sharples, Milrad, Arnedillo-Sánchez, &
Vavoula+, 2009). Mobile technologies do not replace existing technologies like
desktop computers, pens and print, but rather, it complements them by adding
something additional (Kukulska-Hulme 2010). The mobile phone was not the sole
igniter of learning, other factors like organisational scaffolding, social capital and
internal motivation of farmers facilitated the learning process. Although Castells,
re-echoes mobile communications as the fastest growing technology in world
history, he further highlights that ‘‘alongside the development of trends in
mobile communication that could be considered global, other trends unique to
individual ethnic, cultural, or national characteristics are also found’’ (Castells et
al., 2007, p. 74). Some negative experiences like unstable weather patterns, and
mobile phones creating more digital divide were visible. Those CKWs who had
phones were elevated, which left many grumbling as majority felt left out.
Internet and telecommunications networks was intermittent in some location,
hindering some from access. The older CKWs who had smart phones found it
hard to ably trouble shoot them in case of problems, which in away hampered
productivity. Also, capital for the farmers to use the attained knowledge was a
challenge. “I have gained knowledge on how to manage my banana and coffee

plantations, but being a window, I cannot afford to apply all the necessary
techniques to improve on my yields’’ said a female farmer. Other factors like
female headed households, cultural and religious hindrances negatively impacted
on mobile phones for learning.
6 Conclusions
‘The widespread diffusion of mobile and wireless technologies, although on a
global scale, is certainly not uniform and independent of economic and cultural
factors, and offers an opportunity to develop education policies aimed at
increasing participation in education…’ (Seta, Kukulska-Hulme, & Arrigo, 2014, p.
162).
The integration of mobile technologies in development comes with
challenges which if not well addressed, might impact on mobiles for
development discourse. By implication, as we analyse mobile learning, the
context, local and societal considerations must be thought through. Mobile
learning in developed countries cannot be the same mobile learning in
developing regions. In Uganda for example, the context of mobile learning for
development presuppose other affordances that mobile technologies can offer
to communities in such locations. Religion, culture, policy and infrastructure
availability are factors that impact on the uptake of mobiles in resource limited
settings; thus, the need to appreciate diversities in contexts visa vie unveiling
opportunities to increase access to educational for all. However, if such factors
are addressed, mobile technologies like mobile phones which majority possess
can be upfront in ensuring increased access to educational opportunities; an
avenue for lifelong learning amongst farming communities. Despite heavy
appropriation of mobile learning in formal settings, non-formal learning contexts
can also benefit from these technologies, where the highly excluded and
marginalised like smallholder farmers can attain actionable information to stay
resilient and secure their livelihoods. Such a view places mobile learning
intervention justifiable and ethically upfront in taking learning to where ‘those in
need are reached’.
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MOOCING journalism education: Notes on the emergent
learning technology industry
Oddgeir Tveiten

Abstract: This paper is a first report from a project on designing

online journalism education resources. Framed within the MOOC
discussion of recent years, the focus is acritical review on the two Os:
Open and online. How can a media-rich “open, on-line journalism
education” be conceptualized and also critiqued from the point of view
that the converging technologies now disrupting journalism, reflects on
the same technology eco system employed to network and globalize
journalism education? It is argued that journalism has been challenged by
three developments in recent decades: (1) Networked interactivity, (2)
hyptertextual virtualiity (3) and user-defined information flow. How do we
gauge these “disruptions“ in designing open online education resources in
journalism education?
Key words: Globalization, journalism, education, journalism
education, flipped classroom, MOOCs, curriculum design
1 Introduction
Journalism has been challenged by three developments in recent years, largely

unforeseen two to three decades back: (1) Networked interactivity, (2) hypter-
textual virtualiity (3) and user-defined information flow. Journalism education
programs worldwide now generally reflect these challenges, too. Parallel to the
“media disruption“ critique that now envelops journalism are the ongoing at-
tempts in journalism education to also explore the uses of “disruptive“ digital
and global learning technologies. The MOOC format – or Massive Open Online
Courses – represent an emergent globalized and networked education eco
system. That eco system also embodies journalism education. Students of
tomorrow need 21st century skills, it is often said: A set of competencies that
emphasize problem solving and self-paced life-long learning. In the future,
journalism jobs will increasingly require multimedia tools. And they will require
of the critical student a sense of both perspective and ambiguity: The

technologies that disrupt journalism as a social institution and give rise to quite
fundamental communications critique, are also the technologies employed in the
transformation of journalism education – as we know it.
In taking up these perspectives, the question in this paper is very simple:
What are the implications for journalism education of MOOCs as reflected in the
contemporary research literature and general debate on education´s digital
future? Can we use that framework and concept to structure a critical discussion
of what is on hand in the design of open online journalism education resources?
The paper first presents a general perspective, proceeding to an outline of some
key critical issues now facing journalism education, finally pointing to a set of
design issues aimed at continued study of critical course design in journalism
education. The paper does not address the M – massive, nor the C-courses. It´s
emphasis is on O-open and O-online: As to MOOCs, one could of course exchange
the M with an N: Networked Open Online courses. The challenge would
essentially be the same: Why and how to employ technology for scaling out and
networking the educational dialog and interaction. The paper cannot do justice
to the full scenario, but it can outline (1) education disrupted, (2) the challenge
for journalism education, and (3) at least some commentary on how to
understand the future of journalism education – online and open – on the basis
of our origins and pasts.
2 A note on disrupted education
On websites, in social media dialogues, in research and in the news media we

read about MOOCs, “flipping the classroom” and “self-paced learning”. We read
about “big data”, “student engagement” and “motivation”. Issues such as these
may be familiar to many educators also in journalism studies. When Time
Magazine in December 25th. 2006/January 1st. 2007 voted YOU “Man of the year”
(an annual ritual at TIME for decades), the argument was this: You control the
information age. Welcome to your world”. From the web link, we can read this:
“It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen be-
fore. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-
channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's
about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for
MOOCING journalism education: Notes on the emergent learning technology industry 121
nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way
1
the world changes.”
This is, in short, the “disruption” that came onto the agenda a little more than a
decade ago. Social media, Web 2.0 and “the future” seemingly coincided to
crystallize two different beliefs in the future of journalism: One is the new
networked information flow, seen as an extension of an open, participant public
sphere. Whether it emanates from Silicon Valley companies or from other
sources in the EdTech industry, the general view is one of optimism and
entrepreneurial vision. On the other end is the brave new world of surveillance,
information control and a new knowledge divide, deepened by the forces from
Silicon Valley. A general point of view could be summarized like this: Whatever
the questions in education and education politics are, technology is not the
answer.
Two pivotal events in the “disruption of education” lead us to our
assessments of disrupted journalism education. The first is the establishment of
Khan Academy and the engagement that led Salman Khan to world fame. While
the idea of flipped classrooms is not original to Khan, it may be argued that the
approach to learning taken by the Khan Academy is the great popularizer of the
idea. A second perspective might be illustrated by a reference to the first MOOC
and the one that really set the avalanche in motion: In 2011, Peter Norvig and
Sebastian Thrun at Stanford University set up an online course in AI, never
expecting that 165 000 students would signed up worldwide. About a year later,
Norvig appeared on a Ted Talk event in Los Angeles, where he related the story
about this course and his reflections on the potential for education institutions.
The rest is – as the say – history. What came out of this was not only a
recognition that a 165000 student classroom is possible, but also a first design of
how that kind of virtual class room interaction could unfold. The future of
learning suddenly became a hot topic for debate, research, policy-making and
entrepreneurship. Since then, US EdTech companies and course providers like
Udacity, Udemy, Coursera, edX and EdCast have changed the way a growing
number of people look on education. In the UK, FutureLearn was established in
2013, in part as a counter-move to the US domination of the MOOC market. The
European Union followed suit with the establishment of EMMA in 2013, where a
key component is the securing a viable European alternative. Meanwhile,
1
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601061225,00.html
classrooms were “flipped” all over the world. An aspect of this development is
2
the increased awareness of the “flipped” design and methodology.
3 Globalized journalism and journalism education
Behind these developments lies our key concern for and with global journalism
education: A MOOC has the potential not only of teaching global journalism as
subject matter. It is, in fact, also an arena for student-based open online
journalism practice. Unlike many other subject areas and disciplines, journalism
studies are embedded in the very technology development that it both employs
and critiques. With students practicing online interaction, networking, and
media-based studies as well as student research on contemporary global
journalism issues, one might well argue that boundaries are to an extent erased
between networked journalism and networked journalism education. With the
wealth of videos available online, teachers and students alike have choices they
never before had. With the wealth of virtual spaces and networked education
platforms, journalism education might echo both the title and the content of Clay
Shirkey´s book (2008) Here comes Everybody.
Who is “everybody” in journalism these days? In the epilogue to that book
Shirky asks what is likely to happen in the world as a consequence of the now
ridiculously easy tools we have to create groups, networks and new information
flows? Likely, we will have more groups, more networks and more information
flows than ever before, he notes (pp. 295-296). This is why we argue in this paper
that good parameters for a critical and reflective discussion of open online
journalism education, perhaps ought to start with the fact that media based
journalism education – like other media educations – are deeply embedded in
the pasts and futures of communication technology and how they network the
media industry – including the learning media industry. Like journalism
organizations and institutions have passed through stages of global networking
and concentration; perhaps there is reason to reflect on similar dynamics in
online journalism education?
2
This paper does not offer the space for extensive scholarly referencing, but two good
general reference to the debates outlined here would be:
1: https://www.class-central.com/report/mooc-providers-list/
2: http://www.eduventures.com/about-eduventures/
A research paper can only do justice to a few select avenues of thought, but
first comes perhaps the idea that journalism is a distinct kind of knowledge, a set
of organizational arrangements, a set of philosophies, a form of institutionalized
power and a canon of established genres – all of which we too often take for
granted (Schudson, 2005; Splichal, 1999, Rosen, 1993). Ultimately, the idea of
journalism as a particular kind of epistemology lead to a concern with the
realities and possibilities of education traditions, paradigms, and institutions
moving forth or morphing into something new and less known (Spyridou and
Veglis 2008; Tumber 2005, Scott, 2005). Like journalism research is marked by
paradigms, developments and disagreements put to the empirical test, might it
be that journalism education too is headed for a critique of the media being ut to
use? This is very much an aspect of contemporary journalism education. Parsing
media convergence critique with the practical concern of designing online open
courses, is anything but easy.
Second, prior to the developments described above there have been other
fundamental transformations in the media industries during recent decades. TV
morphed into Cable and Satellite-based TV during the 1980´s, with the result that
the world “shrunk” and English was catapulted to the forefront for many new
user groups (Karam 2009; Briggs 2007). TV went online in the 1990´s, with early
experimentation using internet browsers when they came on the market (the
first was Mosaic, developed by Mark Andreesen and his team). In rapid order, we
were introduced to a deeply rooted convergence of technologies. Arguably,
YouTube may have been the most transformative one before Facebook. No
longer a question of mass media (one sender to a large heterogeneous audience),
the new eco system emerging is a system of mass distributed networked media
(Scott, 2005). It took a century to establish BBC. It took less than a decade to
establish Huffington Post.
Critiquing journalism education and course development would in other
words seem to connect with the familiar critical discourse on news, networked
media, the public sphere and public journalism (as for instance in Moyers, 2009
or a decade earlier in Glasser and Craft, 1998). To paraphrase Anthony Giddens,
the “double hermeneutics” of this can be overlooked, it can be considered an
enigma, or it can become the basis for critical design thinking.
4 Discussion
In further work on the design of open online journalism education resources and
critique of it, one might note how journalism education historically has come
into being in three distinct waves: 1) Post WW2, and right into the Cold War, 2)
1960’s and postcolonial developments, 1990’s and the reconfiguration of the
world as a digital place. In fact. journalism education started in the United States
at Columbia University where journalism from the very beginning was a pseudo-
term not quite deserving of its own intellectual status or teacher capacity. It
evolved from vocational courses given unwillingly in departments of English, into
its first and still premier academic program at Columbia University, where most
of the first-year students in 1912 in fact were foreign (Williams 1912; Yarros
1922; Vance 1930). That was a decade before Walter Lippmann published his
classic book Public Opinion (1922) and where he essentially argued against John
Dewey’s idea of a participatory public sphere – by heralding journalists as a new
class of scientifically guided “tutors” of public opinion.
What then of the Open and the Online in journalism education? How does
one counter pose the critical with the practical? In the sense that globalized
journalism education is an aspect of globalized communication more generally,
we might emphasize some points for further elaboration – beyond this paper,
and with particular reference to journalism education:
There is first of all an erosion argument at work (Nolan, 2008; Splichal, 1999;
Rosen, 1993): How do we bring it into the critical evaluation of online and open
journalism education? Values and normative tenets in journalism have been
challenged under the pressures of commercial competition, long before the
current technological “revolution” was key to the debate. We need more public
service journalism according to key journalism critics (Moyers, 2009). In short,
the commercial and the open are sometimes seen as being at odds: But if that is
the case in journalism, then what about journalism education? In choices of
technologies to employ, should we avoid the global monopolizing monoliths like
Google and Apple, for instance? Should we embrace a policy to actively pursue
independent and small vendors? Ought this to be a concern, at all? Certainly, if
one were to understand online open journalism education as an aspect of
cultivating an open, globalized, and networked public sphere; one would
understand current global learning technology convergence as a kind of digital
feudalism.
There is in light of the research literature also an implosion argument at
work (Moyers, 2009; Keen, 2009; Deuze, 2004;). It is conceivable from the vast
array of debates on “the future of journalism” that journalists, critics and
journalistic institutions no longer believe clearly in their own capacity to deliver
necessary information scope and depth to serve the democratic ideals (Fallows,
1997). That discussion runs prior to the coming of Web 2.0 journalism education,
but it addresses that same concern (c.f. Lewis, 2012; Beers, 2006; Deuze, 2003).
Accordingly, one will have to ask how the use of the very technologies that are
seen as the conduits of erosion, can also be seen as vehicles for critical, practical
use?
Third, there is also an explosion argument at work (Castells, 2000, Deuze,
2004): As the argument goes, there is more information available than at any
time in human history, leaving professional news institutions with a no-win
situation: No one wants to pay for what they can get for free elsewhere. To an
extent one might say that this scenario is mostly relevant to our understanding of
US media and conditions for journalism, but it does not take much imagination to
see that after a decade of Web 2.0 it also encompasses the rest of the world and
will continue to do so at an increasing pace. New advertising platforms, new
business models, a globalized economic news market and an increasing
familiarity around the world with news journalism scaled to global information
flows – it all leads to a rather ambiguous reflection on what promise the coming
of convergent global education technology has when it is fundamentally a part of
that same disruption that journalism as a social institution is confronted with?
5 Conclusions
This paper has outlined some perspectives on “disrupted education” from the
point of view that what disrupts education is fundamentally the same technology
that disrupts journalism. As the student of culture Raymond Williams once
pointed out, technology IS culture, and a critical design practice can be
articulated in that perspective. The challenge for educators and students of
journalism alike, comes from Rorty (1989, quoted in Glasser; 1998). It is the
challenge of becoming “reflective practitioners”. Critical journalism education
balances the critique in subject matter with critical reflection on platform,
framework, and purpose.
In sum, media critique is an integral part of journalism education seeking an
open and online future; but how do we scope it? The critical is often elusive, or
easily confined to ideological positions. The issue of Web 2.0 multimedia
reporting techniques is no longer new for journalism education and educators.
Today’s journalism students work in multiple modes, with text, still photos,
moving images, and sound laid out on multiple platforms using a diversity of
software. It is critical for students to understand how multiple modes and
platforms affect narrative and reception. Accordingly, we understand that
storytelling has to be adapted for specific platforms and software suites,
addressing more networked and segmented audiences than what used to be the
case. This being said, a broader media-critical scope might be called for to
examine how this multimedia dimension of doing practical journalism relates to

more critical issues of scaling, networking, and access – in both the positive and
negative balance.
6 References
Beers, D. (2006) “The public sphere and online, independent journalism”,
Canadian journal of education 26/1.
Briggs, M. (2007) Journalism 2.0 How to survive and thrive. A digital literacy
guide for the information age, downloadable pdf from Knight Citizen News
Network.
Carey, J.W. (1992). Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society,
New York: Routledge.
Castells, M. (2000/1996) The Rise of the Network Society (The Information
Age:
Christensen, C. M. & H.J. Eyring (2011). The innovative university: Changing
the DNA of higher education from the inside out. San Francisco, CA: Jossey---Bass.
Cottle, S. and Rai, M. (2008) “Global 24/7 news providers. Emissaries of
global dominance or global public sphere?” Global media and communication 4/2.
Deuze, Mark (2004) “What is multimedia journalism?”, Journalism studies
5/2.
Glasser T. L. and Craft, S. (1998) “Public Journalism and the Search for
Democratic Ideals”, in: Liebes, T. and Curran, J. (eds.) Media, Ritual and Identity,
Routledge.
Moyers, B. (2009) Moyers on democracy, Anchor Books.
Fallows, J. (1997) Breaking the news. How the media undermine American
democracy, Vintage Books.
Karam, F. J. (2009) “Journalism in the age of the information society,
technological convergence, and editorial segmentation, Journalism 10/1.
Khan, S. (2012) The One world school house: Education reimagined, London:
Hodder.
Klinenberg, E. (2005) “Convergence: News production in a digital age”,
ANNALS- AAPPSS 597/January.
Lewis, S.C. (2012) The tension between professional control and open
participation. Journalism and its boundaries, Information, Communication and
Society, Vol. 15, p. 0836-866).
Lippmann, W. (1922) Public opinion, Macmillan.
Nolan, D. (2008) “Journalism, education, and the formation of ‘public
subjects’”, Journalism 9/6.
Norvig, P. (2016).The Future Classroom, Keynote address at the World
Learning Summit 2016, Future Learning Lab, University of Agder.
Rosen, J. (1993) Community-connectedness: Password for public journalism,
Poynter institute for media studies.
Schudson, M. (2005) ”The virtues of an unlovable press”, Cook, Timothy E.
(ed.;) Freeing the presses. The First Amendment in Action, The Louisiana State
University Press.
Scott, B. (2005) “A contemporary history of digital journalism”, Television
and new media 6/1.
Shirky, C. (2008) Here comes everybody, New York: Penguin Books.
Splichal, S. (1999) Public Opinion. Developments and Controversies in the
Twentieth Century, Rowman & Littlefield. 
Thurman, N. and Lupton, B. (2008) “Convergence calls”, Convergence 14/4.
Tumber, H. (2005) “Do the study of journalism and the education of
journalists matter?, Gazette 67/6.
Vance, E. L. (1930) “Training for journalism teachers”, The English Journal
19/9.
Williams, R. (1958/1983) Culture and Society, New York: Coumbia University
Press.
Williams, T. (1912) Opening ceremony of The Columbia School of Journalism
October 30. 1912, Science, New series 36/928.
Yarros, V. S. (1922) “Journalism, Ethics, and Common Sense”, International
Journal of Ethics 32/4.
Project Presentations
Nordic EdTech: Vision, Evolution, Challenges &
Opportunities
Eilif Trondsen
Strategic Business Insights, USA

etrondsen@sbi-i.com
Abstract: This paper is a first report from a project on designing

online journalism education resources. Framed within the MOOC
discussion of recent years, the focus is acritical review on the two Os:
Open and online. How can a media-rich “open, on-line journalism
education” be conceptualized and also critiqued from the point of view
that the converging technologies now disrupting journalism, reflects on
the same technology eco system employed to network and globalize
journalism education? It is argued that journalism has been challenged by
three developments in recent decades: (1) Networked interactivity, (2)
hyptertextual virtualiity (3) and user-defined information flow. How do we
gauge these “disruptions“ in designing open online education resources in
journalism education?
Key words: Globalization, journalism, education, journalism
education, flipped classroom, MOOCs, curriculum design
1 Introduction
The presentation had the following objectives:

 Familiarizing the conference attendees with the work we have been
doing—via two projects funded by Nordic Innovation (see below)—since
2013.
 Describing and summarizing the evolution of edtech in the Nordics and
where things stand today
 Pointing to some of the key opportunities as well as challenges that lie
ahead, especially in the context of building a Nordic edtech community
 Setting the context for the edtech track sessions that would follow
during Day 2 and 3 of the conference
In addition, I also wanted to use the presentation to make the point that we
should avoid viewing “edtech” too narrowly (and one could argue that
“LearnTech” would be a more appropriate term that would be make it clear that
we are talking not only about (formal) education but technology in the context of
learning in many different contexts, both formal and informal.)
Edtech or LearnTech should be viewed in the context of Digital
Transformation which is now taking place across all sectors, in some cases slowly
and gradually, and in other sectors/industries, in a more disruptive and radical
way. And the potential exists to use (digital) technology in ways that make
education and learning more effective and efficient, and extending the reach of
learning processes and learning content to people who before did not have
access. And in the corporate world, learning can become a key enabler of
sustainable, competitive advantage.
2 Nordic EdTech: Two Nordic Innovation-Funded Projects
The first of the two Nordic edtech projects—entitled “Nordic Edupreneuring”—

was proposed to Nordic Innovation after observing an explosion in edtech
entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley in 2012-13. This development raised questions
about the extent and nature of the Nordic edtech industry, and whether we
could help build a Nordic edtech community and accelerate cross-border
knowledge sharing about national, regional and global edtech developments, and
to help accelerate the growth of Nordic edtech companies.
A Nordic team, including Professor Oddgeir Tveiten and Vidar Mortensen of
University of Agder, and myself, led the project which was completed during
2013/14, and consisted for the following major elements:
 Identification of about 50 Nordic edtech companies (mainly “early stage”
companies)
 Analysis of the companies—including leadership, products and services,
target customers, and so on—was done as part of an online survey that
was conducted.
 An “acceleration workshop” was held at World Learning Summit 2014 in
Kristiansand (one of the companies, the Norwegian Kahoots! (which has
developed a platform for game-like quizzes to make learning more
WLS and LINQ Project Presentations 133
engaging and fun)—and today has over 50 million monthly users of its
products (mostly in the US)—attended the workshop.
The 2013-14 project gave us some good, initial data and insights into the Nordic
edtech industry, but we felt we had only “scratched the surface” and felt a
“deeper dive” was required, not only to identify more of the companies we felt
that we were not able to identify in the first project. And we felt that much more
work was needed to try to build cross-border collaboration and knowledge
sharing. We therefore continued to meet with Nordic Innovation and argued that
a second project was needed to extend the work done in the Nordic
Edupreneuring project.
The second project—Nordic Virtual Edtech Acceleration Forum (NVEAF),
soon replaced by a simpler acronym of NEN (Nordic Edtech Network)—was
finally given the green light in June 2016, and project “owner” was Silicon Vikings
(a 20 year-old organization with HQ in Silicon Valley, and which has always
promoted the Nordic brand and encouraged Nordic collaboration, including vis-à-
vis Silicon Valley).
The main elements of the new NEN project were the following (illustrated in
the presentation by screenshots of the project website pages that focused on the
deliverables noted below):
 NEN Home Page, and Website [http://net.futurelearninglab.org/]. We
designed and started populating the pages with data and information in
accordance with the project deliverables promised in the proposal to
Nordic Innovation—and to share and disseminate information as the
project evolved. The “About the Project” included a project description,
Project Team identification (with brief bios and pictures) and similarly
for the Country Teams (3 people on the Finnish team, two on the teams
for Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and one for the Icelandic country
team)
 Discussion Forum [http://net.futurelearninglab.org/project-update-
forum/]. We organized the discussion forum into themes and topics we
felt would help simplify and organize the discussion which we hoped
would emerge on the site: (1) Nordic edtech pain points (what friction
exists in Nordic education and learning that would reveal need for new
(edtech) solutions?; (2) Nordic edtech market segment leaders (we
hoped to hear community perspectives on leading players in different
education and learning segments); (3) Innovative tech in Nordic edtech
(i.e. what are some of the emerging technologies—such as game-based
tech, AI, VR/AR, and Blockchain, for example—that Nordic edtech
companies are starting to explore); (4) Nordic edtech market

developments (i.e. what types of opportunities, challenges, and growth
have been observed in K12, Higher Education and Corporate segments,
for instance?); (5) Nordic edtech community (i.e. what needs and new
developments have started taking place in each country’s edtech
ecosystems, and what might this mean for the broader Nordic edtech
community?). Unfortunately, despite our efforts to seed the discussion
and stimulate dialog and discussion, we found that the approach of
“build it and they will come” did not work, despite considerable
prodding and marketing efforts on our side.
 NEN Resources:
o Country Lists of Edtech Companies. A major part of the project
was to use the country teams, their networks and use social
media, etc to identify edtech companies in each of the Nordic
countries. The lists—with company name, URL, and names of
company leadership team—are updated regularly as new
information comes in. We have also spend months doing
analysis of the Nordic edtech landscape, mainly using two
different approaches: (1) review and analysis of the websites of
all the companies we have on our lists; and (2) a survey and
analysis of answers to the questions posed in the online
questionnaire (which 50 companies responded to). The analysis
of this work was posted in a number of blog posts (see below).
o Company Profiles for Investors. We had intended to create a
simple one-page form for companies to fill out, for use by
investors, and thus help match investors with companies they
might be interested in. However, after testing out a potential
template form and discussing it with a number of Nordic
edtech companies, we concluded that such an online form
would not meet the needs of most investors, and they typically
get higher quality (and specific, needed
information/intelligence) via informal channels and contacts
they have in the Nordics. So we concluded that creating such
online forms to post on the NEN website would not work in the
way we had initially thought. We therefore decided to not go
ahead with these online company profiles.
o Event Calendar. The event calendar was seen as a way to
highlight and provide easily accessible information about
upcoming edtech events, both in the Nordics and in other

countries. EdSurge—a US edtech media organization—provides
good information about events in the US, but no good single
place existed for Nordic edtech events at the time we launched
the project. In recent months, however, the excellent
newsletter of Swdish Edtech Industry—the only Nordic edtech
industry association (led by Jannie Jeppesen)—provides good
information for upcoming events, especially in Sweden but also
in other Nordic countries.
o Webinars [http://net.futurelearninglab.org/webinars/]. We
have held two webinars, in cooperation with Oulu EduLab at
Oulu University of Applied Sciences: (1) An “outreach” seminar
to Nordic academia (students and faculty) who are now starting
to gain interest in edtech; and (2) A webinar on Purpose-Driven
Business Ecosystems, by Kim Wilson, the author of They Will Be
Giant: 21st Century Entrepreneurs and the Purpose-Driven
Business Ecosystem, in an effort to educate Nordic edupreneurs
about the importance of ecosystems as a means for finding
resources and as means for accelerating growth.
o Podcasts. We have done 12 interviews with VCs, edtech
experts in the Nordics and Silicon Valley, and Nordic edtech
executives, as ways to gain insights into edtech developments
and hear “lessons learned” by edupreneurs. These podcasts can
be listed to online or downloaded.
 Blog [http://net.futurelearninglab.org/blogposts/]. This has been our
main communications channel, both about to disseminate the results of
our work and our analysis of data collected on the Nordic edtech
industry. Some of the blog posts also address issues and developments
emerging in other countries, which we felt needed to be put in a Nordic
context, raising questions and issues and stimulating comparative
analysis and thinking.
3 Current Status and Future Perspectives on Nordic EdTech
 The Nordic edtech industry has come a long way since our first project,
and a number of companies—including Kahoots! referred to earlier—
have gained international attention. In recent weeks, a number of
Nordic edupreneurs have also been successful in gaining entry into

prestigious accelerator programs in Silicon Valley, including Y
Combinator, Singularity Univeristy’s Accelerator, SCALEit (the
accelerator of Innovation Center Denmark), and GSV Lab’s accelerator
for edtech (in Redwood City). This will likely mean a better chance to
find needed investors and capital needed for scaling operations and
gaining market traction and growth.
A summary of the situation in each of the Nordic countries follow:
 Sweden. Reference was made earlier to the role of Jannie Jeppesen in
creating the first Nordic edtech industry association—Swedish Edtech
Industry (http://swedishedtechindustry.se/ --SEI, currently with 65
member organizations). Prior to launching SEI, Jannie led Edtech
Sweden (http://www.edtechsweden.se/), a non-profit, edtech
ecosystem player that played a leading role in promoting edtech in
Sweden and helping generate interest and awareness of edtech issues.
As seen in the country list of Nordic edtech companies, Sweden is
number 2 after Finland, in terms of the number of Nordic edtech
companies, and the Swedish parliament has also taken a growing
interest in edtech issues, and has hosted an edtech breakfast seminar (in
which I spoke). I also hosted a 4-person delegation of the Swedish
Educational Committee (led by Maria Stockhaus) of the Swedish
Parliament, which came to SRI in Silicon Valley for a meeting on
November 3, 2016.
 Finland. Because of its very high ranking in PISA (Program for
International Student Assessment-- http://www.oecd.org/pisa/) for
many years, Finland has gained a very strong reputation for its
educational system, something Finnish companies, including its edtech
companies, have been able to leverage internationally (to “get in the
door” for meetings). Finnish edtech companies, as well as academic
researchers interested in edtech, have long benefited from significant
and generous financial and other support from Tekes (the Finnish
Funding Agency for Research). Finland also became the first Nordic
country to set up an edtech accelerator, xEDU [https://www.xedu.co/],
and the Oulu EduLab at Oulu University of Applied Sciences is also
unique in its program that supports potential edupreneurs as they move
from ideation to product identification to company building.
 Norway. Norway has a strong edtech ecosystem centered around Oslo:
Oslo Edtech Cluster [http://osloedtech.no/en/], led by Hege Tollerud,
which has benefited from public sector support and being part of the
Startup Lab at the University of Oslo. The cluster organizes event and
provides various support services for Norwegian edtech companies, and
stimulates networking and collaboration across the Norwegian edtech
industry. Other emerging edtech activities are found in Tronheim (the
home of NTNU, Norway’s leading technical university), and Tromso
(with a strong edtech research base). Norway recently completed an
LMS procurement process which led to the choice of Canvas/Instructure
being the “LMS of choice” in most of the Norwegian universities.
Norway also is the only country that has had a MOOC Commission to
examine various issues around MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses)
but unfortunately, relatively little action—in terms of new digital
education and learning initiatives—have resulted.
 Denmark. So far, Denmark is lagging behind Sweden, Finland and
Norway in terms of an “official” (publicly supported) edtech ecosystem,
but efforts are now underway to catch up and at least have more
informal meetup events where Danish edupreneurs can meet.
 Iceland. Based on recent feedback from Icelandic edupreneurs, very
little, if any, formal edtech ecosystem has been created of the sort that
exists in Sweden, Finland and Norway. This may be at least partly a
function of the size of the country and the small number of Icelandic
edtech companies (around a dozen or so companies are currently
operating).
4 Opportunities and Challenges
At the initiative of Jannie Jeppesen of Swedish Edtech Industry, two meetings

were organized in early 2017 to explore and discuss how the edtech ecosystems
in each country could achieve greater collaboration and thus gain greater “scale
benefits,” including by taking advantage of the “Nordic brand” (which a number
of initiatives within Nordic Innovation is pursuing, which could also benefit
Nordic edtech companies). The hope and plan is to launch a Nordic Edtech
Alliance (NEA), which in part may be able to continue and expand the work,
activities and vision of the Nordic EdTech Network project.
In the presentation I identified some of the opportunities and challenges
that NEA may see if and when it launches and starts its work:
 Leveraging and taking advantage of the growing interest in “digital

transformation” across the Nordic region. This is being addressed both a
the Nordic Council of Ministers, as well as in the governments
(ministries) of each country, but so far relatively few specific action
items have come out of all of this, and very little has yet been seen in
terms of Nordic collaboration around digital education and learning
agendas.
 Finding win-win projects—like university-industry (startups) pilot
collaboration where edtech startups can benefit from the research
strengths of universities, and university researchers can gain real world
edtech expertise from edtech companies.
 Organize Edtech For a—for K12, Higher Ed and Corporate. These could
bring together edtech companies and researchers, as well as policy
makers, to share lessons learned and try to coordinate new policy
initiatives across the Nordic region.
 Building better market intelligence, through research, about the Nordic
edtech industry. The NEN project started this work, but much more
needs to be done.
 Build deeper insights into commonalities and differences across edtech
segments: (1) toddlers/preschool; (2) Direct-to-consumers (including
life-long learning); (3) K12 (elementary and secondary schools); (4)
Higher Education; and (5) Corporate/Government. Very often, when
edtech is discussed, the presumption is that one is talking about K12,
and an estimated 50-75% of Nordic edtech companies focus on K12,
leaving many and significant opportunities in other sectors/segments
unexploited.
ALC: Measuring Learning Impact on Minority,

Underserved & Disadvantaged Students participating in
Active Learning Classroom Modality vs Traditional
Lecture Modalities
Aim and objectives of the project:

The aim & objective of the CSUDH ALC project is after two years of practical
learning experience how going forward can we measure the effectiveness of
Pedagogical Methodologies, Retention factors, and Impacts on Learning for
underserved and disadvantaged students?
Main target groups of the project:

CA State University Dominguez Hills was founded after the Los Angeles Watts
Riots in 1965 to serve an underserved local community and a disadvantaged,
minority student community with 70% women, 60% Latino, mixed races and 85%
First Generation students. Disadvantaged students are those whose family,
social, or economic circumstances hinder their ability to learn at school. The
school has 6 colleges and 15,000 students.
How does the project contribute to learning innovations and learning quality?
At CSUDH, the adoption of ALC pedagogy is in line with the vision and core values
outlined in the Strategic Plan 2014-2020. The creation of an innovative learning
environment has been tasked with a goal for all Divisions to achieve; the charge
for the Divisions is “to analyze, recommend and implement a plan for the
renovation, innovation, and building of effective classrooms, labs, studios and
other learning spaces.” (CSUDH Strategic Plan 2014-20120:9). We are proud to
join with many other leading universities across the nation in building innovative,
technology-enhanced active learning classrooms for our students and faculty.
What are the main outcomes of the project?

The main outcomes will be to develop appropriate survey and measurement
tools to determine if the students & faculty will experience a more collaborative
and empowering way of learning, while faculty develops more creative
approaches to teaching. These cutting-edge classrooms provide an opportunity

for our faculty to engage in rich, intense and lively problem-solving classroom
interactions where all students communicate and test their knowledge with the
support of their peers and faculty, The classrooms can be used for any kind of
instruction. The professors must learn to adjust their mindsets to teach in this
way because their lectures should be designed to learn by doing. Education in
new engaged and flipped classroom learning and teaching techniques is
proceeding in cohorts of 8 professors every quarter with seasoned and
experienced educators leading the workshops. Students are constantly engaged
in the process to help make the feedback and modifications meaningful to our
mission.
A short quote: What is most important for learning innovations & quality
today?
This project is not just about changing the classroom environment; it is also
about changing how instructors approach teaching“ – Dr. Hamoud Salhi
More information about the CSUDH ALC project:

http://www.csudhnews.com/2015/09/active-learning-classrooms/
Main contact:
Michael Grimshaw
Instructor- Management/Entrepreneurship
Director - The Ei Entrepreneurial Institute@CSUDH
College of Business Administration and Public Policy
California State University Dominguez Hills
Carson, CA 90747
mgrimshaw@csudh.edu
1+310-930-3094 cell/text
1+310-541-7946 Office
csudhei.org – the website
EBE-EUSMOSI: Evidence-Based Education European

Strategic Model for School Inclusion

Creating a model for the validation of the quality of school inclusion according to
the principles of Evidence-Based Education (EBE) that will be disseminated,
together with its outcome, through Open Educational Resources (OERs) and staff
mobility; founding a European Research Network; researching in different
countries on the topic of school inclusion according to the model’s line, analyzing
the shared guidelines’ impact on beneficiaries.

Teachers and headmasters in (inclusive) schools,
but also policy makers, researchers, pupils, family
Combining two relevant concepts such as the EBE approach and school inclusion
with a focus on special educational needs (SEN) will lead to the development and
implementation of a totally new model, since similar operational models shared
at European level do not exist yet, able to answerthesequestions:How to assess
the inclusiveness in school?An inclusive schoolisalso an efficientschool?How to
improve the quality of inclusion?

Increased awareness of inclusion in an EBE perspective; increased influence on
policy and practice; positive reputational effects for the participating institutions.
today?
Inclusion is the way to the future of quality education
More information about the EBE-EUSMOSI project:

www.inclusive-education.net
Main contacts:
Annalisa Morganti [ebeeusmosi.italy.coordinator@gmail.com]
Christian M. Stracke [christian.stracke@ou.nl]
The ETH EduApp project

The EduApp is an interactive smartphone application for academic student life
and classroom interaction at ETH Zurich. It was developed specifically to
integrate with the student management system enabling automatic student
enrolment in the correct EduApp channel. Due to the stringent European data
privacy laws, using existing commercial webbased apps was not an option.
Within classrooms it functions as an audience response system which increases
interaction in large classes. It also has a backchannel where student can post
requests and feedback to the lecturer as well as access peer help (black wall).
Furthermore this app has additional benefits for students such as displaying their
academic schedule, providing campus navigation assistance and showing
available study spaces.

Students of our university
There are three levels where this app contributes to better learning quality:
 Students have instant access to important learning information like
personal academic schedule, learning materials, available student study
space, navigation to and inside the buildings, "clicker" questions and
communication channels.
 Lecturers have an easy to use classroom response System (“clicker”)
which allows them to get quick feedback on content and teaching
processes. It also has several add-ons not existing in commercial
alternatives, like the possibility to insert images and equations which is
extremely important at our institution (technical university). In
comparison to known commercial products the questions are provided
to the mobile device (incl. formulas and pictures) which students can
answer anywhere, anytime. This enables new possibilities like mobile
homework tasks, distributed group work, and asynchronous learning.
 ETH Zurich has an evaluation service called semester feedback. With
EduApp, student representatives can gather feedback from their peers
and pass the summary to the lecturer.

 Well functioning app for all the three purposes mentioned above
 If a project is accepted widely in different target groups cross benefits
can enlarge the success significantly (e.g. students appreciate time table
> common app for ETH students > higher return rate in evaluation.
 Involving student and lecturer feedback during the planning phase of a
new service increased the quality of the result and the acceptance.
today?
For learning quality: immediate feedback from lecturers to students
For learning innovation: look at student’s needs (become a student’s coach)
More information about the ETH EduApp project:

https://www.ethz.ch/en/the-eth-zurich/education/innovation/eduapp.html
Main contact:
Thomas Korner, korner@let.ethz.ch
ICORE - The International Community

for Open Research and Education
Aim and objectives of the initiative:

ICORE is the globalinitiative to connect the two worlds of Open Research (OR)
and Open Education (OE) for mutual benefits. ICORE promotes, supports, and
enhances Open Research and Open Education and their recognition, progress
and application worldwide in close cooperation with international organizations.
ICORE is completely non-profit, requires no membership fees, and is open to all
sharing the same objectives of openness in research and education worldwide.
Main target groups of the initiative:

Interested experts and stakeholders from open education and open research
How does the initiative contribute to learning innovations and learning quality?
ICORE aims to support the design and implementation of innovative strategies,
instruments and services for facilitating Open Research and Open Education.
What are the main outcomes of the initiative?

 ICORE aims to promote Open Research and Open Education as a
fundamental social objective.
 ICORE aims to foster co-operation among all relevant stakeholders in
Open Research and Open Education.
 ICORE aims to facilitate the continuous and rapid transfer of results from
Open Research and Open Education into the deployment for future
research and education and for the benefits of the global society.
 ICORE aims to foster research and development leading to innovation.
today?
To connect open education with other sectors, in particular with open research
More information about the ICORE initiative:

www.ICORE-online.org
Main contact:
MOOCs and TORQUEs at ETH Zurich

In the context of the global debate concerning MOOCs (Massive Open Online
Courses), ETH Zurich decided to pick up the topic and adapt it to our needs. As an
on-campus university we are focused on a comparably small group of students.
The term ‘TORQUE’ (Tiny, Open-with-Restrictions courses focused on QUality and
Effectiveness) was adopted as ETH’s variation on ‘MOOC’. But they are not
opponents, both of them serve now their own purposes at ETH: TORQUES (on
Moodle) focus on ETH courses. The small number of ETH MOOCs (on EdX) are
focused on international collaboration and building reputation. Both of them
consist of many short videos followed by questions or tasks. These can be set to
deadlines. They are complemented by communication tools such as forums.
With the presence of TORQUEs and MOOCs, teaching and learning at ETH has
become generally more visible. TORQUEs have enabled a different approach to
teaching, allowing lecturers to flip their learning and have more discussion time
in lectures.

Students worldwide and students and lecturers at ETHZ
The project increased the use of video in teaching significantly. TORQUES and
MOOCs changed the pedagogical approach. Subsequently the underlying concept
of flipped classroom spread widely at our university due to this project.

 Several MOOCs were produced. These specially focussed courses found
a broad echo on its platform EdX. TORQUEs became a common format
for blended learning courses at ETH.
 The flipped classroom concept was established at ETH resulting in an
increased demand for special courses focused on flipped learning.
 Infrastructure for producing short learning videos was developed. This

included a video studio as well as the purchase of several devices
distributed around the campus allowing lecturers to record themselves.
today?
For learning quality: immediate feedback from lecturers to students
For learning innovation: look at student’s needs (become a student’s coach)
More information about the MOOC and TORQUE project:

https://www.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/main/eth-
zurich/education/lehrentwicklung/files%20EN/Concept_TORQUE_ETHZ.pdf
Main contact:
Thomas Korner, korner@let.ethz.ch
MOOQ: For the Quality of Open Education and MOOCs

MOOQ is the European Alliance for Quality of Massive Open Online Courses,
called MOOCs. The vision of MOOQ is to foster quality in MOOCs leading to a
new era of learning experiences.
MOOQ’s mission is to develop a quality reference framework for the adoption,
the design, the delivery and the evaluation of MOOCs in order to empower
MOOC providers for the benefit of the learners.
The main goal of MOOQ is therefore the development and the integration of
quality approaches, new pedagogies and organisational mechanisms into MOOCs
with a strong focus on the learning processes, methodologies and assessments.
MOOQ promises: We will make MOOCs better!

All learners, designers, facilitators and providers of Open Education and MOOCs
All decision makers in educational systems, regional and national ministries
MOOQ focuses scientific research to improve the quality of the learning practice.
Therefore MOOQ has launched the first Global MOOC Survey: Its importance is
highlighted through the broadest recognition and backing by foremost
international associations and institutions including the International Council for
Distance and Open Education (ICDE), Open Education Consortium (OEC),
International Community for Open Research and Education (ICORE),
Commonwealth of Learning (COL), European Association of Distance Teaching
Universities (EADTU), European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),
European Association of Technology-Enhanced Learning (EATEL), Contact North
(CN) and many more.
MOOQ will develop the Quality Reference Framework (QRF) for Open Education
and MOOCs leading to a new Q-generation of MOOCs that will be designed,
organized and tested as qMOOCs. This will be done in close collaboration with all
interested partners and stakeholders in Europe and beyond.

 The first Global MOOC Survey supported by leading international
associations and institutions
 The Quality Reference Framework (QRF) for Open Education and
MOOCs
today?
The quality of Open Education and MOOCs as well as of learning and education in
general has always to be adapted to the specific needs and preferences of the
target groups: That requires diverse pedagogical methodologies, learning designs
and personalization that learners can select their own pathways.
More information about the MOOQ project:

https://www.MOOC-quality.eu
Main contact:
Universal Design for Leaning Network (UDLnet)

To create a Framework to address learner variability by creating:
 A detailed and systematic methodology to identify best inclusive
practices
 A web-based Inventory, including collected, categorized best practices
 A sustainable network of inclusive educational communities
 Innovative, relevant, multilingual content to support inclusive
approaches
 Development of educational stakeholders’ skills and attitudes
 A “Pathway to Universal Design for Learning” to support deployment of
accessible educational e-content
 Policy recommendations for regional, national and international levels

Learners excluded by reason of disability, but also any other ground based on
historic discrimination or prejudice.
UDL is an educational extension of the universal design movement in
architecture. Originally formulated by North Carolina State University, Universal
Design had a key objective: to build innately accessible structures by addressing
mobility and communication needs of individuals with disabilities at design stage.
Designs that increased accessibility for individuals with disabilities—those
typically “in the margins”—yielded benefits that made experiences better for
everyone. Universal Design for Learning is based on decades of research into the
nature of learner differences, the capacities of new media, the most effective
teaching practices, and assessments that, while based on high standards, are fair
and accurate measures of student learning. A key issue in understanding and
application of UDL is the emergence and impact of new technologies that make
new ranges of educational initiatives possible. Application of advanced digital

applications has completely transformed what is possible in the field of learning.
As an example, provision of customized, multimedia content—or even just digital
text as an entry point—can reduce barriers to learning for many students.
Beyond reducing barriers, it improves learning by allowing for multiple
representations of meaning that may be used for clarity, complementarily for
enhanced meaning, or even discordantly for multiple meanings. UDL uses
technology and innovation to explore alternatives, to test curriculum design and
to provide spaces for inclusion for as broad a range of students as possible. It is a
practical tool to ensure more vibrant and creative educational offers. It is a key
resource in designing a more participative and socially inclusive society by
addressing the rights of all to learn as they wish. This contains huge benefits for
teachers, students and families as well as educational policy makers.

UDLnet collected and demonstrated ways to use the UDL framework effectively.
The network promotes community building between educational institutions all
over Europe and empowers them to use, share and exploit accessible learning
materials from a variety of educational resources. In addition, it demonstrated
the potential of eLearning resources within the context of the UDL approach. The
UDLnet Inventory and a social platform were developed where teachers,
students, parents and other community members are able to find and adapt
accessible UDL eLearning resources on their topics of interest and needs. Finally,
it assessed the impact of inclusive tools, practices and teaching materials and
documented the whole process in the UDLnet Best Practice Guidelines. The
project has promoted conferences and publications, most notably the ‘Pathway
to Universal Design for Learning’.
today?
Universal Design for Learning, both as a field of inquiry and practice, proactively
designs course content intended to be as accessible to as wide an audience as
possible enhancing inclusion and learning quality by addressing learners' needs.
More information about the MOOC and TORQUE project:

http://www.udlnet-project.eu
Main contact:
Dr. Alan Bruce: abruce@ulsystems.com
WLS and LINQ 2017 Scientific Programme Committee
Members of the WLS and LINQ Scientific Programme Committee:
Amiel, Tel (Brazil) Ossiannilsson, Ebba (Sweden)

Asmatullayeva, Nelly (Kazakhstan) Sampson, Demetrios (Australia)
Dias, Ana (Portugal) Shon, Jin Gon (South Korea)
Domazet, Dragan (Serbia) Smith, David (Australia)
Doran, Rosa (Portugal) Spina, Edison (Brazil)
Ferreira, Giselle (Brazil) Stracke, Christian M. (Netherlands)
Jahnke, Isa (USA) Strickroth, Sven (Germany)
McGreal, Rory (Canada) Tveiten, Oddgeir (Norway)
Nakabayashi, Kiyoshi (Japan) Trondsen, Eilif (USA)
Nascimbeni, Fabio (Spain)
The Conference Co-Chairs thank the

Members of the Scientific Programme Committee
for their valuable and great support by their double-blind peer-reviews for the
selection of the scientific papers submitted to the Open Call for Papers 2017.
http://2017.learning-innovations.eu/
http://worldlearningsummit.com
WLS and LINQ 2017 Keynote Speakers
Cathy Casserly (Independent Policy Adviser)

Catherine M. Casserly, Ph.D. is passionate about learning eco-systems that
support high quality education experiences for all. Cathy is a pracademic,
working at the nexus of research and practice as catalyst for openness,
innovation and leadership.
Currently, Casserly is a Research Affiliate with the Institute for the Future. She is
a Senior Advisor for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
For the Lumina Foundation she is analyzing the risks and benefits of whether the
organization should establish a presence in Silicon Valley to leverage its
technological innovation, thought leadership and capital to increase the
proportion of Americans with high quality degrees, certificates and other
credentials. She is a member of the Advisory Council for the National Science
Foundation, Directorate of Education and Human Resources, chairing its
subcommittee on Open Licensing.
Previously, Casserly was a Fellow with the Aspen Institute. She was Vice
President of Learning Networks at EdCast, a Stanford StartX company that
advances life long social collaborative learning at scale. She was CEO of Creative
Commons, a global nonprofit dedicated to sharing educational, scientific, data
and cultural assets. A founding architect of the open educational resources (OER)
field, Casserly managed a complex 100M global portfolio for The William & Flora
Hewlett Foundation as the Director of the OER Initiative. Early in her career,
Casserly taught mathematics in Kingston, Jamaica.
Casserly was a member of the Technical Working Group for the development of
the 2015 National Education Technology Plan. She was a founding advisory board
member for MIT OpenCourseWare and University of the People. Casserly earned
her Ph.D. in the economics of education from Stanford University, BA in
mathematics from Boston College, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from
the Open University UK.
Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić (Formerly Head of Higher Education, UNESCO)

Former Chief of the Higher Education Section of the United Nations Organization
for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić is an
international leader in education reform, innovation, quality assurance and
accreditation with more than 20 years of higher education experience.
Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić’s first senior role in higher education was as Secretary-
General of the Association of Universities in Yugoslavia. In the early 1990s, she
joined UNESCO’s European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest with the
goal of enhancing the quality of higher education throughout a more integrated
Europe. Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić was quickly promoted to lead the unit managing
higher education at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Her major achievements
include developing the 2005 UNESCO-OECD Guidelines for Quality Provision in
Cross-Border Higher Education, launching the Global Forum on International
Quality Assurance, Accreditation and the Recognition of Qualifications and
initiating the UNESCO-World Bank partnership for capacity-building in quality
assurance for developing countries.
Inspired by her work with innovative providers of higher education in a world of
huge unmet demand, Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić collaborated on the A Tectonic Shift in
Higher Education paper with Sir John Daniel and Asha Kanwar.
Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić was voted International Higher Education Professional of the
Year 2009 by her peers in the International Community of Higher Education. That
same year, she was centrally involved in the organization of UNESCO’s 2009
World Conference on Higher Education as Executive Secretary. Over 2,000
ministers, officials and institutions from countries all over the world attended the
conference.
Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić continues to be a consultant to UNESCO on issues related to
the Recognition of Degrees and Qualifications in Higher Education. In the past
year, she was a Senior Consultant to the Commonwealth of Learning in a project
that resulted in the 2012 UNESCO Paris Declaration on Open Educational
Resources adopted by acclamation. She is the Education Master with the DeTao
Masters Academy in China and was recently named Senior Consultant to the U.S.
Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) for the creation of its
International quality group. She joined Academic Partnerships as a senior advisor
in February 2013.
Ms. Uvalić-Trumbić studied at the Universities of Belgrade and the Sorbonne.
WLS and LINQ 2017 Keynote Speakers 157
Sir John Daniel (Contact North | Contact Nord: Canada)

Sir John Daniel was educated at Christ’s Hospital and pursued his full-time
university studies in Metallurgy at the universities of Oxford and Paris. Later he
demonstrated his commitment to lifelong learning by taking 25 years to
complete a part-time Master’s degree in Educational Technology at Concordia
University. The internship for that programme, which took him to the UK Open
University in 1972, was a life-changing experience. He saw the future of higher
education and wanted to be part of it.
This quest took him on an international odyssey with appointments at the École
Polytechnique, Université de Montréal (professeur assistant/agrégé, 1969-73);
Télé-université, Université du Québec (Directeur des Études, 1973-77); Athabasca
University (Vice-President for Learning Services, 1978-80); Concordia University
(Vice-Rector, Academic, 1980-84); Laurentian University (President/Recteur,
1984-90); The Open University (Vice-Chancellor, 1990-2001); UNESCO (Assistant
Director-General for Education, 2001-04); and the Commonwealth of Learning
(President, 2004-12).
His non-executive appointments have included the presidencies of the
International Council for Open and Distance Education, the Canadian Association
for Distance Education and the Canadian Society for the Study of Higher
Education. He also served as Vice-President of the International Baccalaureate
Organisation. He now works on various international projects: as Education
Master in the Beijing DeTao Masters Academy, China; Senior Advisor to Academic
Partnerships International; and Chair, pro bono, of the UWC (United World
Colleges) International Board.
Among Sir John’s 370 publications are his books Mega-Universities and
Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education (Kogan Page,
1996) and Mega-Schools, Technology and Teachers:
Sir John is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Oxford University (1990), the
College of Preceptors (1997) and the Commonwealth of Learning (2002). He won
the Symons Medal of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in 2008 and
his 32 honorary degrees are from universities in 17 countries.
The three countries where he has lived and worked have each recognised his
contributions with national honours: France – Ordre des Palmes Académiques :
Chevalier ‘pour services rendus à la culture française en Ontario’ (1986); Officier :
‘pour services rendus à la culture française au Royaume-Uni’ (1991); United
Kingdom – Knight Bachelor ‘for services to higher education’ (1994); Canada –
Officer of the Order of Canada ‘for his advancement of open learning and
distance education in Canada and around the world’ (2013).
Dr. Joseph Press (Center for Creative Leadership)

Dr. Joseph Press is Global Innovator and Strategic Advisor to the CEO at the
Center for Creative Leadership, Zürich, Switzerland. Collaborating with leadership
across CCL globally, he champions innovation, digital transformation and creative
leadership with our clients, in support of delivering engaging and innovative
experiences that accelerate personal and organizational impact. As an
experienced business consultant and passionate digital innovator, he is deeply
committed to co-creating meaningful experiences that transform people,
organizations and society. His creative mindset helps unleash client creativity to
co-design innovative business models, products, and services in design thinking-
inspired workshops. With over five years of online teaching experience, He also
design and deliver high-impact developmental experiences in synchronous and
asynchronous virtual environments.
He was previously the Director of Deloitte Digital Switzerland, capping a 16 year
career as a digital transformation consultant. Working with global clients, he was
responsible for consulting companies on digital transformation and innovation
initiatives to achieve business results and accelerate organizational evolution. He
was also responsible for designing the Deloitte Switzerland Greenhouse, an
innovation space for exploring business challenges with clients. This work
leveraged his prior career as an architectural designer. For 10 years, he designed
workplaces in France, Germany, Israel and the U.S.
Joseph completed his B.S. in Managerial Economics at Carnegie Mellon, and
SMArchS + Ph.D. in Design Technology at MIT. He is a guest lecturer at IMD,
Parsons The New School For Design in the Strategic Design & Management
Masters Program, and the Design Thinking program at St. Gallen, where he
teaches graduate courses on design, digital business models and innovation. He
previously held teaching and research positions at MIT, Delft Technical University,
and Bezalel Design Academy.
Dr. Brian Magerko (Georgia Tech)

Dr. Brian Magerko is an Associate Professor of Digital Media and head of the
ADAM Lab at Georgia Tech, where he studies creativity as a formal sociocognitive
phenomenon and how it can influence and be expressed through computational
media. The philosophy behind Magerko’s work is that an authentic combination
WLS and LINQ 2017 Keynote Speakers 159
of technical and artistic / creative research can yield results that are greater than
the sum of their parts and characteristically different than if one field were
privileged over the other. This research trajectory has yielded nearly $12 million
in research funding, an online computer science learning environment (called
EarSketch) that has over 85,000 individual users and has been adopted as part of
the national high school computer science curricular guidelines for AP courses; a
2016 White House press release concerning how EarSketch (co-founded by
Magerko) has influenced federal education policy as a cornerstone of
contemporary CS education efforts; and tech/arts experiences that have been
showcased at conferences, learning institutions, galleries, and museums around
the world.
Outputs of Dr. Magerko's research and studio work with students has yielded
outputs such as: AI-based interactive artwork, interactive narrative and digital
game experiences, educational digital media used worldwide, and empirically-
based sociocognitive theories of creativity
Magerko earned his B.S. in Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University in
1999 with a senior thesis on studying cognition in jazz expertise with Dr. Herbert
A. Simon. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering in 2006 from
the University of Michigan, advised by Dr. John Laird, where he conducted
research on employing predictive models in interactive narratives. Since joining
the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008, Dr. Magerko's research has been
published via conferences affiliated with major organizations such as ACM, AAAI,
and IEEE yielding over 1500 citations. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed
publications in computational media, cognition, and learning sciences-related
conferences, books and journals. His computational media work has been
featured in museums, science centers, and news outlets such as CNN, The New
Yorker, USA Today, and Digital Trends.
WLS and LINQ 2017 Invited Speakers
Jane-Frances Agbu (National Open University of Nigeria)

Jane-Frances was until recently the Head of the Open Educational Resources –
Massive Open Online Courses (OER-MOOC) Unit at the National Open University
of Nigeria (NOUN).
She was the Head of NOUN-OER from 2014 till July 2016. Currently, she is the
Dean of Faculty of Health Sciences of NOUN, which gives her the opportunity to
focus on OER-Health. She is also an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology.
She works closely with UNESCO and with the Openup Ed initiative.
Marques Anderson (World Education Foundation)

Marques Anderson is a visionary who asks “why not?” Why not Make a
Difference in the world, why not Change the world and why Stop until WE have?
Marques is a former American Football safety in the National Football League. He
received his BA from UCLA in American Literature and a Masters of Education in
Adult Learning and Global Change from Linköping Universitet, Sweden. Having
the opportunity to travel extensively throughout North and South America, as
well as Europe and Africa, Marques began to develop strategies to address some
of the most critical social problems we currently face as a global community.
Following his dream to do more, Marques created the World Education
Foundation. Through this platform, work is focused to create a new dynamic of
sustainable growth in the areas of, Education, Health, Infrastructure and Sports.
Peter Jenner (Independent Music manager)

Peter Jenner comes from the music industry. He has been a regular commentator
on copyright and the music industry for many years. He has managed Pink Floyd,
T Rex, Ian Dury, Roy Harper, The Clash, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy,
Robyn Hitchcock, Baaba Maal, Sarah Jane Morris, Denzil and Eddi Reader
(Fairground Attraction). More recently Jenner has been involved in efforts to
build a music rights registry at European Union level, and has argued for an
international music registry, supported by the World Intellectual Property
WLS and LINQ 2017 Invited Speakers 161
Organisation (WIPO). According to Jenner, "we don’t know who owns what and
where" and this holds back the copyright licensing of music online. Jenner now
wants to see a wide variety of creative industry services and business models
being licensed, through a mixture of blanket licenses and individual licences. He
argues that copyright, and intellectual property more generally, is a system which
ensures that people get paid. The digital eco system challenges creative
industries to rethink their models, and this also includes academic institutions.
Anjum Malik (Alhambra US Chamber)

Anjum Malik is a global professional with 35+ years of experience in the fields of
international education, educational consulting, business development both in
the US and internationally. She has built an extensive network of global contacts,
which she leverages on behalf of her clients, connecting people and organizations
for success. She was the Director of International Marketing and Public Relations
for the University of Texas at Austin's Global Initiative for Education and
Leadership, advising the initiative on international strategy, identifying
opportunities for collaborative projects and negotiation of bi and multi-lateral
agreements. Due to her leadership in education delivery and development, her
organization The Alhambra Chamber was invited to become a member of
President Obama's Partners for a New Beginning Initiative. The organizations she
has created and managed have enhanced the global competence of more than
150,000 students and hundreds of professionals. Within her most nurtured
passion - international education - Anjum constantly seeks innovative tools to
improve teaching, learning, and access. In all her endeavors, she strives to
advance the empowerment of women and their increased participation in the
workforce. She consults and trains on a wide variety of issues related to
international education -accreditation, gap analysis, leadership and professional
development, cross cultural training, empowering women, franchising and
strategic planning.
Janet Walkow (University of Texas)

Janet Walkow, PhD., joined the faculty of the University of Texas in 2008, building
on a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry, where she led efforts
ranging from R&D to Corporate Strategy. Leading the Drug Dynamic Institute,
Janet brings together scientists and investigators to work on novel solutions for
disease and healthcare issues. The institute fosters collaborations with university,
medical, industry and community leaders to develop therapeutics and eliminate
barriers to commercialization. Janet is known in academic circles for developing

cutting-edge ways of engaging and educating students, researchers and the
general public. Her successful edX MOOC, Take Your Medicine explores how new
drug therapies are developed and how to be a savvy consumer. A leader in
efforts to empower entrepreneurs and women, Janet has developed programs,
courses and facilities that foster entrepreneurs. Janet works with a variety of
local and global organizations that support and empower people around the
world. As a Same Sky Ambassador, Janet works to educate people about its trade
initiative to create employment opportunities for women in America and Africa.
She has served as a mentor for the Livestrong Foundation, Cherie Blair
Foundation for Women and serves on the Board of Directors for the Health
Promotion Council, Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, BookSpring
and Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board.
WLS and LINQ 2017 Conference Chairs and Committee
The International WLS and LINQ Conference 2017 is organized by these experts:
Conference Co-Chairs
Oddgeir Tveiten June Breivik Christian M. Stracke

(WLS, University of (BI Norwegian (LINQ, Open University
Agder, Norway) Business School) of the Netherlands)
Conference Co-Organizers Donna Kidwell

Eilif Trondsen
Derek Woodgate
Conference Managers Vidar Mortensen

(University of Agder, Norway)
Conference Communication UiA Media Service

Substans Analysis
Technical Support UiA Media Service
Substans Analysis
World Learning Summit is hosted by the Future Learning Lab
Institutions of learning at all levels are challenged by a fast and
accelerating pace of change in the development of communications
technology. Conferences around the world address the issue. Research
journals in a wide range of scholarly fields are placing the challenge of
understanding Education’s Digital Future“on their agenda. The World
”
Learning Summit and LINQ Conference 2017 proceedings take this as a
point of origin. Noting how the future also has a past: Emergent uses of
communications technologies in learning are of course neither new nor
unfamiliar. What may be less familiar is the notion of disruption“, found
”
in many of the conferences and journal entries currently.
Is the disruption of education and learning as transformative as in the

case of the film industry, the music industry, journalism, and health? If
so, clearly the challenge of understanding future learning and education
goes to the core of institutions and organizations as much as pedagogy
and practice in the classroom.
One approach to the pursuit of a critical debate is the concept of
Smart Universities educational institutions that adopt to the realities
of digital online media in an encompassing manner: How can we as
smarter universities and societies build sustainable learning eco systems
for coming generations, where technologies serve learning and not the
other way around? Perhaps that is the key question of our time, reflecting
concerns and challenges in a variety of scholarly fields and disciplines?
These proceedings present the results from an engaging event that took
place from 7th to 9th of June 2017 in Kristiansand, Norway.
Logos Verlag Berlin ISBN 978-3-8325-4595-6

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Christian M.

Official Proceedings of the International

Official Proceedings of the International

Organized by the University of Agder, the Open University of the Netherlands,

Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek:

The German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) lists this publication

Published by Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH

Dr. Oddgeir Tveiten

Information about WLS and LINQ 2017 online: <http://www.worldlearningsummit.com>

© Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH

Smart Universities: Education's Digital Future........................................................... 7

Learning to learn: Beyond 2020.............................................................................. 13

Nordic EdTech: Vision, Evolution, Challenges & Opportunities .............................. 131

WLS and LINQ 2017 Scientific Programme Committee .......................................... 154

WLS and LINQ 2017 Keynote Speakers ................................................................. 155

WLS and LINQ 2017 Invited Speakers ................................................................... 160

Christian M. Stracke, Michael Shanks and Oddgeir Tveiten

Esther Tan1, Christian M. Stracke1, Marek Prokopowicz2, Edit

Abstract: The current discourse on staying relevant in the 21st century

2.1 Sample and design

Figure 1: Three core skill-sets in Learning to Learn

In the second phase, 72 structured interviews were conducted via face-to-face

Table 1: Framework of the in-depth structured interview

Core aspects of Interview questions on the three core skill-sets:

2.2 Data collection and analysis

3.1 Importance of the skill-sets in future workplace

Findings from the insight-cards, as well as in-depth structured interviews

3.2 Methods for developing and evaluating the three skill-sets

As shown in table 2, methods of developing and evaluating the three skill-sets

Table 2: Summary of methods to develop and to evaluate the three skill-sets

Methods of Development Methods of Evaluation

Whilst the educational, non-educational and training institutions may vary in

collaboration, as well as face-to-face communication will be instrumental to

Terje Gaustad, Donatella de Paoli

BI Norwegian Business School

Abstract: Advances in online education requires higher education

As advances in online education are starting to shake up higher education

Nonetheless, very little of the literature on online education centers on

2 Learning Online Education from Film Production

In online education, a clear and generalized role structure is not developed

3 A Taxonomy of Online Education Roles

Also dependent on scale and scope, as well as on each person’s strengths

4 Unbundling the New Roles

Johannes Konert, Ilona Buchem1, Lucy Lewis, Grainne

Abstract: In a networked world, achievements from formal and

Competency frameworks play an important role in the European context. Given

large number of EU-wide initiatives to establish common European qualification

3 The Current Body of Knowledge

R1. Detection of badges that relate to the same competencies (unambiguous)

6 Conclusion and Outlook

Open Badges can be used as representational digital tokens of competencies.

2014 until 2017 under 2014-1-DE01-KA200-000675. We thank contributors of the

Badge Alliance Standard Working Group. (2016). Open Badges Technical

Thomas Gjesteland, Pauline Vos, Margrethe Wold

University of Agder, Norway

Abstract: In this paper we outline a study on an alternative to laboratory