Winners of Contest “MOOC Production Fellowship” Announced

In an attempt to fuel technological innovation in European higher education, the reputable German foundation Stifterverband and Iversity company announced on March 11 the contest  “The MOOC Production Fellowship” worth €25,000 for each winner.
(see our post of 13/03: http://blogs.uoc.edu/unescochair/blog/2013/03/13/contest-the-mooc-production-fellowship/ )

A jury of independent experts from diverse backgrounds, most of them from Germany, just announced the winners, authors of 10 courses. The proposals of about 250 university teachers were submitted in video form online and voted as their favorite by about 70,000 people  who are supposed to be future students. This public vote of interest is a quite unique feature of this MOOC initiative. Says Hans Kloepper, one of the Iversity´s founders and organizer of the contest:

“We approach MOOCs as students and customers, understanding the perspectives of those interested in free, higher-level education. Public competitions through social media are normal for university students… We made student interest visible by creating a public voting.”
https://www.iversity.org/blog/interview-with-mooc-fellowship-organizer-and-juror-hannes-kloepper-of-iversity/

In the coming months the fellows will produce their courses, the first of which will go live in the autumn of 2013. The pre-enrollment is open since June 10.

Funded and defined by German academe and business, this initiative was inclusive to other countries as well: one of the winners is Dr. Alberto Suárez, Professor of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, who proposed the course “Monte Carlo Methods in Finance”. Watch his video presentation here:

Read more:  https://moocfellowship.org/