Brussels Welcomed Launch of First Pan-European MOOCs Initiative

25 April, 2013

Partners in 11 countries have joined forces to launch the first pan-European ‘MOOCs’ (Massive Open Online Courses) initiative, with the support of the European Commission. Around 40 courses, covering a wide variety of subjects, will be available free of charge and in 12 different languages. The initiative is led by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) and mostly involves open universities. The partners are based in the following countries: France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey and Israel. Detailed information about the initiative and the courses on offer is available on the portal www.OpenupEd.eu.

Androulla Vassiliou, Comisaria Europea de Educación, Cultura, Multilingüismo y Juventud, acoge con satisfacción esta nueva iniciativa:  “este lanzamiento paneuropeo lo sitúa (el movimiento MOOC) en otro nivel…  Es un elemento decisivo de la estrategia de Apertura de la Educación que la Comisión lanzará este verano.»”

Commissioner Vassiliou, together with EADTU, have launched the European MOOCs initiative in a webcasted international press conference on Thursday, 25 April. They were joined by Xavier Prats Monné, Deputy Director-General of the  Commission’s Education and Culture directorate. The event went online: www.ou.nl/moocs.

This is the second large MOOC initiative on the European soil to rival established providers in the US. A UK-based platform,  Futurelearn, to carry courses from 12 UK institutions, was launched by the Open University in December 2012.

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