Credentialing Learning in the European OER Ecosystem: Possibilities and Challenges

Welcome to the ENCORE+ Panel Discussion on 12 of December at 15:00 CET!

The Encore+ project recently published a report on “Credentialing learning in the European OER Ecosystem”. This was based on interviews with experts from around Europe, and we are delighted that seven of the interviewees are able to join us for a panel to discuss the issues raised by the report. The discussion will be moderated by Dai Griffiths, the lead author of the report, and senior researcher at the Research Institute UNIR iTED. Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR)

Together we will consider the degree to which emerging educational practices and technologies can enable new approaches to the credentialling of learning that is obtained through the use of OERs.

The conversation will be kept as open as possible, but will include consideration of:

• Issues which arise around the management, design and delivery of assessment
• Competence frameworks, digital certificates and interoperability specifications that are now available to support the issuing of micro-credentials, and the prospects for their adoption
• Implications for technical infrastructure, including repositories
• Stacking of micro-credentials (broadly understood) into more substantial qualifications or curriculum vitae profiles, and the communication of achievement to employers.
• Organisational structures and business models which could facilitate the assessment of learning achieved with OERs

Registrations are now open. The event is open to all and free of charge.

Moderator:

• Dai Griffiths. Since the 1990s Dai Griffiths has worked in educational technology as a researcher and teacher, and project manager, seeking to understand the relationship between people and computers. He is currently a senior researcher at Research Institute UNIR iTED. Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR). There he works on a number of projects, including Encore+ where he was lead author of the report on Credentialing Learning in the European OER Ecosystem. In his previous role at the University of Bolton, he was Professor at the Institute for Educational Cybernetics, a member of Jisc Cetis, and also led research and graduate studies in the Department of Education. He is an associate member of Cetis LLP.

Speakers:

• Christine Jacqmot: Christine Jacqmot is Senior Project Manager for for the Digital University at UCLouvain. She is also a member of the Louvain Learning Lab, as coordinator and senior project manager. Together, with Professor Yves Deville she led two strategic plans, for UCLouvain. The first, in 2015, resulted in the establishment of the UCLouvain OER repository, which now has some 700 resources and more than 2.000 download every month. The 2021-2025 second covers both open education (including OERs, courseware, MOOCs, distance learning and digital tools) and open science.
• Colin de la Higuera: Colin de la Higuera is a professor in Computer Science at the University of Nantes and the UNESCO Chair in OER. He has been the founding President of the Société informatique de France, and contributed to design and launch the Class’Code project whose goal is to train teachers and educators to code and computational thinking. He is also a trustee of the Knowledge for All Foundation and currently works with European actors on indexing and accessing OER in a more helpful way. His recent projects include X5GON and FLORILEGE.
• Ebba Ossiannilsson: Professor Ebba Ossiannilsson is Chair of the International Council for Open and Distance Learning (ICDE) OER Advocacy Committee (OERAC), and as well ICDE OER Ambassador for Global Advocacy, working with ambassadors from all around the globe. She has worked on OER initiatives since 2002, including the first Global Research Study on Quality Models, ICDE LangOER, and ICDE Operational Network BOLDIC (Nordic and Baltic countries). In addition, she works as ICDE quality reviewer, and a member of the Core Group for the new ICDE Strategic Plan 2020-2023.
• Ildiko Mazar: Ildiko Mazar is currently employed by NTT DATA , and has worked in eLearning and OER for about 25 years, organising over 30 conferences and managing 50+ European projects that had open education at their core. She had roles as a producer, developer, implementer, and publisher of OERs, and has worked extensively in supporting aggregation and better machine readability of OERs and credentials. She is currently supporting the European Commission’s DG Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion in the development and implementation of the European Digital Credentials for Learning.
• Lorna M. Campbell: Lorna Campbell was closely involved in the large Open Educational Resources (OER) programme run by the Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) and funded by The Higher Education Funding Council in England from 2009 to 2012. Over the past six years she has been a member of board of trustees of the Association for Learning Technology in the UK, which has a strategic commitment to openness, and a board member and Vice Chair of Wikimedia UK. She is manager of the University of Edinburgh Open Education Resources Service, providing support to staff and students in the creation and use of open-licensed content.
• Timothy Read: Timothy Read is an Associate Professor at UNED, the Spanish National Distance Education University. He researches into open learning for languages and for social inclusion, particularly refugees and migrants. He played an important role in establishing OER practice at UNED, and in 2012 played a key role in establishing UNED Abierta / Open UNED, which re-mains an important part of UNED’s offering (https://iedra.uned.es/)
• Yves Deville: Yves Deville is Professor of Computer Science in the Louvain School of Engi-neering at UCLouvain. For seven years, he has been a Senior Advisor to the President for the Digital University and Open Science. Together, with Professor Yves Deville he led two strategic plans, for UCLouvain. The first, in 2015, resulted in the establishment of the UCLouvain OER repository, which now has some 700 resources and more than 2.000 download every month. The 2021-2025 second covers both open education (including OERs, courseware, MOOCs, distance learning and digital tools) and open science.

• Report: Credentialing learning in the European OER Ecosystem, D. Griffiths, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, D. Burgos, S. Aceto