1

Implications of Open Education

for the Maltese Educational

System

WITH A SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON MOOCS

Anthony F. Camilleri March 2015

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CONTENTS

Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 2

Table of Figures .......................................................................................................................................... 4

Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................. 4

1. Foreword ............................................................................................................................................. 6

2. Introduction to MOOCs ........................................................................................................................ 7

2.1 Definitions and Classification of MOOCs ........................................................................................ 7

2.2 Defining Open Education .............................................................................................................. 7

2.3 Open Access to Resources ............................................................................................................ 9

2.4 Clarifying Terminology .................................................................................................................. 9

2.5 History........................................................................................................................................10

3. Provision Models for Open Education ...................................................................................................12

3.1 The role of ‘Silicon Valley’ MOOC providers (Coursera, Udacity, EdX) .............................................12

3.1.1 Coursera .................................................................................................................................12

3.1.2 edX .........................................................................................................................................13

3.1.3 Udacity ...................................................................................................................................14

3.2 European MOOC Provision Models (OpenupEd, FutureLearn) ........................................................14

3.2.1 FutureLearn ............................................................................................................................16

3.2.2 OpenUpEd ..............................................................................................................................16

4. Trends & Effects of Open Education .....................................................................................................18

4.1 The growth and growing role of OER ............................................................................................18

4.2 Unbundling of Education .............................................................................................................19

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4.3 Rise of Non-University Providers in Higher Education ....................................................................20

4.4 Collaboration Networks to address Open Education challenges .....................................................21

4.5 Increasing Demand for Recognition and Portability .......................................................................22

5. Issues & Recommendations .................................................................................................................23

5.1 Open Access to Resources ...........................................................................................................24

5.1.1 Issue 1: Malta is lagging behind in Open Access Policies .............................................................24

5.1.2 Issue 2: Open publishing offers significant opportunities for Maltese education ..........................25

5.2 Unbundling of Education .............................................................................................................25

5.2.1 Issue 3: Unbundling allows for better student choice .................................................................25

5.3 Non-University Providers .............................................................................................................26

5.3.1 Issue 4: The current regulatory framework leaves lacunae with respect to non-university providers

26

5.4 Collaboration Networks ...............................................................................................................27

5.4.1 Issue 5: Maltese Institutions can only reach scale in Open Education through collaboration ........27

5.5 Recognition & Assessment ...........................................................................................................28

5.5.1 Issue 6: Open Learning Certification is creating confusion ..........................................................28

5.5.2 Issue 7: Recognition of Prior Learning is not scalable .................................................................28

5.6 Teaching & Learning ....................................................................................................................29

5.6.1 Issue 8: Automating teaching is, in many cases, more efficient ...................................................29

5.7 Relevant Policy-Recommendation Documents ..............................................................................30

6. Bibliography........................................................................................................................................31

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TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1 - Types of Education Openness (Hodgkinson-Williams and Gray (2009) - adapted .............................. 8

Figure 2 - Comparison of volume of the three top u.s. mooc-platforms (Taneja & Goel, 2014) ........................12

Figure 3: European MOOCs by Country as at 03/09/2014. Source: European MOOC Scoreboard

(http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/european_scoreboard_moocs)...................................................15

Figure 4: Growth Rate of European vs non-European MOOCs as at 03/09/2014. Source: European MOOC

Scoreboard (http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/european_scoreboard_moocs) .................................15

Figure 5 - Open Access Repositories in Europe by Country and Size, April 2014. Source: repository66.org .......18

Figure 6 - Elements of a College Degree (Staton, 2012) ................................................................................19

Figure 7: Scenarios showing three different routes through which a learner may acquire and use university

credits (Haywood, 2012) ............................................................................................................................20

Figure 8 - Strategic pillars for policy development (Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014) ...............23

ABBREVIATIONS

EC - European Commission

ECTS – European Credit Transfer Scheme

EHEA – European Higher Education Area

ENIC - European Network of Information Centres in the European Region

ESF – European Social Fund

EQF – European Qualifications Framework

HE - Higher Education

HEI - Higher Education Institution

LMS - Learning Management System

MCST – Malta Council for Science and Technology

MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MITA – Malta Information Technology Agency

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MOOC - Massive Online Open Course

MQF – Maltese Qualifications Framework

NARIC - National Academic Recognition Information Centres in the European Union

NCFHE - National Commission for Further and Higher Education

OAI-PMH – Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

OCW - Open Courseware

OEP - Open Educational Practices

OER - Open Educational Resource/s

RPL – Recognition of Prior Learning

UNED - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

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1. FOREWORD

Strategies for education reform need to be flexible, ongoing, inclusive and embrace a vision that is democratic

(Ministry for Education and Employment, 2014). Flexibility, inclusiveness and democracy are also key values of

the open education movement – broadly speaking a set of initiatives to remove barriers to teaching and learning

for learners of all kinds, set in motion be the UNESCO OER declaration of 2002. In recent years, advances in

technology, and a squeeze on budget allocations and changing demand from students and business has led to

an explosion in innovation in the sector(“Creative destruction,” 2014), in particular with regards to Higher

Education, so much so that the New York Times declared 2012 “The Year of the MOOC”(Pappano, 2012). A loose

ecosystem of companies, HEIs, governments and entrepreneurs are using these innovations to change the face

of teaching and learning, rethink the structures set up to provide these services, and reimagine what it means

to be a true lifelong learner.

The rate of innovation being seen at the moment in HE, as accelerated by technology, is probably the highest

seen in decades. During the writing of this report, in several cases it was found that even information dating

from earlier this year had already become outdated, and needed to be updated. This report therefore aims to

give a high-level overview of Open Education, with a special focus on MOOCs, with the aim of allowing Maltese

policy makers to better navigate the policy landscape and identify key trends which may be leveraged to

strengthen Maltese HE, in line with the priorities set out by the Framework Strategy for the Education Strategy

of Malta for 2014-2024.

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2. INTRODUCTION TO MOOCS

2.1 Definitions and Classification of MOOCs

MOOC stands for ‘Massive Online Open Course’, and may be defined as a course which integrates the

connectivity of social networking, the facilitation of an acknowledged expert in a field of a study and a freely

accessible resource (McAuley, Stewart, Siemens, & Cormier, 2010), while being designed so as to be offered via

the internet at scale. The elements of the model are that it is (EduCause Learning Initiative, 2013):

massive: with theoretically no limit to enrolment

open: allowing anyone to participate, usually at no cost

online: with learning activities typically taking place over the web

course: structured around a set of learning goals in a defined study area

MOOCs have been traditionally classified into xMOOCs and cMOOCs. xMOOCs come close to a ‘traditional’

course with predefined learning outcomes to learners, syllabi and structured OERs or to some extent also

proprietary material as well as homework and assessment. cMOOCs, on the other hand, emerged in the context

of connectivism, where learning is distributed, social and explorative (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013).

2.2 Defining Open Education

Hodgkinson-Williams and Gray (2009) propose a framework to analyse the degree of openness of OER policies

at the University of Cape Town, based on four factors:

Social openness: the degree to which pedagogy is didactic or participative, through the use of sharing,

collaboration, participation and contribution.

Examples: Here, lectures delivered in a theatre-like classroom would be considered most closed, while

cMOOCs would be an example of most open.

Technical openness: the degree to which software / platforms on which OER are based are themselves

open- or closed-source.

Examples: Taking examples of LMS, a proprietary LMS such as Blackboard would be considered most

closed, while the adaptation of an open source wiki platform such as mediawiki for the production of

MOOCs currently might be considered the ultimate example of technical openness.

Licence (or legal) openness: the degree to which the licence grants the user rights over the material,

ranging from copyrighted (no rights to user), including the full spectrum of creative-commons licenses,

up to no rights reserved (all rights to user).

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Examples: the majority of publications from traditional publishers such as Pearson, McGraw Hill etc.,

which include standard copyright declarations are examples of the most closed licenses. Wikipedia is an

example of a fully openly licensed set of materials.

Financial openness: this measures the charge for the education provided, ranging from full commercial

pricing, including several options for low-cost pricing and ending with gratis pricing

Examples: Courses offered by the Open University are examples of the most closed kind of financial

openness in this case. Free education offered by public universities is an example of the most open

model.

(Camilleri, Ehlers, & Pawlowski, 2014; Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009)

In essence, the more an educational experience can be mapped to the right-hand side of the following

diagram, the more ‘open’ we can say it is:

FIGURE 1 - TYPES OF EDUCATION OPENNESS (HODGKINSON-WILLIAMS AND GRAY (2009) -

ADAPTED

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2.3 Open Access to Resources

It is becoming increasingly common for countries across Europe to implement policies for open access to

publicly funded research data. At European level, the Commission has obliged all participants in the Horizon

2020 programme to publish their results under open access licences. The initiatives for open access to research

data are based primarily on two principles, namely that:

Open Access facilitates scholarship and research, by removing barriers of access to knowledge

The public has a right to access the results of scientific data paid for with public money.

The Commission states that policies on open access to scientific research results should apply to all research

that receives public funds. Such policies are expected to improve conditions for conducting research by reducing

duplication of efforts and by minimising the time spent searching for information and accessing it. This will

speed up scientific progress and make it easier to cooperate across and beyond the EU (European Commission,

2012). Open Access to scientific data, comes in two types, a ‘gold road’ where publication occurs directly in

open access journals, and a ‘green road’ where articles are published in non-open journals, but are self-archived

in open access repositories (Harnad et al., 2004). As such, within the area of access to scientific data, the EC is

already actively urging member states to publish open access policies and set up open access repositories to

support publishing. As of September 2014, according to the OpenAire database of Open Access policies1, Malta

is one only three countries in Europe (along with Romania and Slovakia) to have no open access repository. It

also currently lacks a national open access policy.

2.4 Clarifying Terminology

Open Educational Resources (OER) describe any kind of digital media which are released under licenses which

allow for:

use and reuse/repurposing/modification of the resources

encompass all types of digital media

Depending on the definition, OER may include (Camilleri et al., 2014):

digital resources only, or a mix of digital and ‘traditional’ resources

resources produced with an explicit educational aim, or any resource used as part of an educational

process

1 https://www.openaire.eu

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resources which are e the public domain, or resources which allow use and reuse merely for

educational purposes

Open Courseware (OCW) describes a sub-set of OER, namely open course materials such as lecture notes,

assignments, reading lists, exams, problem sets and solutions, simulations or video lectures, published under an

open licence allowing for unrestricted use and reuse of the resources for non-commercial purposes, providing

the authors receive attribution and any that any derivative materials are published under the same

licence(Potts, 2005). Strictly speaking, open courseware is a brand name used by members of the Open

Courseware Consortium2 (recently renamed the Open Education Consortium), but it has become the de-facto

term to describe open course materials.

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of OER

through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as

co-producers on their lifelong learning path. (Ehlers, 2011)

MOOCs do not describe resources, but rather describe all the learning and teaching that takes place, mediated

by a set of resources, in an online open course. cMOOCs predominantly make use of OCW and apply

pedagogically open practices. On the other hand, xMOOCs do not necessarily need to make use of either OER

or OEP. In academic spheres, there is significant debate as to whether more ‘closed’ xMOOCs are strictly

speaking MOOCs, especially due to heavy criticism of the format from Stephen Downes, one of the creators of

the forma

2.5 History

The following table gives an overview of the key-dates in the development of OER and MOOCs

Spring 2002 MIT launches Open Courseware – the first online repository of freely licensed

courseware produced by a Higher Education Institution

July 2002 UNESCO hosts the first global forum on Open Courseware, and coins the term

“Open Educational Resources”

October 2006 The Open University launches “Open Learn”, its own version of the Open

Courseware concept, becoming the most notable European initiative in the field.

2 http://www.oeconsortium.org/

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June/July 2008 Dave Cormier drops the term ‘MOOC’ into a wiki to describe an upcoming course

at the University of Athabasca(Cormier, 2008).

September

2008

Connectivisim and Connective Knowledge course launched at the University of

Athabasca by George Siemens & Stephen Downes. 2200 students attend the

course online.

October 2011 Sebastian Thun and Peter Norvig from Stanford University launch “Online

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” (Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence ,

2011), which attracts over 160,000 students, and bringing the term (x)MOOC into

the mainstream.

April 2012 Coursera, an education platform that partners with universities and organisations

to produce MOOCs, is launched by two Stanford Professors with $22 million in

venture capital funding.

May 2012 edX, a $60 million venture to provide classes from Harvard and MIT is launched.

July 2012 UNESCO hosts the OER Global Congress in Paris, ten years after the definition of

the term.

February 2013 First 5 MOOCs recommended for college credit by the American Council on

Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service (“Five Courses Receive

College Credit Recommendations,” 2013)

April 2013 A consortium of ten European Universities launches OpenUpEd, a single ‘quality-

brand’ under which to release European MOOCs, with the support of the

European Commission.

September

2013

European Commission launches ‘Opening up Education’ to boost innovation and

digitals skills in schools and universities (European Commission, 2013b)

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3. PROVISION MODELS FOR OPEN EDUCATION

3.1 The role of ‘Silicon Valley’ MOOC providers (Coursera,

Udacity, EdX)

While any institution can develop MOOCs on a variety of learning software, in its early days the sector quickly

became concentrated into the hands of a few Silicon Valley based start-ups. Due to their ability to attract

significant venture capital funding and their association with top-name universities, they quickly dominated the

market.

Provider No. of Students Courses/Courseware Institutions

Coursera 7 million 640 100

EdX 2 million 175 45

Udacity 1.5 million 35 10

all numbers are minimums

FIGURE 2 - COMPARISON OF VOLUME OF THE THREE TOP U.S . MOOC-PLATFORMS (TANEJA & GOEL, 2014)

All three of the major providers were founded within a few months of each other in 2012, and operates

variations on the same business model3, although recently their paths have somewhat diverged.

3.1.1 Coursera

Currently the largest global MOOC provider, Coursera is a private company which has raised over $85 million in

venture capital funding (source: Crunchbase). It partners with reputable Higher Education Institutions, and/or

global NGOs to provide courses through its proprietary software platform. While Coursera acts in partnership

with institutions, relations between Coursera and the institutions is by contract – with Coursera providing

branding and the technology platform, and the institutions providing content and teaching. The institutions

have no say in the running of the company or the platform.

Its success is considered to be due to:

3 It should be noted that talk of ‘business models’ does not mean that these providers are currently booking a profit, or even that they are in a sustainable fashion. All examples listed here involve organisations who are currently working with various forms of venture capital, with the long-term aim of developing a profitable business.

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(a) Its first-mover advantage

(b) Its success in attracting venture capital

(c) Its software – which is considered to be better than other solutions

(d) Its connection with the ‘Silicon Valley’ movement – which leads to significant positive

media coverage by the Silicon Valley focused media segments

Notable Products and/or Initiatives by Coursera include:

Signature Track: Coursera pioneered a method of verifying student identity using web-cams, ‘typing

pattern’ – a biometric identification, and document verification. Signature track is a paid service, which

then leads to obtaining a certificate issued by the providing institution and Coursera in concert.

Specialisations: Coursera now groups sets of MOOCs together (including MOOCs offered by different

universities), and, upon completion of a final exam/assignment, will offer a specialisation certificate,

offered by all the institutions together in collaboration with Coursera

ACE Credits – The American Council of Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service, is the de-

facto system for credit transfer in the U.S. Credits that are admitted to their list, are widely accepted for

transfer credit across the country. Coursera has managed to have a number of its MOOCs admitted to the

list

At one point, Coursera considered ‘Career Services’ as a business model (see description below), however, this

seems to have been abandoned as no trace of it can be found on its web portal.

3.1.2 edX

edX was initially launched by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as a not-

for-profit enterprise, with seed funding of $60 million from the two institutions. edX is understood conceptually

as a collection of three initiatives:

the edX Consortium is made up of a consortium of Higher Education Institutions, and operates the edX

portal, and offers MOOCs through that portal, much in the same way as Coursera

OpenEdX is an open source software community building the software platforms used by EdX. Anyone

can contribute code, but notable contributions are being given by Stanford University, Google, Harvard

and UC Berkley amongst others

MOOC.org is a joint venture between EdX and Google which will offer consultancy, course-development

and hosting/infrastructure services, likely at cost to educational institutions, companies and NGOs

Notable features of the edX model include:

edX is run by a consortium of participating universities, who become ‘Charter’ members, with several

universities contributing financially to the initiative as part of their agreement, and having some say in the

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running of the initiative. Unconfirmed reports indicate that such contributions can be in the hundreds of

thousands of Euros

edX also offers ‘verified’ certificates against a document and webcam identity-check, as well as XSeries

courses (equivalent to specialisations at Coursera). However, XSeries do not require a final exam, and are

only issued by a single school

edX has run several experiments in licencing content to schools for use in everyday courses, and in

offering blended learning modules using edX content with schools

edX has also recently expanded into the high-school market, with its university members producing a set

of courses with edX seed funding ($60,000 per course) directly aimed at high-school students

the edX software platform is open source are free to use, however edX partners often pay for support

contracts. MOOC.org seems to be an attempt to formalise this arrangement.

3.1.3 Udacity

Udacity was started by Sebastian Thrun, widely acknowledged as the creator of the first truly ‘Massive’ MOOC.

It has evolved over the years into a ‘hybrid’ provider – giving free access to its courseware, but charging access

to the actual course experience which is moderated by tutors. By virtue of its lineage, Udacity is usually

considered one of the three leading MOOC providers, however one of the distinguishing features of a MOOC

vis-à-vis a traditional e-learning course is the distinction between opening up the course vs. only the courseware.

At the same time, the word ‘MOOC’ can no longer be found on the Udacity website. As such, this report

considers Udacity to no longer be an Open Education / MOOC Provider in any meaningful sense.

3.2 European MOOC Provision Models (OpenupEd,

FutureLearn)

While lagging behind in MOOC development originally, European initiatives in the sphere have been multiplying

rapidly, especially in the last 24 months.

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FIGURE 3: EUROPEAN MOOCS BY COUN TRY AS AT 06/03/2015. SOURCE: EUROPEAN MOOC SCOREBOARD

(HTTP://WWW.OPENEDUCATIONEUROPA.EU/EN/EUROPEAN_SCOREBOARD_MOOCS)

FIGURE 4: GROWTH RATE OF EUROPEAN VS NON-EUROPEAN MOOCS AS AT 03/09/2014. SOURCE: EUROPEAN MOOC

SCOREBOARD ( HTTP://WWW.OPENEDUCATIONEUROPA.EU/EN/EUROPEAN_SCOREBOARD_MOOCS)

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3.2.1 FutureLearn

FutureLearn is a wholly owned company of the Open University (UK), and has evolved into a MOOC platform

consisting of (more or less) the top 20 UK Universities. FutureLearn is still in a piloting stage, with ‘production’

courses expected in the next few months. Notable features in its initial stage:

FutureLearn explicitly states that its business model currently revolves around charging for

assessment and certification services

For certain courses, it offers invigilated exams in physical test-centres, with successful participants

receiving a “Statement of Attainment”

Certificates of participation are not awarded automatically, but against a fee

3.2.2 OpenUpEd

OpenUpEd operates according to a significantly different model than all the previously mentioned examples.

OpenUpEd is platform independent leaving the choice of technology up to the host institutions, and does not

operate any learning-design or technology support services. The organisation operates as a consortium of

universities, who agree to list their MOOCs on a common platform. HEI Institutions who partner with OpenUpEd

must subscribe to the following conditions

Only HEIs which are part of the formal HE structure of the country of origin, fulfilling all national

requirements of quality assurance and accreditation.

The MOOCs offered within the OpenupEd partnership should be approved by their host institution

and evidence must be provided that a QA system is in operation for the MOOCs offering.

The institution should endorse the eight common features of OpenupEd provision4 and give evidence

of how those eight features are applied in its MOOCs. All MOOCs offered must comply with the

features 'openness to learners' and 'digital openness'.

The institution must obtain the OpenupEd label at entry (For details on the OpenupEd label please see

(Rosewell & Jansen, 2014)). This will be renewed periodically. The quality procedure will be based on a

self-assessment and a review.

The institution must evaluate and monitor its MOOCs offering at least in terms of participation,

appreciation, and completion, as well as regarding equity, quality, and diversity. The data and results

4 These are: openness to learners, digital openness, learner centred approach, independent learning, media-supported interaction, recognition options, quality focus and spectrum of diversity. For more information see: http://www.openuped.eu/mooc-features

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must be made available to the OpenupEd partnership on request in order to facilitate their

accumulation and overall presentation and publication.

By November 2013, OpenUpEd offered 173 MOOCs, and in stark distinction to U.S. MOOCs, 100 of these offered

ECTS upon successful completion(Rosewell & Jansen, 2014), thus offering an official pathway to recognition.

Thus, OpenUpEd is the poster-child for a ‘European Model’ of MOOC provision – where MOOCs are created

directly (and independently) by HEIs, usually using public funding, within the already existing systems of

certification, quality assurance and accreditation, and where Lisbon Recognition Convention / Bologna Process-

compatible credentialisation options are offered for students on a large scale.

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4. TRENDS & EFFECTS OF OPEN EDUCATION

4.1 The growth and growing role of OER

The same arguments which can be used for open access to scientific data, as outlined in Section 2.3 are also

applicable to open access of open educational resources. Open access to educational materials would also help

remove duplicate of efforts, improve quality and reduce the time spent searching for and accessing information

by students and teachers alike. At a policy level, national mandates for publishing publicly funded educational

resources are still not commonplace, although the EC has begun actively investigating the area by committing

to launch an impact assessment on the economic and social impact of an EU initiative to stimulate open access

to educational materials produced with public funds(European Commission, 2013a).

However, even without national/European policy interventions, publication of OER is becoming increasingly

commonplace. Repository66.org, a global tracker of OER in April 2014 lists 3045 global learning object

repositories with over 12 million individual resources stored within them. This is up 7% from 2841 repositories

a year earlier.

FIGURE 5 - OPEN ACCESS REPOSITORIES IN EUROPE BY COUNTRY AND SIZE, APRIL 2014. SOURCE: REPOSITORY66.ORG

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4.2 Unbundling of Education

A Higher Education qualification can be thought of a packaged bundle of content, services, experiences and

signals, made up of several component parts(Staton, 2012).

FIGURE 6 - ELEMENTS OF A COLLEGE DEGREE (STATON, 2012)

When exploring how learning based upon open learning materials might be implemented by traditional

universities, it is recognised that this will often involve unbundling of the academic processes which take place

inside a single institution(Haywood, 2012).

Several of the examples given in section 0 involve the disaggregation of the processes of study, assessment and

recognition. The OERtest project imagined eight probable scenarios for Higher Education Institutions in Europe,

linked to this process of disaggregation, of which the most likely three were considered to be:

OER traditional: here a student independently studies an OER module at their own university, and

have it assessed and recognised as part of a course in the same university. An example of this might

be of a university using MOOCs to replace theatre-style lectures for its own students.

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OER Erasmus: here a student studies and receives assessment for a module from a second university,

within the framework of an already existing university cooperation, while having it recognised for

credit at his home university.

OER Summer School: reflects OER Erasmus, except that in this case the credit is taken from a third

university without a pre-existing relationship with his home university

FIGURE 7: SCENARIOS SHOWING THREE DIFFERENT ROUTES THROUGH WHICH A LEARNER MAY ACQUIRE A ND USE

UNIVERSITY CREDITS ( HAYWOOD, 2012)

4.3 Rise of Non-University Providers in Higher Education

Non-HEI providers generally offer education that is mostly coursework or modules, with a range of courses that

could be career-focused or general education or general interest. They often have course assistants rather than

faculty, students attend episodically and up until now providers have relied on the market for judgements. In

particular, providers of adult and/or professional training have formed part of this group.

However, the rise of MOOCs, and the creation of hybrid providers such as Coursera, where HEIs and companies

collaborate on course design and provision, has created a significant new category provider, which neither

under the category of HEIs or of typical adult training centres. In addition, the open education movement is

serving as a catalyst for other types of company providing only specific steps in the process, including:

Companies licencing course content produced by universities

Universities who specialise in awarding credit for recognition of prior learning, and supplementing it

with a few taught credits to acquire a degree

Specialist examination and certification companies

Textbook providers who provide part of the classroom experience by creating online learning

experiences and communities to accompany their textbooks.

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In all the cases above, the non-HEI providers are offering some of the services offered by an HEI, in an unbundled

format. However, quality assurance standards and other regulatory instruments which apply to HE would likely

not apply, as they not designed to regulate such entities. On the other hand, limitations in legislation could also

hinder the same companies from offering services – e.g. currently only universities can offer ECTS, even though

other institutions are capable of offering individual modules at an EQF level of 5 or above.

4.4 Collaboration Networks to address Open Education

challenges

In traditional e-learning, institutions would either build their own learning management system, often using an

open source tool such as Moodle, or licence it from a company such as Blackboard, and operate it entirely in-

house. Thus, e-learning offerings were just an online extension of the institutions’ main offerings, and were

associated entirely with the brand and service-portfolio of the institutions in question.

The extremely rapid emergence of open education has meant that universities have often found themselves ill-

equipped to evolve at a matching pace. This has led to them to experiment with new partnerships to reach the

desired capacity and development speed. Three typologies of partnership can be identified:

University Networks publishing courses under a single brand such as OpenUpEd

University –Business collaborations for joint-provision of education such as Coursera

‘Living Labs’ to develop OE content, technology and pedagogy such as Opening Up Slovenia 5.

The reasons for these collaborations include:

Increasing visibility – releasing courses under a single brand which is shared by several universities

increases discoverability and searchability. The existence of such brands means that then other

institutions must form their own networks or join existing ones to reach appropriate scale to compete

Exploring commercialisation – the start-up culture of rapid prototyping, continual user testing and

disruptive innovation is better explored in collaborations run by start-ups then within rigid university

bureaucracy

Access to technical expertise – there are currently only a few computer-engineers which specialise in

the advanced learning software being used for automated course provision such as MOOCs. Living

5 Opening up Slovenia is a consortium of organisations made up of government bodies, schools, universities, research centres, companies and non-profit, aiming at foster research activities through all aspects of open education, allowing rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of open learning environments, scientific open education theories, new business models and organisational forms, open education computational tools, and new and emerging technologies for the educational technologies market place. (http://www.k4all.org/openingupslovenia/)

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labs, clusters and other similar collaborations allow universities ready access to this expertise, which

may not exist to sufficient degree in-house

4.5 Increasing Demand for Recognition and Portability

The introduction of open learning, rather than satisfy students with the range of free materials and non-

recognised qualifications available, has in fact served to create demand for further expansion and utilisation of

the concept. Thus, students have increasingly demanded to have their achievements recognised for what they

are – whether in the form of online badges, certificates or credits (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013). In addition,

increasing financial pressure on HEIs has led them to see out efficiencies in their operations and most

importantly, explore new business models (Estermann & Pruvot, 2011) such as those linked to certifying MOOCs

as described already under Section 3.1.

The types of certification on offer in Europe are well described by the case of UNED Abierta, which offers a

freemium model where;

badges are gained automatically as the course progresses, for having achieved specific

results/benchmarks.

a certificate, defined as a Credential, is awarded as a result of a student having finished the majority

(80% or more) of a given course and subsequently taking an online test.

full certificates (ECTS), which require a student to undertake a test similar to the online one but on a

computer in one of UNED’s regional study centres, where proof of identity is required and the test is

taken in authentic exam conditions, are offered against payment(Read & Rodrigo, 2014).

While data on the phenomenon is not yet available, it is logical to assume that, given the scale of MOOCs in

certifying millions of students with university or university-like qualifications, HEIs or other competent

authorities around Europe will in the very near future see marked increase in students requesting recognition

of:

ECTS earned through MOOCs using existing portability mechanisms and recognition agreements (as

described in Section 3.2.2, several hundred European MOOCs already offer ECTS for completion)

Learning which occurred through MOOCs, through RPL¸(the EU Recommendation on the validation of

non-formal and informal learning specifically mentions the recognition of learning occurring through

OERs (Council of the European Union, 2012))

Official qualifications awarded for MOOC-based learning, from non-EU institutions, through the

system of ENIC/NARIC centres

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5. ISSUES & RECOMMENDATIONS

The issues & recommendations in this section are set within the context of the framework for the education

strategy for Malta 2014-2024, so as to make a direct link between Open Education policy, and the broader policy

framework. The framework sets out the following strategic pillars for policy development:

FIGURE 8 - STRATEGIC PILLARS FOR POLICY DEVELOPMEN T (MINISTRY FOR EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT, 2014)

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5.1 Open Access to Resources

5.1.1 Issue 1: Malta is lagging behind in Open Access Policies

Relevant to: Social Dimension – Open Access

Strategic Innovation – Managing the interaction of the Quadruple Helix

Amongst the many benefits of open access policies, are those that it gives the public access to research and

learning funded with their own money, as well as that such policies improved the dissemination of research and

learning. In particular, they help improve the dissemination of content, break down the barriers around walled-

content, improve the ability to analyse literature and open the doors for a host of new services to be built on

the databases such as citation-counting, plagiarism detection, text-mining and the like(Pinfield, 2005). In

addition, several EC documents, described already in Section 4.1, encourage member states to set up such

policies.

Rec 1: Set up a National Open Access Policy encompassing Education & Research

It is recommended that the NCFHE, together with the MCST and relevant stakeholders, set up a

committee to establish a National Open Access Policy for Research & Educational Materials. In each

area, the policy would need to establish whether to suggest or mandate access to OER and research

materials, and furthermore establish conditions for exemptions to the policy (such as for

research/education with a commercial potential for the institutions producing them).

Rec 2: Support the creation of an appropriate open education infrastructure

Malta is currently nearly unique in not having any large scale open access repositories. The NCFHE

(possibly in collaboration with the MCST) should therefore urgently incentivise the creation of one (or

several) repositories which are able to host:

dissertations, theses and other ‘student research’

original research produced by Maltese scientists

open educational resources produced by Maltese educational institutions

Such repositories could either be set up on a national level, or on an institutional level, with a MITA

then offering a harvesting service which would stich the institutional repositories into a national

database using technologies such as OAI-PMH6.

6 OAI-PMH is a protocol for repository interoperability. It allows harvesting software to collect data from any number of compliant repositories, and stitch them into a meta-repository, with very little effort.

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5.1.2 Issue 2: Open publishing offers significant opportunities for Maltese

education

Relevant to: Student Focus – Student Centred Learning,

To a large extent, open publishing of research already exists within Malta. Thus, the Xjenza – Journal of the

Malta Chamber of Scientists, the Malta Review of Educational Research and the Malta Medical Journal are

already open access. Within Maltese HE, an informal system of open textbooks has also existed for decades. In

many courses, the ‘textbook’ consists of lecture notes prepared by a lecturer and improved on a yearly cases.

In many cases, these notes are handed down from lecturer to lecturer, and also improved collaboratively by

students either in concert with the lecturer, or in informal networks7.

Rec 3: Encourage the creation of incentives for publishing of OER

In the current academic incentive scheme, an academic would receive credit for publishing his work as

a textbook with an open publisher. However, publishing the same work on a wiki, accepting

contributions from students and from other academics, and continually updating the work over a period

of years – effectively creating a much better resource, would earn him no comparable credit. Especially

considering the rich heritage of class notes already in circulation, an incentive scheme for open access

publishing would bring these within the formal system, maximise their learning benefits, and quite likely

lead to corresponding efficiency savings.

5.2 Unbundling of Education

5.2.1 Issue 3: Unbundling allows for better student choice

Relevant to: Student Focus – Different learning tracks

International Dimension – International openness to new systems and processes

Especially in a country such as Malta, which is home to only a single medium sized university, it is impossible for

students to be exposed to every topic area and/or niche speciality within their own institution. With thousands

of MOOCs for credit now available, it is possible to integrate these into local courses.

7 We refer to these as examples of peer-produced content, defined as “the (digital) content for learning created, edited , enriched by peers” (Auvinen & Ehlers, 2009)

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Rec 4: Consider implementing a scheme for implementing ‘OER Erasmus’

Under such a scheme, local HEIs, on a per-course level, would create a list of MOOCs whose certificates

may be accepted as part of the credit leading towards a qualification. MOOCs would usually be included

in the list either because they cover niche subjects not taught in Malta. So as to enable such inclusion,

the NCFHE would need to publish a set of quality guidelines for accepting such MOOCs, or suggest that

institutions align themselves with a consortium such as OpenUpEd, and accept credits from within the

said consortium.

5.3 Non-University Providers

5.3.1 Issue 4: The current regulatory framework leaves lacunae with

respect to non-university providers

Relevant to: Governance of Education Organisations: governance structure that enables modernisation and

innovation

Quality of Education Provision: continuous development of education providers

As already discussed in section 4.3, current legislation was not designed to handle the emergence of non-

traditional providers. This creates two problems: firstly that such providers may find regulatory barriers (such

as not being able to ECTS) prevent them from offering the services they would like, and secondly that current

quality controls which ought to apply to them may not necessarily do so. (In an example of the latter, were an

HEI to offer a non-credit bearing MOOC, it is unclear whether the same quality procedures as for a regular course

would be applied).

Rec 5: Establish a legislative framework incentivising non-traditional providers in HE, while assuring quality

Malta has significant expertise in designing legislative frameworks which (a) incentivise industry from

around the world to create new opportunities in Malta, and which (b) offer a respected quality ‘label’

guaranteed by the Maltese state. I-gaming, ship & aircraft registration and financial services are but a

few successful examples of this approach being effectively implemented already. Within HE, a similarly

designed legislative package could incentivise an entire ecosystem of social entrepreneurs focusing on

the field, and, thanks to the Bologna Process reforms, with a provision-scope across the EHEA.

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5.4 Collaboration Networks

5.4.1 Issue 5: Maltese Institutions can only reach scale in Open Education

through collaboration

Relevant to: Strategic Innovation: realignment and development of strategic objectives based on

international developments in education and feedback from stakeholders

Strategic Innovation: Training for educators on new teaching and learning methods

It is clear that quick advances within open education must happen within collaboration networks. Often,

collaboration with an inter-locking series of networks might be even more appropriate to achieve one’s goals.

Rec 6: Examine the possibility of providing MOOCs within an existing MOOC collaboration network

Should Maltese HEIs choose to go into MOOC provision (which, at current rate of development of the

field, currently seems inevitable), they will initially need access to the expertise and global reach offered

by MOOC collaboration networks. In particular, different networks may be required to (a) extend the

brand and reach of the offerings, (b) provide instructional design expertise with respect to MOOCs, and

(c) facilitate recognition pathways based on the MOOCs. We would therefore recommend the

commissioning of an impact assessment determining the appropriate network for the local context.

Rec 7: Create a Research & Innovation Cluster around Open Education

Malta has a rich variety of IT and IT Services companies, a developing sector of private distance learning

providers, a clear link between education and employment policy, a well-reputed and internationalised

public HE system, and a vision to become a larger player in the global education services market. Taken

together, these form an ideal basis for a research & innovation cluster around open education. At first,

such a cluster might take the form of a simple coordination body, such as an Open Education council

bringing together the various stakeholders to discuss possible joint initiatives. Alternatively, such

cooperation might take place through a special interest group set up within the framework of the eSkills

Malta Foundation, which already brings together all the relevant stakeholders for such an initiative,

albeit for a more narrow purpose.

With funding from the ESF, a roadmap towards a more ambitious programme might be considered

bringing together the typical elements of such clusters: grants for entrepreneurs, incentives to create

consortia for joint activities, physical co-location, living labs, international collaborations, etc.

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5.5 Recognition & Assessment

5.5.1 Issue 6: Open Learning Certification is creating confusion

Relevant to: International Dimension: International openness to new systems and processes

International Dimension: Harmonisation of qualification frameworks to European structures

Social Dimension: Open access to information on educational tracks and qualification

opportunities

Based on current legislative standards, with the exception of a graduate holding a traditional award based on

open learning, it is likely that a graduate holding an ‘open learning’ certification of the various kinds on offer

would find significant difficulty in having it recognised, with large discrepancies in recognition between different

HEIs and employers and across different jurisdictions (Camilleri & Tannhäuser, 2013). The plurality of

certification options and types, in particular those being offered by MOOC providers, mean that students would

likely be confused as to the various certification options available, and their implications

Rec 8: Publish a “users’ guide to MOOC certification” aimed at Maltese students

A users’ guide or fact-sheet, explaining the different types of MOOC certificates offered by different

providers, and their likely acceptance or validity in terms of portability for education & employment

would be invaluable to Maltese students. Such an initiative might best be done in collaboration with

ENIC/NARIC and published on the Maltese ENIC/NARIC portal.

Rec 9: Oblige all educational providers to describe their offerings in terms of the MQF/EQF

As already described, certain providers may escape the definitions of HEIs in the Maltese legislative

sense. Therefore a blanket requirement for any institution claiming to offer educational offerings to

map them to the MQF may offer some clarity and protection to the market.

5.5.2 Issue 7: Recognition of Prior Learning is not scalable

Relevant to: International Dimension: Harmonisation of assessment and examination methods

Governance of Education Organisations: support for the development of administrative

processes

In theory, any open learning experience should be able to be certifiable locally in terms of RPL. However, in a

scenario where thousands of MOOCs are consumed a year, even a small percentage of users requesting RPL

could quickly overwhelm the system.

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Rec 10: Create an automatic RPL path where appropriate

Under this recommendation, a framework would be set up whereby certain MOOC providers, networks

and/or MOOCs covered by a quality label, would be considered to be ‘approved’. By this logic, a student

who would ask for RPL based on a MOOC which had (a) verified identity, (b) provided proof of successful

completion (including where appropriate assessment) and (c) was supplied by a provider on the

‘approved’ list, would have that MOOC automatically validated through the RPL procedure.

5.6 Teaching & Learning

5.6.1 Issue 8: Automating teaching is, in many cases, more efficient

Relevant to: Governance of education organisations: Sustainability of long-term financing

Governance of education organisations: Governance structure that enables modernisation and

innovation

Student Focus: different learning tracks and student centred learning

Strategic Innovation: training for educators on new teaching and learning methods

Throughout Maltese further and higher education, one can find examples of lectures being given to classes of

over one hundred students. Such classes are efficient in terms of teacher-effort expended, but require a large

physical infrastructure to host the classes. In addition, they involve zero to very little student-teacher

interaction, and essentially serve as one-way information delivery vehicles. It is hard to imagine that in such

cases, MOOC-style courses with high degrees of interactivity, built-in community features, the possibility for

self-paced study from anywhere and other features do not offer a superior, and due to the automation involved,

more efficient mode of study.

Rec 11: Conduct an audit of provision-modes

Theatre-style lectures, workshops, problem-based learning, distance learning and blended learning are

but some of the options available for learning-provision. Most of the time the mode of provision has

been determined by lecture preference and/or historical reasons. It is therefore recommended that

quality assurance criteria for courses include a requirement to justify the mode of provision currently

being offered on the basis of effectiveness and efficiency.

Rec 12: Reserve funding for the development of MOOC-inspired e-learning courses

A portion of the budget for HE should be reserved specifically for further development in this area, so

as to encourage institutions to more aggressively explore the field, in particular for their own students.

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Rec 13: Accelerate training of teachers and other support staff in e-learning

The University of Malta already offers a Masters’ programme in Technology Enhanced Learning, which

goes some way to providing the required specialists to run e-learning courses in Malta8. However, to

truly accelerate the adoption of e-learning, the training of specialists will need to be supplemented by:

mainstreaming of digital and open education topics into the B.Ed. curriculum

providing significant continuous professional education courses to current teaching staff to

modernise their e-skills

Ensuring an adequate supply of programmers, camerapersons, graphic designers, instructional

designers and other professions necessary to provide a high-quality digital education

experience

To this end, the eSkills Malta Foundation should produce a specific policy document looking at eSkills

for the Education Sector, and making appropriate recommendations as to how to implement these

priorities.

5.7 Relevant Policy-Recommendation Documents

The European Commission’s High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education published a report to

the Commission on New Modes of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education in October 2014. Many of the

recommendations in this document echo and/or complement observations made in this report. As such, we

consider this an essential report for consultation. It can be accessed from:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/library/ebooks/learning-teaching/index.html

Other documents with relevant policy-recommendations on Open Access include:

UNESCO Policy Guidelines for the development and promotion of open access (2012). Available online

from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002158/215863e.pdf

EC Communication on Opening up Education: Innovative teaching & learning for all through new

technologies and open educational resources (2013). Available online from: http://eur-

lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1389115469384&uri=CELEX:52013DC0654

8 See http://www.um.edu.mt/educ/overview/PMTELPET3-2011-2-O for details of the course

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