This document discusses the need for competency-based higher education to better support open educational resources (OER) and massive open online courses (MOOCs). It summarizes recommendations from the POERUP project for improving assessment, accreditation, and quality assurance of online and OER-based learning. Key recommendations include having universities improve processes for accrediting prior learning from online studies and OER, creating open accreditors to accredit qualifications leading to degrees, and transitioning the European Bologna Process from a time-based to a competence-based model.

1. OER and MOOCs need competency-
based higher education
Paul Bacsich, Sero and Matic Media
Margaret Korosec, University of Hull
26 September 2013
Microlearning 7.0 Göttweig Austria
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2. POERUP and its partners autumn 2013
1. Sero (coordinator)
2. University of Leicester
3. Open University
of the Netherlands
4. University of Lorraine
5. EDEN
6. Athabasca University
(Canada)
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3. Focus of POERUP
• Stimulating the uptake of OER through policy
• Building on previous initiatives
• Through country reports: 27 by POERUP and about the
same number by others (UNESCO Mosocw, OER Asia, etc)
• And case studies, evaluating successful OER communities:
– OER u, Futurelearn (MOOCs), ALISON, Wikiwijs, BC Campus,…
• Linked other EU and non-EU initiatives
• And to research on competences, retention, accreditation
• Underpinned by research on costs/time in online learning
• Microlearning 5.0 paper, UNESCO IITE, Open Education 2030 HE
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4. OER policies we distilled
• COL: Survey on Governments’ Open
Educational Resources (OER) Policies
• 40 country reports done by POERUP and sister
projects (OER Asia, UNESCO Moscow etc)
• OER Policy Registry on CC Wiki
• Most important, many EU policies impinge on
OER but are broader than OER
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5. EU policy example
• “Recognition/validation of non-formal learning
by 2018:
• have knowledge, skills, competences... acquired through
non-formal/informal learning validated including through
OER;
• obtain a full qualification, or part qualification, on the
basis of validated non-formal and informal learning
experiences”
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6. POERUP policy recommendations
On assessment and accreditation
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7. Assessment and accreditation of modules
• Universities should improve and proceduralise their
activity on APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning)
including the ability to accredit knowledge and
competences developed through online study and
informal learning, including but not restricted to OER
and MOOCs, with a focus on admitting students with
such accredited studies to the universities’ own
further courses of study.
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8. Assessment and accreditation of modules (continued)
• Larger member states should each set up an Open
Accreditor to accredit a range of studies which could
lead to an undergraduate degree. In the first instance
the Accreditor should focus on qualifications in the
ISCED 5B area as this is most correlated with high-
level skills for business and industry.
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9. Accreditation of institutions – new accrediting bodies
and mutual recognition
• Foster the development of transnational
accrediting agencies and mutual recognition
of accreditations across the EU
• Reduce the regulatory barriers against new
kinds of HE providers (e.g. for-profit, from
outside the country, consortial, etc)
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10. Quality agencies and the competences model
Quality agencies (in ENQA) should:
• Develop their understanding of new modes of learning (including
online, distance, OER and MOOCs) and how they impact quality assurance
and recognition;
• Engage in debates on copyright;
• Consider the effects of these new modes on quality assurance and
recognition;
• Ensure that there is no implicit non-evidence-based bias against these new
modes when accrediting institutions (if relevant), accrediting programmes (if
relevant) and assessing/inspecting institutions/programmes.
Bologna-bis: competence-based not time-based assessment
• Reduce the regulatory barriers against new time durations of provision: by
developing a successor to Bologna (the tariff system for European higher
education) based primarily on competences gained not duration of study.
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11. The Bologna Process
And its concepts
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12. European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System
• “Course descriptions contain
– ‘learning outcomes’ (i.e. what students are expected
to know, understand and be able to do)
– workload (i.e. the time students typically need to
achieve these outcomes).
• Each learning outcome is in terms of credits
– one credit approx corresponds to 25-30 hours of
study”
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13. Factors tending to cause change in Bologna
• Strong
– Impact of OER and MOOCs
– Desire to accredit workplace & vocational training
– Lack of easy credit transfer between universities
• Weak (thus far)
– European directives and proposals which (implicitly) require
change, especially Opening Up Education
– Lack of compatibility of degrees world-wide
– Large quantum of credit, and of indeterminate size
– Different exit competences from the school system
– National inconsistencies in the process especially the time
measures and the realities of student study times
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14. Factors tending to resist change in Bologna
• EU politics (compare EQF for vocational)
• EHEA is now not under full control of EU
• Bologna has hardly settled down yet – all
kinds of minor niggles, national derogations
and lack of transfer even within countries and
higher education (sub)sectors
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15. Bologna-bis
Key features
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16. Bologna-bis: normalisation
• PhD  iPhD: output competences normalised
across G-20 including key lists of journals
• MSc  iMSc: output competences linked to what
international employers want for their
professional elite
• (later) undergraduate degrees, normalised in a
specific subject order (mathematics and medicine
early, history late)
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17. ECTS units
• ECTS: credits replaced by centicredits:
– 1 cct = competences gained from studying a bite-
sized chunk (6 minutes, 1 deci-hour), reflecting on
it, and being assessed on it (via mobile device?)
– 100 cct = 1 ECTS point
– Thus tailor-made for microlearning
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18. Competences
• Groups of learning outcomes
• But assessable: UK QAA guide (A6) mandates:
• Higher education providers ensure the assessment of students is
robust, valid and reliable and that the award of qualifications and
credit are based on the achievement of the intended learning
outcomes.
• In other words, just take learning outcomes seriously
• And correlate to employment needs (but not only to
these)
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19. Notional learning hours – will fade
• Initially an iMSc will tend to use “notional
learning hours” (the expected study time of a
typical student with the relevant prerequisites
in an un-automated environment) but
gradually these will fade away
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20. Assessment issues
• Assessment need not be final exams or mid-course essays
• Wide variety of assessment interventions should be used
– Automated assessment
– Peer assessment
– Dissertations, projects, portfolios, monitored practical work
• Only requirement is that there is a correlation between
what the assessment demonstrates and the competences
• A range of assessment types can help to establish that and
also provide better instruction
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21. It’s happening now – but quietly
“However, the School does regard its 12-month
Master degrees as being equivalent to 90 ECTS
credits and 9/10-month postgraduate degrees
[Diploma or MSc] as being equivalent to
approximately 80 ECTS credits. This assumption is
based on the learning outcomes achieved by
successful candidates and on the notional learning
times required to achieve them”
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22. Examples to ponder – hypothetical but a
similar one now under development
There will be a workshop on
Bologna-bis later in 2013
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23. Jasig (Apereo)/Oracle iMSc Computer Science
• Around 10000 cct
• iMSc likely to be “more studying” than a UK
MSc, less study than some continental ones:
tempting to take the US model as the median
• Tailor-made for MOOCs and can leverage on
much existing OER
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24. EFN euBSc Nursing
• 20000 cct
• Syllabus is to be EU-wide with an opt-out percentage of national material (10%)
• Competences will include more focus on practical skills and emotional intelligence than found
in “some nursing degrees in some countries”
• European nursing degrees already exist (but not competence-based):
– The European Nursing degree (BSc Honours) is a qualification that leads to professional
status as a Registered Nurse. Taught in UK - and for a year at a partner institution in
Malta, Finland, Italy or Denmark - this course is designed to give you the skills needed to
work in a modern health service.
– You will develop clinical and other skills that will enable you to work alongside other
healthcare professionals to provide seamless care.
– The European Nursing Degree route provides the opportunity to gain greater
understanding of pan European health problems, particularly related to deployment of
health personnel and trends in health and social care.
• The various Nursing Associations (EFN, RCN in UK, etc) can leverage on their substantial
recent work on mutual recognition of professional qualifications across Europe
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25. ISTE/iNACOL/EDEN iPgD: Postgraduate Diploma in
online teaching
• This is like a Masters without the final dissertation, but with
a substantial ePortfolio
• 7500 cct
• From the T3 project on, there has been significant
agreement (documented e.g. by VISCED) across a range of US
and EU projects on the syllabus for such a course:
– ISTE NETS*T
– iNACOL National Standards for Quality Online Teaching
• And several courses offer enrolment to all levels of teacher
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26. Further information
http://www.poerup.info/ - and
1. A liberal arts/science Competence-Duration
model for universities within an Open
Qualifications Alliance international
framework, Open Education 2030, on Scribd
2. The cost- and time-effectiveness of online
learning: providing a perspective on
Microlearning and the differences between
academic and corporate views,
Microlearning 5.0, on Scribd
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