The European MOOC Consortium (EMC) Communiqué and recommendations from the European MOOC Consortium (EMC) 7 November 2017 MOOCs are here to stay MOOCs are freely accessible courses that educate many in a flexible way, that meet the needs of today’s learners for an increasingly complex world. Investments in and the uptake of MOOCs are increasing significantly worldwide. Class Central1 reported that in 2016, 58 million students registered to over 6,850 courses developed by over 700 universities. In the past three month alone2, more than 200 universities have announced 560 such free online courses3. EMC partners recognise that MOOCs are here to stay and that they are becoming an increasingly important part of our educational system, such that a considerable amount of people consider MOOCs as a serious option in their (continuous) education.

1. Integrating MOOCs into the Bologna process
24-11-2017
Communiqué and recommendations from the European MOOC Consortium (EMC) 7 November 2017
MOOCs are here to stay
MOOCs are freely accessible courses that educate many in a flexible way, that meet the needs of
today’s learners for an increasingly complex world. Investments in and the uptake of MOOCs are
increasing significantly worldwide. Class Central1
reported that in 2016, 58 million students
registered to over 6,850 courses developed by over 700 universities. In the past three month alone2
,
more than 200 universities have announced 560 such free online courses3
. EMC partners recognise
that MOOCs are here to stay and that they are becoming an increasingly important part of our
educational system, such that a considerable amount of people consider MOOCs as a serious option
in their (continuous) education.
MOOCs have an increasing impact on European higher education system
Several independent European studies4
conclude that European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
are strongly involved in MOOCs (>40%) and are using MOOCs to innovate their education offering to
flexible learning opportunities next to increase their institutional visibility. MOOC’s main competitive
advantage is their ability and just-in-time training capacity to cater to employee’s immediate needs,
in fast changing industries such as computer forensics or data visualisation5
. It is expected that
MOOCs will have an impact on the further development of formal higher education and continuous
professional development (CPD), as well as in initiatives to open up education and will change the
higher education landscape6
.
1
https://www.class-central.com/report/mooc-stats-2016/
2
https://medium.freecodecamp.org/200-universities-just-launched-560-free-online-courses-heres-the-full-list-
d9dd13600b04
3
Note that these figures exclude the MOOCs of many European HEIs as they offer their MOOCs at their
institutional platforms or at regional/national platforms.
4
See for example JRC-IPTS survey 2015 and EADTU-MOONLITE survey 2016
5
Calonge, D. S. and Shah, M. A. (2016) MOOCs, Graduate Skills Gaps and Employability: A Qualitative
Systematic Review of the Literature IRRODL, Volume 17, Number 5
6
The changing pedagogical landscape. Retrieved from
http://www.changingpedagogicallandscapes.eu/publications/

2. Need for embedding MOOCs in the Bologna process
MOOCs and open education provisions in a lifelong learning perspective should be part of higher
education, next to degree education and continuing education provisions. Therefore, they should be
subject to governmental and institutional policies.
At the moment, the potential of MOOCs is not fully being realised, due to a lack of uniform
arrangements for the recognition and quality assessment of MOOCs. In this respect, it is essential to
develop a framework for the recognition of micro-credentials and of (formal) MOOC-credits
facilitating their integration in courses and degree programmes and to work towards the adoption of
such framework by stakeholders across Europe.
A pro-active dialogue between institutions, quality assurance agencies and governments is required
on how MOOCs and flexible online programmes can be responsive to immediate needs and at the
same time should comply to the Bologna process and the European Qualification Framework.
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About European MOOC Consortium (EMC)
The European MOOC Consortium represents organisations taking a lead in MOOCs in Europe. It is
working to increase awareness and uptake of MOOCs in the European context. The founding
partners (FutureLearn, France Université Numérique, OpenupEd, Miríada X and EduOpen) represent
most of the MOOC development work in Europe in terms of learners and number of MOOCs, by
offering together almost a 1000 MOOCs. Together, they represent a large network of 250 higher
education institutions (HEIs) and companies working in a variety of European languages, including
English, French, Spanish and Italian.
EMC will strengthen the credibility of MOOCs as a learning approach in higher education by taking a
leading role in developing the discourse relating to MOOCs and other innovative developments in
online learning in Europe. More detailed description of mission and goals of EMC is available here.