 Yes, start the recording and then I Will just give you the brief introduction to the session and thank all our presenters for being here and And then we'll get started. Okay, right. So this is as I said earlier. This is the second of Eden's webinars in as part of open Education Week, which runs all week So today we're going to be talking about open education recognition and credentials and we have a fantastic panel for you today From Knowledge Innovation Center in Malta. We have Anthony Camilleri and Ildeco Mazar then Kiara Carlino from Chinica and then we'll wind up with Pete Hendricks from EAD2U. So we're going to be looking at A range of different issues around this question of open education recognition and credentials We're going to look at the wide European context. We're going to look very concretely at what the Erasmus plus open virtual mobility project is doing on badges and credentials We're going to be looking at the common microcredential framework and linking that as well to work that Many of us are doing in the Echo project, which is the European credit clearing house for opening up education another your Erasmus plus project so European project, which has recently started them, which is looking at this question of Open education recognition and credentials. So if you have questions, you can share them in the chat. We'll try and Respond to you as quickly as possible. We'll take time at the end to pick up any questions that that we might have missed and Hopefully you will find this a very very rich and fruitful session and just Before we go into the first presentation, I'd like to remind you or give you the information if you don't already have it that the 29th Eden annual conference is taking place in Timiswara in Romania in June Their call for contributions is still open So you can have a look at the website there and we hope to see you in Timiswara in June for this For this event but moving back to the question of open education recognition and credentials this morning I think we can get started and I'll hand over to Anthony. Can you do it? So, thank you very much. I'm just going to bring up my Presentation here the secretariat can do that. Okay. So thank you very much Actually, this presentation was prepared by myself and to the commiser but I'll be walking you through it in the interest of saving a little bit of time here and What we really wanted to do was try and frame the discussion of credentialing within the wider context of the discussion on open education as a whole and Starting off with this. It's good to have a definition of what we mean by open education I've chosen one from the JRC report on opening up education and when you look at this definition You find a number of terms such as customizable multiple ways of teaching and learning multiple ways of building and sharing knowledge variety of access routes and All of these parts of the definition of open education tends to lead you to Understand that it's something that's supposed to be made up of different parts which you can combine in different ways and This leads me to discussion around a typical process model for open education and here we have Input factors which are based on open education resources We look at the process factors which are linked to the discussion on open educational practices but Currently our discussion around open education Doesn't really talk about the output factors which are the educational credentials And what I would like to propose to you in the next 15 minutes is that open educational credentials Might be the third missing pillar of our over discussion around open education Now if we're going to talk about the customizability customization requires a System of interoperable building blocks you can think of this as Lego if you want to build something out of different parts you need a kind of standardized framework of parts to do this and Because we talk about this system of interoperable building blocks the discussion around open educational credentials Very quickly lead us to a discussion around micro credentials which you could think of as the building blocks and Micro credentials are something that you could say are a type of education that have four characteristics I'll walk you through being modular stackable portable and digital Let's start with modularity. So modularity means a few things First of all, it means that micro credential needs to be open access You need to be able to take a micro credential on its own and not necessarily only be able to take it as part of a bundle Such as when it's locked up into a degree Secondly The modules need a standardized unit of measure How do you know what a module is if you have no way of describing it or measuring it and typically the that would be a basic of learning outcomes and of workload and or ECTS and For it to be a module it has to be small now There's a lot of discussion on how small it should be but you could say that 15 ECTS equivalence as Maximum size to be able to still call it a micro credential Probably when you've got above that size, it's something else Second part is stackability now this awkward words of stackability is not chosen by accident So there's a difference between combining something such as when you combine a lot of grains of sand into well basically a pile of sand and actually stacking things where you very carefully leave them on top of one another and where the Where the sum is greater than its parts. So when we're talking about stackability We would say that a micro credential is standardized or at least standardized in terms of format it can be combined to create larger credentials and A micro credential cannot be too small again There's arguments on how small is too small, but let's say one ECTS equivalent as the minimum Once you go below that you get the grain of sand scenario where you can combine, but you can't really stack in a meaningful way Third part of this is portability and by portability We mean that you can carry this credential from one institution to another So it means when you can carry it for one institution to one other We're also talking about recognition recognition for the purpose of access to courses or access to institutions and recognition for the purpose of stacking credentials from different institutions into greater holes It also implies that these credentials need to be quality assured because institutions will never accept credentials Quality assured it means that they need to be secured So the envelope you are carrying them in or the medium carry these credentials for one institution to another has to be trusted and They need to be mapped against some kind of framework or harmonized in some kind of way so that you can understand What credentials from different institutions mean The last part of this equation is digital now you probably ask why doesn't microcredential have to be digital and Technically speaking doesn't have to be digital. It's just impractical if it isn't If you imagine that you have a thousand universities Offering 50 courses as microcredentials each that gives you 50,000 microcredentials If you do the math of how many different five credential combinations is possible That's two six two million according to my calculator. I have no idea how many zeros to six billion is The point of this though is that when you're talking about these numbers digital is the only conceivable way to be able to Process this kind of information at scale So it needs to be digital because you can earn it in any mode So you can earn a microcredential in face-to-face learning, but it needs to be awarded digitally It needs to be fat digitally and it needs to be recognized digitally so that the system is able to scale So after we understand What is a microcredential and it's going to open education then the question is what's wrong with digital microcredentials today and The answer is a lot Um Credentials still aren't digital. They don't give you enough information Quite often they don't have any validity on the job market There's a big problem around standardization and a lot of institutions does pay one for every minister and we'll go through these one by one so here's an example of just a Credential and a lot of certificates still look like this you finish a course you get a PDF of some sort or you get which is effectively just the documents you can print They're not true digital credentials in the sense that they contain information within them that can be computer read Furthermore when you look at these there's very limited access to underlying information So I've done a course on introduction to protect management principles and practices Great What have I learned on that to what level have I done this? It says it's a core course on demand specialization. Have I spent six months studying? Have I spent six weeks studying? None of this information is actually embedded within the certificates in all of cases and when this information is not embedded within the certificate It basically means that any employer would have to engage in Archaeology to go find the original course description and understand what the certificate actually means or trust my word for it Third part is that many micro credentials are not really valid as currencies on a job market The simple truth of the matter is that 72% of employers spend less than 50 minutes reviewing an application Which means that if they have to go checking what every micro credential means They're not going to do it. They're just going to skip to the next job application and discount that information You say no problem We can use artificial intelligence to solve this problem We can use human resources systems to pre-scan the applications well actually most Fortune 500 companies do use this kind of software and When you check with employers 62% of employers admits that the software filters out qualified candidates But it doesn't matter because of the efficiency gains they get in processing the applications They're willing to put up with this error If you're the person who have your application filled it out, you probably feel a little bit differently So again, we need better standards to stop this kind of thing happening And when you look at security and verification We usually talk about securing things with digital signatures and so on and so forth If you look at digital signatures though, and you just Google digital signatures and they have nothing against don't you sign? They were just first on my Google search results. You see that you are paying a hundred and twenty dollars Annually for the privilege of a digital signature So this is something that cost me a twenty five cents pen and now you're asking me for a hundred and twenty Dollars annually to get the same service And this is because a lot of the standards and the software and the services behind digital signatures are actually closed source so If you look at the system today, I would argue that of course there are exceptions But at system level our system of credential is currently closed We have a system of closed credentials Which means that the credentials are expensive and time-consumer to acquire. They're hard to use and share a Hinder open education by failing to enable flexible learning pathways They exclude people for employment opportunities and quite often the people excluded are the ones which most needs those Opportunities through features like algorithmic bias and so on and so forth They can be abused by closed-source companies that create that insert themselves as intermediaries to use your credentials and they do not inform policy so That said we have all the pay pieces we need in place to actually create an open credential system today We have a lot of the tools there and a lot of the tools existing only need minor Modification to actually be able to support open credentialing so Within the EU at least through something called the Bologna process We've spent years creating various recognition instruments European Qualifications framework gives you an indication as to levels of qualifications the diploma supplements gives you standardized template to describe your degree the European credit transfer system allows you to describe your Accomplishments in terms of learning outcome and work and the European skills competence Qualifications and occupations database usually called ESCO provides you with a standard terminology and ontology for actually doing this So you look at this and you say okay. We have everything we need for credentials, but the fact is that the EQF is only For formal large qualifications, it doesn't apply for non-formal education and micro credentials The European diploma supplement is a wonderful tool, but again, it's only applied to degrees ECTS there is the concept of workload and of learning outcomes But it's only applied to higher education and ESCO even though it's wonderful isn't actually used by the tools above That said you can see the pieces you need to apply these tools for micro credentials within these tools So our big little idea in a project called OEPAS Was simply enough to create digital standard format for documenting open education and to base it on the principles of ECTS In other words using learning outcomes and using workload and on a standardized template To actually be able to describe micro credentials and to do this We've created something called the learning passport and the learning passport It's simply enough a document that allows you your learning experience to be documented in terms of awarding body Credential awarded holder of credential and evidence and as I said the main parts within this are weight learning outcomes and workload The second part of this is technical standardization and again There is a big global standard I'm sure you've heard of which is open badges and open badges is sold as Technical standards that would allow for this kind of recognition of and standardization of micro credentials Simply enough though at least within Europe Even though it's been around for over a decade open badges has not gained a lot of traction in higher education We could spend an entire webinar arguing why that is But I would summarize it saying higher education in Europe is a very regulated very Documenting system and open badges may be just a little bit too open to Marry well with European regulatory processes To this end within another related project OEPAS and something called micro-AC We started trying to build a wider data model that would Accurately describe micro credentials in terms of the type of data that is required through European transparency instruments The point of this is not really due to every part of this data model right now But the point is just to tell you that this takes concepts such as learning outcomes such as credential types such as grades such as qualification framework levels Includes concepts such as accreditation and all the information that goes into accreditation and applies it down to micro credential levels This micro HE data model has gotten quite a bit of attention and has actually been Developed further and integrated into something called the European framework for digital side credentials and this is the European Commission initiative that will go live across Europe this May and Basically allow all institutions to issue Credentials and micro credentials and w3c verifiable cranes and the idea is that this credential format Will actually be able to capture anything from a certificate of attendance through to modules such as MOOCs through to employer recommendations through to a pranks to certificates and ability experiences of even four degrees all using a standardized data format Based on learning outcomes. So the only difference under this data format Between micro credentials and degrees would effectively be just the level of granularity But it accepts that once you break things down into learning outcomes. It all basically looks the same The learning model for Europa is available online at github. You can see the url over there And just a quick look at what the future interface will look like when these digital credentials go live as of May another part of the problem is This issue I was mentioning about signature and about the signature costing 120 dollars a year and having a whole infrastructure That's based on certain signature providers to secure the credentials Now a lot of people will tell you that blockchain will solve this problem because blockchain produces a system of decentralized trust and You don't need an intermediary to cite the documents But the truth is that blockchain is an extremely extremely young technology We're still figuring out exactly what it can do and how the applications for this might work So within microwave tea, we actually have been experimenting with the model blockchain infrastructure restoring and automatically verifying credentials And what we've actually built is we have built a system on the blockchain That will allow you to issue micro credentials and combine micro credentials into larger let's call macro credentials And register this entire credential lifecycle entirely on the blockchain using something called ERC 71 tokens There's no time to actually walk you through the details of all of this But this will be called pasting the links to all of these initiatives as we go Final part of all of this Is recognition So it's great to have well documented. It's great to have well documented credit secure technology and so on and so forth But none of this is useful if institutions refuse to recognize these micro credentials And again within europe we have a system for Recognizing credits done in another institution, which are called erasmus agreements Which are basically contracts between two institutions saying that if a student studies x credit at your institution I will accept it as if they had studied it at mine Erasmus agreements are wonderful But they only apply to physical mobility and they only apply to physical mobility done in periods of three to six months So they're not really done at micro credentials So again in the third project, which Debra was alluding to called echo We are piloting semi automated agreements for micro credit mobility The idea is to take the general idea of the learning agreement That is done in erasmus and apply this to micro credentials And also to Through something we call a clearinghouse pilot different ways of Partially automating all of this because if you have to sign a contract for every micro credential agreement and do this manually Again, it does not scale So to allow it to scale the idea is to have experiment with ideas such as pre approved lists or pre approved Cooperation agreements covering large numbers of credentials and looking also at other methodologies You put this all together And what we are working towards across this Alphabet soup of different projects different transparency tools different recognition tools Is a future where recognition could be universal automatic and seamless Ideally we want to enable a future where user students can just study whatever you want from wherever you want And not need to worry about how the recognition of this works. You should just be able to know that it will And through this reason I'm hoping that i've convinced you that to make all of this happen Within the open education thing It's important that we do put more emphasis on credentialing and that we set the goal of saying the third pillar of open education is Open educational credentials I'd be happy to answer any questions Thank you very much, Anthony for walking and talking us through that complex environment Obviously, this is from a european perspective And so there was some exchange going on in the chat Just to clarify certain terms We have Time for questions to Anthony in the in the chat now If you want to contribute Examples from outside europe that would be great as well We can collect the the links and share them amongst amongst the group or share them openly thing as we're talking about open education and open recognition so Feel free to to put any questions in the in the charts And any silence right now is not awkward silence It's time to think to reflect to digest Okay, what what I can say while questions and comments are coming in through the chat is that One of the guiding principles behind the echo project the last project that Anthony mentioned is To run a series of open consultations Therefore intermediate results coming from the project will be opened up for public peer review And so again, if people are interested then We can we can let you have the information on that this will be taking place more or less around the the summer But the summer is not that far away. I'm waiting for Okay, so Larissa is the sharing um More an experience in the chart. Thanks for a very comprehensive presentation I agree that digital micro credentials are too open for a highly regulated higher education um, you tried to introduce it in your university um Not ready to take digital credentials seriously. Yes, I think from what Anthony was saying, this is the general perception um UOL which university is that at university of london, okay uh Perhaps I can add something to that. Do you hear me? Okay, okay So I can imagine that universities are reluctant to introduce micro credentials when you talk about mainstream higher education, so the bachelor and master programs bachelor programs And for mainstream students of 18 to 25 years because the programs are not built in this way universities Use some principles for for building their Their curricula and curriculum development is a discipline on its own And micro credentials are not necessarily Pitting into this So when you talk to universities, I think they are happy to introduce the notion micro credentials when they talk about continuing education and also in some countries about master degrees because like in the u.k. For example Master degrees are increasingly online because master students are often many-fold or part-time students There's not a better european countries where it is a full-time study in most for most students So from the moment that you organize our education for students who combine their studies with work, so Older students 25 plus students It can be for a master. It can be for another degree. It can also just be for the micro credential in itself A small piece of study for updating for upscaling and reskilling then micro credentials are very useful for universities and When thinking about continuing education, I think micro credentials are are really very useful for universities and Universities are very much motivated to introduce them in their programs Not so much in their mainstream programs And that's perhaps the program the problem many universities face talking about micro credentials because they It's not the same as just creating a modular structure for your bachelor or for your master programs micro credentials or new qualification And I can imagine that they that they are reluctant for creating new qualification for mainstream students also Because they fear to to face in that case and They'll bring a study progress and study success even in in danger when this is measured against attaining a bachelor degree Thank you very much Pete. Yes, we have that Dominique all with us who's who's raising the the larger issue Which is related to what you've just said About formal education preferring to talk about Courses and and not about skills knowledge and abilities and In in France where I work we've we've we've had this issue where there's a move to Developing courses around blocks of competencies and this is something that the echo project is also looking at developing credentials around blocks of competencies learning outcomes if you like and The philosophy in France is that for a formal bachelor's degree the particular block of competencies Is built up over the three years of the bachelor's course So that seems to be a contradiction with a more modular approach to learning which would fit The continuing education scenario I don't know if Anthony you have anything that you would like to add to this and while Anthony is perhaps Just giving a few concluding remarks I'm going to ask our colleagues at the secretary out to switch the presentation so that we're ready to start with the With Chiara's presentation, which obviously we'll be looking at This notion of competencies as well Anthony any closing remarks from you? so um generally Yeah, so I mean I've answered to this from Dominic from my perspective. I don't actually think Micro credentials to be so revolutionary for most higher education institutions from a content perspective Your average degree is already modular and those modules do correspond to specific skills and learning outcomes Depending on the institution. You may have formally expressed those in the documents to a higher or lower detail But you have them and it's very rare that you will find a university course that would just be max one max two max three max four max five the modules tends to be Related to specific skills I think what is more original about the micro credentialing Is that you take the power of universities to be the sole arbiter of which combinations are allowed and which combinations are not allowed And you widen the market for those combinations from a pre-set List of maybe 100 module from one faculty or one department within one institution To saying you can study the modules from anywhere and combine them from anywhere And for me that is the revolution of the micro credentialing. It's not a content issue It's a university government and administration recognition issue. Okay. Thank you very much Anthony right i'm going to hand over now to Chiara Carlino from chinica which if you don't know is um uh a network of italian universities and um chiara is going to talk us talk to us about the work in the Open virtual mobility project Around digital credentials Thank you debora and hi everybody. Thank you all for being here and for being interested in In this work. Uh, it's been great to have this very high level introduction by by anthony which really opened up our Our view on what we are going to On on the landscape. We are looking at where we talk about digital credentials and higher education um Right now i'm going to tell you about a very specific experience that we are the Carrying on in the open digital mobility erasmus plus project, which is A very hands-on experience compared to the high level presentation that is a high level reflection that is just Carried out. So, uh, let's see how we are trying to implement and activate with real users here students and experiment with the digital credentials open education and virtual mobility The open virtual mobility Erasmus plus project is a strategic partnership and these are some of its main goals. We are trying to to work in order to improve the intake of open virtual mobility To make it more known among the interested users in students teachers universities And we are developing a proper virtual mobility learning hub based on moodle Where virtual mobility skills can be achieved develop to reflect upon Assessed and finally recognized with digital credentials as we will as we will see So, um Starting from competencies the very first thing that that we did in the in the project was identify Which competencies are useful and needed for virtual mobility? What do students and teachers need to be skilled on? to To enjoy properly virtual mobility experiences. This has been done through Group work engaging experts and we actually identified eight different competencies for virtual mobility Each of these has its own Super competencies and what we are currently working on is linking them to the to the main ESCO framework so that we are aligned to to the main european standard The concept here is that for a very specific domain such as that of virtual mobility We found it useful to Draw our own framework and then map it to the main ESCO framework instead of Instead of selecting from from that one if you want to take a look at our competency directory It is it is online. It is being worked on still so you might find Yeah, you can take a look at your life. There is a link down in the in the slide So we uh, I said eight competencies and for each competency identify three levels at which the competency can be developed and mastered So we created eight for three 24 mini MOOCs To help students and teachers reflect on this level on each different level of each different competency Learn more about it and maybe develop the competence and and be a little nice for that What you see here may be a little small Is a screenshot from our virtual mobility hub based on Moodle as I said before Where you can see there are major blocks for each of the eight competency and within each block there is Side the welcome part. There are three different mini MOOCs at the three different different levels so we have As anticipated 34 open badges attached to these 24 mini MOOCs. The mini MOOCs are of course built using open educational resources and a variety of open educational tool which Connects back to the definition that Anthony mentioned of open education. We use videos. We use text We use peer assessment. There are a variety of tools involved Besides the 24 Open badges connected to the specific mini MOOCs. We have one more open badge just for engagement With which we recognize those who have contributed to the development of Of the hub and of the project and of the network that is around it All of these open badges are not hosted directly on Moodle But they are hosted on the Baster platform, which is developed by Chineta and exists independently from the project. We have made this choice in order to Detach also in the eyes of the of the students of the learners, but also of the potential readers of these credentials To touch the credentials from the specific learning experience It's not something that's bound to the learning experience to the MOOC to the Moodle environment. It's Accredential is something that tells something about what The learner has gained the competency that he showed that he developed And this is it should be independent from the specific learning experience So that the reader does not need to go into the details of what program work inside the MOOC, but the digital Credential tries to Translate what the student has learned in his learning experience into what is as what He or she has acquired in terms of this of course with complete transparency relating to How much work that was what kind of experience that was and what kind of assessment it was involved of course if this needs to be Very very clear so that whoever is going to read these credentials can decide how how much trust and how much value He or she wants to attribute to to the credentials she is reading So Oh, what is the difference between a mini MOOC and a regular MOOC? Just Just a side questions is we are addressing Specific competencies and we are addressing learners that might be taking these learning experiences independently, we have tried to keep these MOOCs very small. So I Don't I don't really remember. I can't tell you exactly how many hours Of study they require, but it's written in the in the hub The point is we just try to keep it To keep it short and we prefer the dividing Into three different sub MOOCs instead of having one big MOOC for a specific For a specific field we prefer the dividing it into the three levels so that The learner could also experience Stepping forward a more explicit moving forward The issuing of open badges both the MOOCs the ones connected to the MOOCs and the one that is more the engagement open badge The issuing happens automatically. Thanks to our two-way integration between the Buster platform and the Moodle Bay's hub Of course criteria Upon upon which the automatic issuing is based are different from the mini MOOC's badges and the contributor badge The mini MOOC's badges are issued when the learner has completed all the activities Included in a specific course learning assessment in portfolio if it is required to evaluate required and so on when the learner has completed his or her learning experience then The badges issued the contributor badge is different and asked The learner how he or she contributed to to the project or the hub and then The badge is issued I mentioned this is the the path through which an open badge is Gained from a learner on the hub so you can choose A skill an area a specific sub MOOC at a specific level You choose for example digital and media literacy you go through a pre assessment that is going to Suggest which level you should start from and then you will decide if you are going to start from the foundation intermediate or advanced level and after a new assessment and in some cases also Fear activities and portfolio activities are going to complete the course and then And then get the badge I mentioned before a two-way integration between The Moodle hub and the Buster platform On the top of the slide. You see the first way of the integration the Moodle return mobility hub Moodle based return mobility hub as a specific plugin Which allows an experience API statement to be sent on course completion And it is sent where to a learning record store, which is hosted on better So better knows which learning experiences a learner has passed through And when the learning experiences are complete in this case on upon course completion The platform is going to issue the Related open badges to the learner on the other way around The return mobility hub is also able to read from Buster The open badges that have been issued to the different learners through specific APIs that the Buster platform Exposes this allows the Moodle hub to Express this information in a very handy version for the learner so that the learner can have for example this board where I can see lighten up the The badges that I already own And grade up The badges that I still don't own with the link to the course that is going to allow me to have that specific badge This is one more way that we provide to students to get the learning experience that they want or or need Not only the by by browsing the Tree of the available move Well, thank you Deborah for sharing the the link to this return mobility hub So, uh, how we're going so far. We have issued over a thousand and two hundred open badges for the project We had and this is actually account Made there at the end of november if I remember correctly We had over six hundred users visiting the open return mobility badges on Buster This is relevant and different because The thousand and more issued open badges for sure impact the learner Who received these badges The six hundred users who are visiting the open beyond badges on Buster are separate users and are not necessarily old students They might be readers other students teachers other people who have for some reason been interested in watching and Reading the digital credential issues This is We are also carrying on surveys for the peer assurance survey to the students to understand how they like This experience of being issued open badges and how useful they they found they were One last thing we are going to experiment in the last month of the project is issuing only two advanced level students for advanced level sub MOOCs also a block search format for This for the digital credentials. So not only open badges, but also the block search that's for an experiment to see How they are received and how they might work for for the students Of course, we are encouraging students to do something with the badges as they gain Social networks we spray them in the portfolio. Also, there is a Mahara Use stands included in the open DM hub. So they are included to To add the open badges there They can add it to the LinkedIn profile. They can add it to the original resume and you know, all things that they can usually be done with With an open badge and we hope that the fact that they are hosted on a separate and independent platform Is useful mostly for the readers who is Definitely to go into a A mooder instance to see what the student is showing that what competence the students is showing Here is an example of open DM open badges and badges on LinkedIn or on Mahara And that's basically it. This is the partnership working on the open with the mobility Project Thank you for listening until now available for any question Thank you very much Chiara. I think it's very useful um, yes, and uh, pharynx has uh the question that I was um Wondering myself, which is how do you see the relation of open badges and digital? micro credentials Oh, well, open badges can be a tool to to make to do to do micro credentialing uh, I think very often the discussion on um, digital credentialing micro credentials He is on one hand learning things on the other hand Get a bit confused by mixing purposes and And tools so open badges are a technical tool to express something to to describe a competence to To recognize a competence to a learner to express the criteria upon which this resolution has happened um Just a tool no more no less than a pdf for example this specific Teachers that a pdf maybe doesn't have which have reliability machine readability the possibility to have a specific metadata And so on so micro credentialing meaning for this the practice of releasing the micro small pieces of recognition in order for the to allow the students to be the bigger piece of Of recognition by stacking them. This is a practice that can be enabled Using open badges. It can also be enabled using other kinds of digital credentialing It's a matter of understanding with specific features we need To enable this kind of of ecosystem I don't know if I That's your it was that um Unsatisfactory phrase. I'd like to come back to um, uh, the question from Beatrice earlier What is the workload for every mini MOOC? Can you get any ects combining several of the mini MOOCs? You said that the workload was not the priority that it was More developing the the competence was that was the priority But I think this is also one of the issues that we have with ects is that for the moment they are expressed in terms of workload Sorry, I probably express myself Incorrectly There is a known workload for for each mini MOOC. I just don't remember how much it is At this moment, but if you go to the to the hub, you can see how much work is expected for each For each mini MOOC as for getting ects. That Is not something that A moodle-based hub can do is something that a university can do So each university can decide if they're going to recognize ects credits for the work done and demonstrated on the hub and I know that some of the partners of the project are actually doing that because they're incorporating the MOOCs into the actual programs and Connecting the work done by students on the hub with Okay, thanks. Thanks for that Chiara. Yeah, and to make the link with what Anthony said earlier as well about the echo project The echo project is actually going to be looking at the open VM mini MOOCs To see the extent to which they align with the requirements for the digital credentials that echo is working on And so we're hoping to do that. I say we because I'm involved in open VM and in and in echo hoping to To get the feedback from that into open VM before the project finishes. So it's a bit of a race Because echo has just started and open VM is coming Towards the towards the end With about six months left to run I think but hopefully there'll be that interaction between the two Projects so that will also help answer Beatrice's question about The actual recognition level of these but I think if I understand correctly the philosophy behind open virtual mobility The competencies is that they are support competencies to support and and faster Open virtual mobility, but they could very well be recognized by institutions As as part of a wider qualification or in recognizing that competency in itself Okay, thank you very much for that. So, um, Beatrice is going to have a closer look at the hub and I think There is time for any more questions coming in through the chart if people have them or comments And otherwise, I'll ask the colleagues in the secretary up to switch to our third and final presentation from Keith Hendricks from EAD to you the European Distance Education This is teaching universities. Yeah, European Association of Distance Teaching Universities. There we go. I've got it Okay Indeed Indeed, thank you. Thank you Thank you. There we go so I speak not only on behalf of EADU, but also The European MOOC Association we created and I say something about it Because we are working on on on several sites for developing micro-contentions Uh for formal education only that's our scope for the moment We don't speak about non-formal and not about informal education Uh and in the sphere of Continual education. So our focus In this work was on uh adult students uh, let's say 25 plus uh years old students and Need to change so also the European MOOC Association and Yeah Perhaps for those who don't know EADU is is an organization of the European Open universities and Some 200 traditional universities, which are a member of our national associations that organize distance education for adult students mainly So that's that's our EADU association and now the the European MOOC consortium is consisting of the Uh big platforms uh in Europe at this moment Others can come in when they are there. There are not so many platforms MOOC platforms in Europe That's a future learn future learners owned by the British European University Uh, and now also co-owned by an australian. It's perhaps important to say And an australian organization. We just called seek and it's focusing on the labor market in Many countries in southeast asia Then the second organization is france university numeric. It's uh belonging to the french ministry of education higher education as an agency Mariada x is uh From is spanish and It's organized by telephonica, which is Semi public semi private like company for telecommunication EADU open is an association of 20 now about 30 now 30 italian universities And the root platform For these universities organizing MOOCs in most cases in italian and open awareness is is a portal which from the beginning of the MOOCs movement movement was organized by EDU EDU EDU itself and so what I will present today is work which uh originated which is developed In in the european MOOC consortium But the idea the idea of creating micro credentials Was not only coming from the MOOC consortium. It was also coming from Our membership in the european association of distance teaching universities Because most of the programs organized in our association on degree programs bachelor and master degrees And of course the time horizon of students who are at work It's much shorter than Yeah, six years when you do really a bachelor you do perhaps a part-time studies That means twice three years for a bachelor six years Uh, yeah, or a little bit less perhaps, but not very much less And so from many students, this is really a time horizon, which is too wide too far And therefore the idea emerged as well In the EDU to organize short learning programs that will deliver as well Micro credentials And yeah So, uh, yeah the aim of EMC, I don't go far into it, but of course it's also uh Having an impact really On educational policy and also on the employability of learners in europe or worldwide And they come to the european MOOC consortium increase the credibility and visibility of MOOC platforms for achieving this Yeah, I should not explain this very much, but Yeah, you have you have a degree, but it's not like in a form of times that when you have a degree that you don't need any more upskilling and reskilling For your competencies That's now very much needed also because of longer and And and rapidly changing careers Uh, that's another example for this, but what we have also observed, uh, just a couple of years ago It was not difficult to observe it was published by by open classroom, I believe You see, uh, a lot of micro credentials for delivered for water for MOOCs with different names, nano degrees Micro masters and so on So by different American MOOC platforms mainly And all these degrees they were very All these micro credentials were very diverse in terms of The time you need to to achieve these micro credentials and the workload effort and also the qualification levels, so Really, there is no there was not any consistency in in these micro credentials delivered nowadays by MOOC platforms so far mainly American MOOC platforms So therefore We thought it's really very much needed to develop a kind of European common micro potential framework for MOOCs or MOOC based programs, but also at the same time for the short learning programs. I mentioned Which are organized by the open universities and the distance teaching universities traditional universities that organized shorter programs And so what we did it actually is to develop a common micro credentials framework Which is different, of course, uh from micro credentials or certificates delivered from companies or the private sector or what we deliver is university based university micro credentials And there are some requirements, strong requirements for these micro credentials The first one is that it is about accredited courses Accredited is perhaps in the framework of another program, but the courses should be accredited or at least the university should be accredited institutionally There should be a rigorous Regal is the Regal is assessment Regal is assessment. There should be They should be also standardized. There should be transferable stackable all these notions you have heard already from former speakers and They they should form this is a bad way into other Qualifications it can be a bachelor. It can be a master as well, but we have always Had the scope of continuing education only And I can explain further why but I continue now first this presentation And we see also in other countries Other countries qualifications And emerging Not just in New Zealand also in Canada and in other parts of the world. I don't also about Australia So that's that's just also a trend and always in this same sphere of Continue education as part of higher education systems So, um What was the ambition of the european book consortium with these micro credentials? Yeah We wanted to have a shared definition of a microcredential a shared definition of a microcredential As a new qualification a microcredential for us is a new qualification To address the needs of employers and learners looking for smaller units of study And that develop relevant Competencies, I would say now skills competences. You see languages or something sometimes different But competences competence is the most appropriate awarding I think And enable also causes to be recognized towards formal qualifications bachelor masters eventually Enable causes to be stackable across different higher education systems when Europe and and beyond And so when we have developed this we hoped also to see this framework used more widely by european universities And agencies to facilitate collaborations So this was the ambition and then We have developed something very concrete I think So promise the new qualification we offer and you can also see that Some websites I have I have a link in this in this presentation later on So The total workload for this qualification is Between 100 hours and no more than 150 hours that means And that's based on on research actually in in our membership So adult students If they are really studying intensively You don't you can't request much more than eight hours study a week. And so It's really substantial when a student takes 100 to 150 hours That means 15 weeks or 20 weeks. So that's quite Something and I think on this basis on this basis you deserve really this new qualification which will then be Between four and six ects and ects points will be indeed Attached to such a micro potential To this new qualification And also we make a link we make the link really With with the competences as defined In the european qualification framework. So it should be higher education level That's what we wanted to say that we need also the european qualification Framework to indicate what really the level is. Is it the bachelor bachelor level course? Is it the master level course or is it even a third? A cycle level course. So that must be very clear because in in many current Micro credentials and certificates and all kinds of awards Given by universities. You don't know what you what you get as an employer And also you don't know what you get as an as a university when you have to get access or admission Or for some students to A master degree programs or a doctor either There must be Really a summative assessment And that enables the award of ects an academic credit um And of course, uh, but the assessment is really Key if there is no real Real good summative assessment Acceptable assessment valid assessment reliable assessment. Then of course surge qualification has not any value if there is no Really Assessment then you can better stop with issue micro credentials in a formal education context And so this is really a very important Or at least you should make sure and that's referring to some Her educational system like in in Finland. For example, you have to make sure That all the data are there Uh to recognize the microcredential in the framework of recognition of prior learning When the student would enroll on a further course at the university And uh, connected with this assessment. Yeah, they should also Demonstrate which ID ID specifically in case of online courses and MOOCs or online Which reliable method of ID verification is used at the point of assessment. So that's really These are strong requirements and the last one the last but not least I would I would say Is that it also provides a transcript for the Learning outcomes or the competences for the MOOC in terms of total study hours required the competence levels EQF level and the number of credits fillet points earned And in the european context, uh, yeah There are some differences. So is we have talked here still about learning outcomes. We know that also Some universities are starting to use The escrow system competence based Well, um, we see that in many universities They combine what they speak about learning outcomes and then when defining their learning outcomes, they define also the The competence is certainly when it is is in terms of Uh description of MOOCs And then my last slide I think yeah Yeah Yeah, other design parameters for micro credentials under the common micro micro credential framework So you can imagine that when you have a course Of a program a MOOC based program of 150 hours There are it consists of More than one MOOC. There are more MOOCs, but it should be organized in such a way that it's really affordable for students manageable for students around their busy lives um And also yeah because of this public of Of this audience of working students to students that work We emphasize that Yeah, that there should be a balance between theory and and practice um, yeah Although we must be sure that ects points can be a wallet. So primarily these are academic programs academic MOOCs That's relevant for the workplace That's very much connected with the other aim of the european MOOC consortium to be indeed relevant for the workplace relevant for for working People work relevant For the for the economy, which might be a little bit different when you when you would organize a bachelor's degree or a master's degree at Romain stream students um Yeah Next steps extending practices with this common microcredential framework with this definition of a microcredential in the european MOOC platforms and you can see that already in In future lab and future future lab programs, but also the other MOOC platforms are now Introducing these qualification disqualification at the core microcredential framework For their microcredential programs for their MOOC based programs And at the other end within the edu we are now discussing the how to implement the common microcredential framework in short learning programs short learning programs to learning programs which are less than a bachelor Well, but stackable to a bachelor as well How how they can be introduced in these short learning programs? And then of course, uh, we are in a continuous dialogue on the future of microcredentials at the policy level to further Our ambitions as you see, that's that's it. I think as you see It's uh, it's it the scope is really uh an academic scope formal learning and Yeah, we were focusing on on continuing education and Out of experience and I repeat this and that we can have Once a very nice discussion about this. It's I think easier To introduce the notion of microcredential framework in the lifelong learning framework Then in mainstream educational programs Because they mentioned that you and that that's the problem actually when you deliver every time a microcredential after each unit study Consisting of the development of sub-competences Yeah, students might be content with Two or three microcredentials then leave or stop studies and so on What we see is rather that universities and also policymakers are very much concerned about Really a regular study progress and study success So that most of the students after three years, I speak about mainstream students Um Get their bachelor Which is in many countries not the case at this moment and this is really a problem in terms of economical loss for the student So the loss of one year study for a student Means for the student individual cost about 50 000 euros and you should calculate this from a microeconomic point of view also at cost for the for the university and also a general cost For society and that's only the cost aspect. And so that's why I think for the moment universities will A little will be very much reluctant to deliver other qualifications then First degrees which are bachelor degrees or second degrees which are master degrees But that's a point we have a discussion we can have so Thank you very much And if you have questions, I am listening. Thank you very much Pete for that very nice and easy to understand example of what the European consortium is doing and then for taking us up to this wider question of Whether or not universities will be whether it's in that interest to develop micro credentials, whether they will have to react And We have a provocative question here or a question in the chat from Anthony one of our other co-presenters If you'd like to have a look at it and then See how we can take this forward Yeah, it's I think the European MOOC platform Is is is working only with established Accredited universities. So at this moment In total the MOOC consortium is working with more than 400 European universities More than 3,000 MOOCs already and 16 million Learners. So there's a situation that is at this moment um, it It's not an exclusive qualification Exclusive qualification is for example, but Micro masters are for edicts in the u.s. That's exclusive. You can't organize A micro master outside of edicts when you are not Allowing to that network of The edicts. So that's what we aim at now we I think The micro potential the micro financial framework to go on my computer is open to any accredited european university But without the other hand you have seen the requirements Should there are some requirements Which will be safeguarded and at this moment there is not yet an organization for organizing this and at this moment this Micro credentials in the 21 micro credential framework are only delivered by the MOOC platforms Yeah, but we are in in a way to to We are under way to To License this or to to take a license on this european license and so the the logo of european Actually the common micro financial framework will be Really protected and It's true We have to to to To ensure the quality of this qualification And universities that want to issue want to award in the future This micro credential this but this micro credential. They have to go build some conditions and the conditions are or Yeah, they are strict requirements and that they are not Nothing more than what I have presented today. So they are logical conditions In the framework of formal higher education Informal higher higher education and formal degree education as well. So it should I think this micro credential framework should be should be able To be integrated in The degree structure of the millennium process That's that's the aim And then you then you need then you need to To meet some Okay, thank you for that. I just wanted to say we can hear your colleagues around you, but we did also get to your Your argument there. Anthony. Is there any reaction that you you have to that? There was a question coming in and then I think our participant Decided perhaps not to share it But I'll hand over to you Anthony we said do you want to react to what people are doing? No, no particular reaction. I mean, I do wonder five to ten years down the line What's our definition of an accredited university is going to look like if micro credentials grow significantly? Okay, I come from a very very small member state, which is MOLTA and we're already accrediting Accrediting higher education institutions that basically only offer one or two modules of And that is let's say already possible under the legislation in my home country and I think we might see that growing Just while discussing one of the things I wonder as well is if micro credentials Will have an effect on the hybridization of vocational versus higher education So especially when you're looking at the level six and level seven Education and the fact that that's very linked to the workplace. I think that let's say It will become harder and harder to distinguish the difference between the vocational and the higher Education module when you actually break it down to the micro credential Um, and I think in policy discussions when we start looking at things and say listen Should we use ECTS which by the way, I strongly strongly support I think there'll be some interesting discussions to have around this vocational higher Yeah, that that my answer to this is that when vocational Training is delivering delivering awards qualification vocational qualification without ects because they are not able to deliver ects points Then still they they can be and they are I think in many universities in Europe Recognized via the procedure of higher learning So it's it's really it's it's it's already possible. And then, um, yeah Of course in other countries like in belgium, I am as you know, I am from belgium Um In our legislation is perfectly possible to organize micro credential programs also for mainstream students, but I don't see universities doing this so actually universities can make any program because Students can be registered even at the course level. So that makes it possible and and and Uh, even universities are funded for each course delivered. So in principle, it's possible But I think they are very reluctant because they just for the reasons I told you Um, perhaps they they would adopt a modular structure, but always Uh, bringing your students Uh, to a bachelor's degree in three years time or to a master's degree in two years time And that's the big that's at the moment the the big challenge in our universities and in our inflammation universities, for example, which Have a very very flexible system From the From the the legal point of view. So everything is possible But you see that they are reluctant to do so if it is not in the sphere Okay, thank you very much for that. Um, I think yes, this encourages us to Keep up to date keep ahead of the game as much as we can looking for these links and looking for the implications at a wider economic and societal level of Of what my credentials actually mean and how they how they will impact things I could discuss this topic for hours and hours I have questions about assessment and so on but We are coming to towards the end of the webinar and I do have to leave At half past one immediately because then I have to rush off to get a train So if Participants have questions then feel free to Put them in the chat. I would like to thank our three speakers and Ildico in the background for Sharing these very different perspectives on what's going on in europe As we have Participants from outside europe It would be very very interesting to develop these conversations further as pete mentioned There's a lot going on in new zealand in australia in canada And we'd love to hear from other parts of the world as well. So Um What I can I can see banks coming in informative What I can ask the secretariat to do is maybe to collect All the links that we've Shared in the chart and maybe share a document with people who've Participated I'd also like to let you know that we have two Events on tomorrow I'm going to put these in the Chart or the secretary has already done it. We are so we have two events tomorrow Um, we have open education technologies At one o'clock ct and we also have open education for civic engagement and democracy So what we're doing with this webinar series is really Taking a whole lot of different angles on open education within the framework of open education week And then finally Just to repeat the invitation to you all to come and join us at the eden annual conference into mesvara in june Thank you very much everybody Bye. Bye. Have a lovely afternoon or morning or evening wherever you are in the world Yeah, okay, so you've got the links