 My name is Tracy Davis. I'm an online learning developer. Bea, my colleague is with us today and she's also an online learning developer. And Jana is in our marketing team. So she is also with us today. So all three of us will be taking you through the presentation and we'll aim to answer as many questions as possible at the end. So we look at the about us, we look at some frequently asked questions that we do get on our support networks, on our courses, wherever they come through from learners and from people across the world. And then we'll have the live Q&A, like I said. And I will now hand over to Jana. Yes, thank you very much. So I'll start off, hello everybody again. This is Jana, I'm with the Office of Communications. So you might have heard of me before. You might have received my emails and that's how you found this webinar as well. And I'm going to start with a little introduction of what online learning that you definitely looks like. And I'm gonna walk you through our brief history. So just to let you know, online learning that you dealt has been there for quite some time. We actually started in 2013. So we've been on the market, educational market for almost a decade. And we've been a recognized user in this market. We've developed many, many courses. We are now, we now stand at 211 online courses out of which we have 130 massive open online courses on edX platform, which you might have come across. We also have 57 professional educational courses, 24 online academic courses, one micromaster and 25 different programs, which is a combination of a cluster courses similar to each other in a similar field. So up to date, we have over 3.3 million registered users on our two platforms where we work. One of them is edX, one of them is our own platform, online education platform. And of course, this is counting as we speak, more and more users daily come to join the networks and our courses. We developed the courses with the mission to educate the word for better really. So we want to equip people with skills and knowledge that will help solve today's challenges. In that sense, we also want to support them in their career paths and allow them to grow. And we do that together with over 240 academic experts that help us, who help us develop those courses. And we work with lecturers, professors that work on the research in a particular field and then help us put that for you into the online academic course format. We've been recognized in the online education field as well. And the proof of that is probably all the awards that we've got. We currently have 32 different awards in open and online education, which we're very proud of. So yeah, we hope to continue to journey with you too. Our courses are around seven most important portfolio themes and these are energy transition, sustainable cities, future of transportation, quantum computing. We also have courses in medical technology, skills for engineers or AI data and digitalization. So if any of those sectors interest you, check out our website for more courses in one of those. Right, thank you, Jana. So we are a multinational team for a multinational audience. I am from South Africa, Bea is from Spain and Jana is from Poland. So please let us know in the chat where you are from and where you are dining from today. Italy, good morning. Yeah, from Colombia and living in Australia, nice. Hola, hello. And from the Netherlands of course, and from India. Good morning. Fantastic. Alabama, USA. Early morning there. Welcome, Frida. Thank you for joining us. Fantastic, guys. Great, thank you everyone. I'm going to hand over to Bea. Thank you. So, okay. What the situation is pretty much on a daily basis, we receive questions from many potential learners around the world. So what we did in order to prepare for this webinar is have a look at what are the five most frequently asked questions. And so we're going to cover those questions first, get those out of the way. And then pretty much is when we're going to open the floor to see if you need clarification on anything we have mentioned or if you have any other new questions. So what is all this about? What is online learning about? How do, what is the take of, how do we talk about online learning at the tail delt? And for us, we like to talk about three main pillars which is the three that you have there. The first one, the first one is about flexibility. And what this means is when you register for a course, you will have 24 seven access to the course materials. So this means that you will not be tied to a schedule, but you will choose when you want to study and where you want to study. And we also have this idea, we can extend this idea of flexibility when we're talking about the content. So what you want to study because we have a big portfolio, as Joanna mentioned a little while ago. So you have that freedom also to choose the course of the program that actually fits your needs, whatever it is that you're looking for. Expert knowledge, Joanna also touched upon this briefly. When we create a course, we work together with staff at the university who have the expert, the pedagogical skills, but they're also leaders in research in their own fields. There is that connection because they result is a technical university. We have that direct connection with industry. And that is what we bring to our courses as well. We aim always that whatever you learned with us is something that you can apply directly into your own work and either in the workplace or for your career. And that third pillar, that idea of collaboration is that you will never be studying in isolation. So we have a wide audience in terms of, as you can see the people that are here today, but it is true that our course participants come from pretty much the four corners of the world. And what we do through our courses is promote that dialogue, that conversation, not necessarily only with the course instructors, but with all the course participants. So in a way, you get the opportunity to extend your networks, extend your contacts. The people who are taking the course with you are people who have very similar interests, which means that yes, you will be working with them for the duration of the course, but you have the opportunity to actually continue with those conversations, those contacts well after the course is finished as well. And the question we ask is what type of courses do you do? And we mainly work with two different types of courses. On the one side, you've got massive open online courses, which we know by MOOCs and we have professional education courses, which we call Profits. So the main difference between the two of them is you will see if you register for a professional education course, it's all about in-depth knowledge of the subject that you have chosen. That doesn't mean that if you take a MOOC that is always, that's gonna be basic or introductory level. We have some MOOCs that are actually also an advanced level, but what we always guarantee is that if you take a professional education course, then that course is gonna take you in-depth, much more in-depth than any other MOOC into the subject that you have chosen. The number of course participants also is very different. MOOCs are massive, even if they're not as massive as they used to be years and years ago, but you will find yourself studying with a cohort probably hundreds of students, what we're seeing is 500 plus as it says there. While a professional education course, what you will find is a much, much smaller group. It could be as small as 10 people only studying with you. We collaborate with edX, so we run our MOOCs on the edX platform. While the professional education course is run on our own platform, which is the Teodelft online platform. If you finish the course and if you finish the course successfully, you will receive a certificate you will receive a certificate both if you study a MOOC or if you study a proper. There is a difference between the two certificates, but I will touch upon this in a little while. And while MOOCs can be either instructor-paced or self-paced, our professional education courses are mostly instructor-paced. Giving the floor to Tracy to go, yeah, to explain these different. Thank you. So the difference between self-paced and instructor-paced courses. First of all, with self-paced courses, your course content is available at the beginning of the course. So everything is there and you are able to view any of the content from the start. With instructor-paced courses, the content is usually released weekly or according to a release schedule. So you are able then to plan the study hours that will take you, but because it's so led by the instructor, it is released according to a schedule and not open all from the beginning. Self-paced anytime and work at your own pace. So that goes back to one of the pillars that Bayer spoke about in terms of flexibility. Whereas instructor-paced, you are progressing through the course as a group. So as a group of fellow students supported by your course team. With self-paced, the assignment deadlines are usually right at the end of the course. So you have that flexibility once again and you can start an assignment in week two, if that is up to you and you can look at that assignment again in week 20 if the course is open that long. Whereas with instructor-paced courses, they are set deadlines for the assignments. So you will get a syllabus, you will get an outline that will tell you exactly when those deadlines are for every assignment. Self-paced is facilitated by a course moderator. So there is someone monitoring the course and monitoring the discussion forums. In instructor-paced courses, a lot of the times we have live sessions from course instructors. This can be very different formats and look different ways. Sometimes it's a live feedback session from the course instructors. In self-paced courses, the assignments are usually peer or self-assessed. In instructor-paced courses, they are staff-assessed assignments. So like I mentioned about a live session regarding feedback, you may have a session that is feedback-related directly to the assignments. So let's look quickly at one example of a course, one example of a MOOC. So in this case, what we have here is FASAD design and engineering is a MOOC that was created at the Faculty of Architecture in collaboration with the Faculty of Architecture. And the course is very much about getting a complex, the complex principles that apply to building FASADs and engineering FASADs and try and explain those in a more accessible way. The course materials comprise of readings and mostly videos. On these videos, the course instructors have traveled around Europe, interviewing experts in Sisu about the FASAD they were responsible for. And after the video, you will always find quizzes, your exercise, a little task that will help you reinforce the content, the concepts that are explained in the videos. For this particular course as well, at the end of each module, there is a main task. And if this task is what I was saying to you, I say how important it is to be able to apply what you learned to your own sessions. So in this case, participants are asked to choose a project, choose a FASAD that they want to work on for the duration of the course. And each week, apply what they learned to that FASAD. For example, if it happens that that particular week, that particular module is about detailing the tolerances of the materials of the FASAD, then each student will have to apply that, look into that particular aspect with reference to their own project that gets shared with all the other students. And everybody gets to comment on each other's work. So there's a amount of that idea of feeding back and learning from also the other course participants. This particular course as well, now it is thrown in as a self-paced course when it ran as an instructor-paced course. There was a live session with the instructors that was not compulsory. So if you wanted to go, you could go or if you didn't want to go, you didn't have to go. But it was an opportunity to kind of again, have the conversation, ask questions directly to the course instructors. So yeah. So now we look at a professional education course from our technology policy and management faculty. This is multi-stakeholder strategies, analysis for willing coalitions. This professional education course, as you can see, we give you an idea of what to expect every single week. As we mentioned earlier, the content is released on a weekly basis. So yeah, you have that idea of what to expect from week one to week six. The method modules poll that you see on the left or the image of that, the idea with this professional education course is that you almost choose your learning journey. So the learners are able to select which assignments and which method modules they would like to do. And we use the poll so that the course instructor is aware of how many people will be doing each of the assignments and how that spread is. They are the live Q&A sessions. So there's usually a page that will ask you when you would like to join the live Q&A sessions and give you some options in terms of times and also looking at different time zones. So trying to keep that relevant for the entire audience. There's a snapshot here of one of the live sessions that we had in the previous run of the course. Also with this course, there were feedback sessions as well that were a little bit more one-on-one. So that's possible with the professional education course. As we mentioned, usually the audiences are smaller groups and to get that real practical application to your day-to-day work and your career, sometimes the one-on-one sessions or the live group sessions are extremely valuable. One of the other questions that we get quite a lot and maybe some of you have that question too is how much time do I actually need to invest in online education in a particular course? And to be honest, often objection is can I actually do it as a working professionals? So we get that question a lot, questions are coming from people who work full-time, mainly full-time. And the answer to the question is, yes, we think you can if you plan ahead. That's what the online education is really for. Online education is designed for working professionals. So the study time can vary. It's usually between three to six hours per week, depending on the course and the duration of the course also varies. The duration can be from four to eight weeks long. We believe these chunks of pedagogical approach and education are the best for the learners. For more information about the course duration and the study effort, you can always check our website in the particular course of your interest because that information is available in the website on the data, meta dataset on the right side. Second thing that we always want to then outline to the people that ask this question is that, of course, our courses offer a great amount of flexibility and that's the key too for your success. So whether they're instructor-based or serve-based, you choose when you want to learn throughout that particular week. So you can plan ahead whether you do your homework on Monday, maybe you do it on Wednesday or maybe on Friday because that's your free day. You can also do your homework during the weekend. That's also not an issue. All our courses include four mile and informal assessments and there are deadlines sometimes, mainly in the instructor-based courses, so called profits, but even those deadlines can be discussed. So of course we are here for you, the instructors are here for you and they wanna ensure that you get the knowledge that you need and even those deadlines could be discussed, could be pushed, could be a little extended if you need that extra space. Live sessions, as some of my, as Tracy and Pera mentioned, these are available sometimes, but again, if they are there, they are usually announced very early at the beginning. You can probably see them already on our website, of the course's websites, so you can actually plan in advance for them. Often you also don't have to take part in those, you can watch the recording later. If you're not able to attend, you have that option. Another question which we get quite a lot is actually, what is the required level of English in order to be successful in your courses? So even though there are no tests that we require for admission, obviously solid command of English is required to follow the course successfully. All videos are subtitles and transcripts of those videos are also available for you, so you can watch it again, re-watch it, re-read it if you need that extra support, but mainly for the accessibility purposes, to be inclusive for those that need them. Alright, then I give it to Bea. She will cover the certificate part that she spoke about before a little bit, so. Exactly, thanks, Joanna. So coming back to the certificates, if you have paid for a course, both the MOOC and the professional education course, if you have completed the course successfully, so if you have achieved the grade that the instructors decide that they deserve a pass grade, then in that case you will receive a certificate. Now, this certificate is not a paper certificate that you receive in a post, it's a digital certificate and in a way that allows you to share it in your social media. You will see how there's a difference between the certificates that you will receive if you take a MOOC on the edX platform and the certificate that you will get after completing a professional course. And while the edX certificate is a certificate of participation, so it says you have completed this course, it does not give you what grade you achieve, it's just you took part in this course. And the certificate of professional education includes the number of continuing education units. And this is important because it's the official method to measure the workload of the study time that you need to invest in a course. So this is particularly relevant in your country or in your particular context, you need to show evidence of your professional training. So normally the way it's calculated is one continuing education unit is equivalent to 10 hours of study time. Yeah. Great. So over to you as our participants today, is there anything else you would like to know? We covered a lot in this little bit of time we have, but this is the time for further questions. So please use the raise hand setting in Zoom or leave the questions in the chat box. Questions related to course specific content, we may not all be able to answer, but we will try our best. Bernard also had a question, minimum level of education for different, is it different for different courses, I believe? In a way, in a nutshell, it could be different. Most of our program, most of our courses are aimed for working professionals. So if you're working in a particular sector, you probably have enough knowledge to take a particular course, but there are courses such as online academic courses that do require you to have a specific level of education, such as bachelor's degree in engineering or so. So again, if you are unsure, you can always check the requirements, admission requirements, there is a little tab on each course website, which specify those. Like I said, usually there are no requirements, but we aim to attract professionals that understand the concept that we are trying to convey. So that's usually enough if you work in a particular sector or have experience in it or worked with it before, it doesn't need to be actually your experience now. Another question came in the meantime, what is the average student's strength in a professional course and can you dwell upon the grading system, which is normally followed? That's an interesting one for Bea or Yucce, you know? So it varies from course to course in terms of how the assessment strategy works. So it is true that normally you will be required to get a 65% in order to pass the course and you will have different opportunities, different tasks in order to achieve that 65%. Having said that, there is also, we go back to the idea of flexibility. If for some reason you feel that you won't be able to meet, you feel that you won't be able to meet to reach that percentage or you find a particular task to convert to not too difficult, then you will have the support of the instructor to get you over the line. So it's not that, you know, it's not that if you don't reach 65% that you are gone and out. No, we will work together in order to help you get over the finish line. I still, I honestly don't understand what you mean by the average student's strengths. So would you like to kind of elaborate on that or maybe Tracy, can you have an idea of what this would be about? Perhaps, perhaps student numbers in terms of how many people usually join the professional education forces, those groups are usually quite tight. That doesn't mean that they're very small, but usually around 20, sometimes 30 learners in a professional education course because it is so focused and it is, you know, moderated with staff graded the assignments. So those numbers are usually kept sort of in the 2030s. Okay, well then I think we can close the webinar session for today. Thank you to everybody who participated and rejoined those who came in at times that suited them best. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for giving us some extra questions in the chat to think about and to respond to. I hope you all enjoyed the session and that you got something out of it and that we will see you in our courses very soon.