Universities work on MOOC credit system

MOOCSs, Massive Open Online Courses, are a logical step to take for universities in a digitized world. However, universities do not have a system to let students gain credit for taking these online classes. Six universities around the world, including the Dutch university of Delft, are engaging in a pilot to change this.Delft University of Technology is spearheading the initiative. Other universities included are EPFL in Switzerland, the Australian National University, the university of Queensland, the university of British Columbia and Boston University. In the future, a student should be able to take online courses at one of the universities involved, and gain credit for it at their home university. Right now, Delft already runs 25 MOOCs, but does not reach a wide range of students yet.

There are some obstacles in this plan. Anka Mulder from Delft University explained to the website PIE news that MOOCs are not made to be part of a curriculum, so there are no tests designed for the material. Universities involved are going to have to look at the classes that the other universities offer, and see if they can add classes in their own curricula. Eventually, the goal is to develop a system comparable to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), the system that is used to give students credit for classes they take at European universities. According to Mulder, this is going to take some time.

Dutch minister for Education Bussemaker already showed interest in MOOCs two years ago. She wanted to create a credit system, and called this kind of classes a revolution. One of the advantages, according to her, is that teachers can get more time to provide feedback and that education can be customized for every student.

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