Perspective Chapter: Implementation of MOOCs for Microcredentials and European University Alliances

Abstract

MOOCs are seen as an important measure to open up universities to new target groups. In this chapter, two new variants of the usage of MOOCs in European higher education are highlighted: First, openly licensed MOOCs can be used as part of microcredential offers with university accreditation. Second, openly licensed MOOCs can be made available to other universities as an integrated resource and offer within European University alliances. This chapter discusses legal (such as copyright issues), organizational (such as processes), and technical issues (such as LTI, eduGAIN) for these new developments. An important requirement for this is that MOOCs are available as open educational resources (OER): Open licenses that allow the reuse, modification, and republication of educational resources (“open education resources”) are another opportunity to open up and share university offers. This chapter is based on experiences of the national Austrian MOOC platform iMooX.at, the microcredential implementation of Graz University of Technology, as well as first ideas concerning the integration of openly licensed MOOCs within the unite! University alliance of nine European technical universities.

1. Introduction

Open education is a vague term for many different developments and movements that are currently underway in higher education institutions and universities worldwide. Openness has various meanings but is frequently related to opening-up processes, offers, or resources to people who are not traditionally considered relevant target groups (see Figure 1) [1, 2].

Figure 1.

The 10 dimensions of open education according to Inamorato dos Santos, Punie & Castaño [1]. Own illustration.

In practice, opening-up can address, for example, the issue of educational resources that are typically proprietary but can also be made available as open educational resources (OER; [3]). Open licenses then allow to modify and reuse these resources. Teaching itself is traditionally limited to the university’s own students, supported by own lecturers. MOOCs, for example, now open up the possibility of university teaching to everyone, including those without formal university qualifications [4]. Another issue for more openness is assessment and certification: Traditionally, this has also been an offer for the university’s own students, but lifelong learning departments have supported access to university further education for several decades now. What is new now is that short study programs and the so-called “microcredentials” are being introduced, which offer university accreditation of certificates for non-students as well (Ebner, Kreuzer, Schön, see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

How traditional teaching in higher education is opened-up. Source: Own illustration.

In this chapter, we would like to take a closer look at two aspects of MOOCs for which we see greater relevance in the future:

Firstly, we would like to present which role MOOCs currently play in the discussion of microcredentials and how they are used for microcredentials in the case of TU Graz.

Secondly, we are concerned with the question of how MOOCs can be used systematically, e.g., as a transition to Joint Programs within the framework of European MOOC alliances and how a MOOC platform can be well embedded in the technical infrastructure of a university alliance.

We discuss both questions here against the background that we would also like to present our internal discussion to a broader professional audience in order to stimulate and maintain the exchange about (future) developments.

2. Methodology

This contribution describes two future developments in which we believe openly licensed MOOCs play or might play an important role: in the context of microcredentials and European University alliances.

Methodologically, the status quo is introduced with the help of simple literature reviews on the topics and then, the current state of discussion at our institution is presented in the form of a case study. Case studies are typically used as a research method if elaborated models or theories are not yet available, in order to develop a clearer understanding of complex issues in real-life contexts [5], which is often the case in the field of applied IT issues [6]. Particularly for the topic of integrating MOOCs into a European University alliance infrastructure, we cannot build upon an existing implementation and can therefore only describe the current and preliminary state of the discussion. The presentation and comparison of legal, technical, and organizational challenges and the respective possibilities is based on the authors’ discussions and reflects the current state of affairs.

The chapter shares experiences of the national Austrian MOOC platform iMooX.at, the microcredential implementation at TU Graz as well as first ideas concerning the integration of openly licensed MOOCs within the Unite! university alliance of nine European technical universities. We therefore systematically highlight and discuss legal issues (such as copyright), organizational issues (such as processes), and technical issues (such as LTI and eduGAIN) related to the usage of MOOCs for the two cases described.

3. MOOCs as a basis for microcredentials: development globally and in Austrian higher education

At an international level, the debate about microcredentials is largely driven by MOOC platforms, especially those originating in the US and affiliated to higher education institutions [7]. Contributions frequently explore how MOOCs can be recognized in higher education (e.g., [8]). In the European context, MOOCs currently play only a small role in the debate on microcredentials [7, 9]. However, there are several developments that consolidate the idea of microcredentials for the European area [10]. MOOC platforms are also becoming active in the discussion about comparability and standardization of microcredentials. The European MOOC Consortium (EMC), a consortium of six European national MOOC platforms, has published the so-called “Common Microcredentials Framework” in 2019 [11]. Recognized European developments such as the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) or the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) are used to describe the requirements for microcredentials [12]. The MOOC platforms have so far used this framework on a voluntary basis. In the long term, however, the aim is to develop opportunity for formal qualifications and standards that can be used by a broader group of European Universities.

In 2021, the European Commission launched Europe-wide consultations in preparation for a “Council Recommendation on Microcredentials for Lifelong Learning and Employability”. Looking at the comments together, there is only one reference to a MOOC, namely “Una Europa,” a MOOC on sustainability that can be recognized at partner universities ([13], p. 58). The outcome of the consultations was then formulated by the Council of the European Union in June 2022 as a “Recommendation on Microcredentials”: This calls on Member States to develop a common approach to microcredentials, i.e., as proposed by the EMC and others, a common definition and principles, and to apply EU standards [14]. MOOCs are not explicitly mentioned in the recommendation.

In Austria, too, the process for a joint position finding of the different higher education organizations on microcredentials was initiated and a joint statement 2021 was presented by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research. The possible parameters for microcredentials include the possibility of different learning locations, but MOOCs are not explicitly mentioned (“online, on-site, or mixed,” BMBWF 2021, own translation, p. 2). The position paper also emphasizes that microcredentials should be reserved for higher education, just as “the application of ECTS credits is reserved for recognized post-secondary educational institutions” ([15], own illustration p. 2). It is also pointed out that microcredentials can have a positive impact on cooperation between higher education institutions, especially in the European Higher Education Alliances ([15], p. 4). However, to our knowledge, microcredentials have not yet been offered by any Austrian university till autumn 2022, so presumably MOOCs have not yet been used for this purpose either.

In the following, we would like to trace the development of MOOCs in Austria. In 2014, the Austrian University Conference (uniko) published its first article on MOOCs, their criteria, and guiding principles. The platform iMooX.at was founded in 2013 by Graz University of Technology and the University of Graz with the aim of offering “education for all.” The platform’s MOOCs enable all Austrian universities to offer free, open online courses for their own students as well as the public and lifelong learners [16]. This provides the opportunity for new collaborations between universities and opportunities for learners to learn with MOOCs from other universities. From the beginning, it was determined that all course components—videos, documents, etc.—must be licensed with a Creative Commons license, as must the entire course itself. Therefore, the entire platform offers online courses for a large mass of learners at university level as an Open Educational Resource (OER). Since 2013, more than 200 courses from different research areas and at different educational levels have been offered. In 2020, the MOOChub consortium was founded by TU Graz with the idea of bringing together all MOOC platforms in German-speaking countries. Subsequently, a common standard for MOOC descriptions was developed and coordinated between the different providers. As a result, the moochub.org website now features more than 700 online courses that are searchable by topics, providers, and interests. The Austrian national MOOC platform iMooX.at has also been a member of the European MOOC Consortium since 2021 and has thus also agreed in principle to use the Microcredentials Framework.

Until fall 2022, no microcredentials could be earned on the iMooX.at platform or with the platform’s MOOCs, as already written. In the years before, there were already some examples of how MOOC achievements were recognized at universities. However, these credits were only awarded to regular students at the respective university as (partial) credits for lectures or certificates. In addition to the recognition of participation in MOOCs on the iMooX.at platform at individual universities (as part of courses), there was also recognition in the context of continuing professional development, e.g., participation was recognized by the Austrian Health and Nursing Association (ÖGKV) or, in the case of several MOOCs, recognition was granted by the Continuing Education Academy (wba) ([17], p. 6). So that no misunderstandings arise: Again, these are not awards of “microcredentials” but recognition of educational achievements by third parties.

TU Graz has been operating the national MOOC platform iMooX.at since 2013 and has already recognized the strategic potential of OER for the organizational unit “Life Long Learning” (LLL) before and officially strategically anchored it [18]. Thus, it was also obvious that MOOCs from the platform iMooX.at could be used when the introduction of microcredentials was considered at LLL [19]. The academic continuing education offerings of the LLL organizational unit at TU Graz were reorganized and restructured with the continuing education offensive in the area of “Digitalization and Digital Transformation.” The learning offers and the certificates of completion are now organized into “modules,” which comprise learning achievements equivalent to five units of the “European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System” (ECTS). The learning effort for such a LLL module is thus calculated to be about 125 h hours (1 ECTS = 25 h). As shown in Figure 3, it combines blended learning activities such as a MOOC or an online course, face-to-face training (which can also take place online), and a transfer task to demonstrate the application. If all components are demonstrably and sufficiently fulfilled through an appropriate performance assessment, microcredentials will be awarded for them in the future.

Figure 3.

Components of an LLL module and a microcredential. Source: [7], Figure 3.

The first courses for awarding microcredentials were announced on the microcredentials.at website in October 2022 and will start in February 2023, as Figure 4 shows. In each case, MOOCs will be used or explicitly created for continuing education, and lecturers from Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) will subsequently take over the on-site training, the supervision of the transfer phase, and the final performance or competence assessment.

Figure 4.

Announcement of new LLL offering: Microcredential.at. Source: Screenshot from https://microcredentials.at/ (4.11.2022).

Although we cannot already share first experiences with the implementation of these MOOC-based microcredentials, we want to describe challenges and possible solutions we have already addressed for those who have similar plans.

4. Challenges and potential solutions for using MOOCs in microcredentials

In the following, we present organizational and technological challenges for the use of MOOCs in the context of microcredentials for (European) universities (see Table 1). To start with legal issues, one of the main challenges is that the reuse of MOOC materials on other platforms or the (commercial) use of MOOCs is usually not possible or allowed due to copyright and/or restrictive user terms of the MOOC platforms. If MOOCs and their components are published with open licenses (such as CC BY 4.0 International), a clear legal framework is provided, and the MOOC (re)use is explicitly permitted. This includes the reuse of materials, for example, for presentation in face-to-face sessions as part of the microcredential course. But of course, both issues—user terms and licenses—need to be carefully considered.

	Challenge	Potential Solution
Legal	Copyright issues, restrictive user terms.	Open licensed resources.
	Use of user data for commercial purposes, not fitting to European requirements (GDPR) and university standards.	European MOOC platforms are fully aware of GDPR issues.
Organizational	MOOCs should fit to the microcredential needs.	Cooperation with the MOOC organizer and platform.
	Reliable/valid certificates.	Open badges, digital credential framework.
	Insights into learning activities.	Learning analytics of microcredential participants.
Technical	Simple registration needed.	EduGAIN.
	Possible exchange of user data.	Learning tools interoperability LTI.

Table 1.

Challenges and potential solutions for using MOOCs in microcredentials for (European) universities.

Many MOOC platforms use user data, also commercially, and not fitting concerning European GDPR and the need of public universities. European MOOC platforms, especially provided by European University, are fully aware of GDPR issues and will not—for example—sell learners’ data to private companies.

Organizationally, MOOCs should be available, started, and organized fitting to the microcredential schedules so that the participants can benefit from other learners and the potential international environment and multi-perspective insights. Cooperation with the MOOC organizer and/or the MOOC platform is therefore essential. Although the microcredential assessment and certification are based on separate assignments and assessment, it would be helpful if the MOOC platform itself provides reliable certificates or insights into the learning processes. These can be, for example, the usage of a unique assessment for a specific e-mail address. In the case of iMooX, open badges (Mozilla foundation) are implemented [20, 21]. Interesting future developments might be the European Digital Credentials Infrastructure [22] or learning analytic insights for microcredential participants. Technically, the usage of an external platform usually needs new full registration. EduGAIN enables an easier way to register, if the organization already supports it [23]. This is already the case at many European universities, where it is especially used for access to the wireless Internet access “education roaming” (eduroam) [24]. Learning tools interoperability (LTI) might be another base to support exchange of user data between a MOOC provider and the learning management system of the university offering a related microcredential [25].

5. MOOCs for (European) university alliances

If MOOCs are to be used not just by one university in the context of a microcredential, but by several different universities, the challenges and potential solutions are generally similar, but not in detail. Within the European Union, more than 40 the so-called “European University alliances” have been established in recent years. Within the “Erasmus+” program, several of them developed their cooperation co-financed by the European Union [26]. The European University alliance Unite! [27] presents itself as a European University alliance “of innovation, technology, and engineering of nine universities connecting European regions of economic prospect, entrepreneurship, and innovation.”

Since autumn 2022, TU Graz is a member of the alliance and responsible for the work package “digital campus” within the new Erasmus+ project (2022–2026). A Moodle-based the so-called “metacampus” has been implemented as infrastructure to support virtual mobile learning and teaching, easy access for Unite! students and staff is supported by EduGAIN. As a next step, TU Graz is interested in bringing its existing MOOC experiences and the iMooX platform into the metacampus. The following chapter illustrates the first considerations and plans.

6. Challenges and potential solutions for using MOOCs in European university alliances

In general, the challenges and potential solutions for using MOOCs in European University alliances are similar to, but not identic with the challenges presented for using MOOCs in microcredentials (see Table 2).

	Challenge	Potential solution
Legal	Usage of content and MOOCs must be permitted (by a contract e.g.).	Allowed usage, if openly licensed.
	Translation of the materials should be possible.	Allowed usage, if openly licensed.
Organizational	Different curricula and MOOCs need to be aligned.	Standards as ECTS and other curriculum framework might help.
	Multilingual user guidance and support.	Staff of partner university might be integrated in user support.
Technical	Simple registration needed.	EduGAIN.
	MOOC content and achievements should be accessible for partner universities.	LTI interfaces need to be developed and adapted for all universities and/or a common campus.; A federated LMS instance might be helpful.
	Clarify the possible exchange of user data.	Needs a clear description of ALL existing systems and potential interfaces and/or a common campus according to GDPR.

Table 2.

Further challenges and potential solutions for using MOOCs in European university alliances.

Legally, the use of the MOOC for multiple partners must be permitted and contractually regulated. Since MOOC contents might also be reused in lectures and assessments, the reuse of materials should also be legally permitted. As the European Universities use different languages, translation might also be required for application in lectures and curricula. Providing these possibilities for all Unite! Universities, and thus also for lecturers and students, could be achieved by contracts within the alliances, but a simpler way would be the use of open licenses for MOOC content.

Organizationally, MOOCs that might be applied or are applicable to many different curricula and university (systems) need to be aligned with the requirement analysis of all potential partners and users, such as: What are relevant topics, methods, time efforts for learners? Additionally, a joint development and organization of a MOOC also requires clarification of the workload and responsibilities of lecturers as well. Helpful frameworks in Europe to support these discussions are standards such as the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). An organizational issue is also the user support of MOOC learners from different universities and with different first languages; multilingual user guidance and support typically cannot be provided by a MOOC platform itself. Thus, co-operations with the relevant partner universities to establish technology-related user support in all relevant languages will be an issue as well.

Technically, there are several issues as well: To facilitate access to the MOOCs, easy access and registration are crucial. Again, EduGAIN is one way to allow easier enrollment if all alliance universities already support it. Additionally, MOOC content and data (such as achievements) should be accessible in the local learning management system (LMS) of partner universities. Therefore, learning tools interoperability (LTI) interfaces need to be developed and adapted. Then, such technical solutions will influence the exchange and storage of student and lecturer data. According to European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), these issues need to be clarified, named, and taken seriously in the case of shared digital infrastructures. The connection to a MOOC platform used by a European University alliance might be easier if an (existing) shared digital campus is already available as an interface.

In the case of the Unite! alliance, a federated Moodle instance might also be helpful. This is an installation of Moodle that can connect to other installations of Moodle to form a shared pool of courses, users, and resources. Federated Moodle instances can also be connected through Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) tools, enabling the exchange of content and resources. This allows courses and materials to be managed from a central platform and used in different Moodle instances.

7. Discussion: opening-up with openly licensed MOOCs for microcredentials and European university alliances

While the organizational and technical aspects discussed in our previous comments may be understandable, the strong emphasis on open licenses and the demand for OER in this paper may not be as clear. We would like to acknowledge this aspect here in the concluding discussion.

As the most important argument, it is first necessary to clearly present again what alternatives there are: What is the alternative for the use of MOOCs in microcredentials and for common teaching content in European University alliances? In both cases, learning content might be developed and used, which is regulated by appropriate contracts. In the case of European alliances, this is required between universities from different countries and legal systems.

From this perspective, the usage of open licenses might be a pragmatically easier way to clarify legal issues related to the reuse of content within microcredentials as well as the use of MOOCs in European alliances. As we have seen in our introduction, open educational resources (OER) and MOOCs are seen as measure for opening-up higher education [28]. So openly licensed MOOCs should thus have similar effects as OER in general. According to a white paper by the Austrian e-learning in higher education network “fnma,” these are, for example, potential teaching innovations, higher impact, new co-operations, and less copyright infringements (because everyone is better trained in copyright issues) and more [29].

Although there are several funding programs where the development of OER is obligatory, especially from the European Commission, the development of sustainable business models for MOOCs and MOOC platform within Europe is still an open issue. This is a particular challenge in European countries where access to higher education is virtually free of charge; here, “return-on-investment” models, especially those of commercially oriented U.S. universities, cannot be implemented [30]. This is also the case in Austria. Currently, the national platform here is co-financed with project funds from the Austrian ministry, but it is necessary to also consider other possibilities of refinancing so that the creation of MOOCs retains or gains attractiveness.

From this perspective, the use of MOOC in microcredentials is an attractive opportunity for further business model development. In principle, MOOC providers want to bring content into the world and are pleased when the materials are used and have an impact. Particularly numerous participants and use are experienced here as a goal and actively supported. If MOOCs are used in microcredentials, usage and impact increase. Conversely, microcredentials, for which the participants pay, also open (re)financing possibilities for the (renewed) implementation of a MOOC, its adaptation or even creation within the framework of a microcredential. From the perspective of the microcredential provider, the MOOC is then the opportunity to attract potentially interested parties for the associated microcredential, i.e., people who are interested in in-depth training and official university certificates. If the model is accepted, the creation of further microcredentials offerings will in turn create updated or new MOOCs—the MOOC platform offering can thus also be co-financed.

In the case of jointly offered MOOCs in European alliances, there are other effects which in turn also have an impact on the business model of the MOOC creators and MOOC platforms. If MOOCs are used in European University alliances, content standards are implicitly set, resources can be used more sparingly (there is a somewhat greater one-time effort for the partners and less for everyone). And then the European alliances also promise didactic-methodical and content-related impulses through the cooperation of the teachers and from the meeting and joint learning of students.

To sum up, openly licensed MOOCs can be seen as a base for opening-up certification schemes and alliance offers and are a great resource to be used within university co-operations or alliances. As shown in Figure 5, the sketched usage will additionally positively influence and foster vice versa the development of openly licensed MOOCs and OER.

Figure 5.

OER and MOOCs as a base for new certification and cooperation possibilities. Own illustration.

Therefore, from our point of view, the usage of openly licensed MOOCs is not only a potential solution, especially for legal issues, for microcredentials, and European University alliances, but also a potent driver for opening-up European Universities, with relevance to business models for content development and delivery on university-level for everyone.

Acknowledgments

The developments presented here are partly funded by the Open Education Austria Advanced project (OEAA, 2020–2024), the iMooX project (iMooX, 2020–2023), both with financial support of the Austrian ministry BMBWF and the “Unite! University Network for Innovation, Technology, and Engineering” erasmus+ project (project number 101089731, duration 11/2022–2110/2026) co-funded by the European Commission.

Conflict of interest

The authors state no conflict of interests.