Profile of Professional Higher Education in Europe

This report gives a comprehensive overview of the profile of character of Professional Higher Education in Europe, using data collected from 16 countries in 2013. Chapter 2 Foreword – introduces the topic from a theoretical basis, based on the experiences of EURASHE in operating in the sector. Chapter 3 Characterising PHE – considers the different national definitions of PHE, as well as the constituent factors which are said to make up PHE across the continent. Chapter 4 Organisation & Structure of PHE – focuses on the type of institutions providing PHE, the qualifications offered by them and their systems of funding. Chapter 5 Teaching PHE – looks at curriculum design, collaboration with employers and staffing requirements as elements of the successful provision of PHE. Chapter 6 Research in PHE – makes an overview of national requirements for research in PHE, as well as availability of funding for research of PHE across Europe. Chapter 7 Recognition & Transferability – considers whether education in professionally oriented and academically oriented HE is considered to be equivalent, from the perspective of transferability between cycles. Chapter 8 Concluding Remarks – takes a look at current trends in European Education & Training which may affect the character, nature and/or profile of Professional Higher Education in the coming years. Throughout the chapters, several case studies are presented to further deepen the discussion on the areas. (DIPF/author

Professional higher education in Europe. Characteristics, practice examples and national differences

Chapter 1 starts out with a short historical view on “academisation” and “professionalisation,” illustrating how much professional higher education (PHE) in Europe has been in flux in the past years. With examples from France and Ireland, the chapter argues how a new spectrum of missions, differences in national organization of PHE and a variety of denominations for PHE providers and programmes has slowed down a shared understanding of what PHE commonly characterises. Chapter 2 gives information on research aims and methodology of the “HAPHE” (Harmonising Approaches to Professional Higher Education) initiative, which made this publication possible. Chapter 3 is a central part of this book. The authors suggest a validated definition for PHE and present a structured set of characteristics (framework) including quality criteria. The three framework dimensions: policy and strategy, teaching and learning, and research, development and innovation are accompanied by examples of PHE from several European countries. Those examples where gathered from programmes and institutions that have developed a clear professional profile in all or most of the framework criteria. Chapter 4 outlines differences in PHE systems in 15 EU member states for curricular requirements, PHE provision on EQF levels, the recognition of professional degrees, and, not less importantly, access to (research) funding. Chapter 5 builds on the outcomes of all previous chapters and formulates recommendations to European and national policy-makers, the providers of PHE policy, and individuals/organisations working on quality development. (DIPF/Orig.

Idea-Space: A Use Case of Collaborative Course Development in Higher Education

A key component of Open Education movement are Open Educational Resources (OER), which are defined as any digital objects that are commonly shared in online repositories and can be freely accessed, reused and adapted by a community of users for educational purposes using an open license scheme. This broad definition includes a lot of different artefacts, such as digital learning objects, software tools like wikis or authoring systems, electronic textbooks, and lesson plans. Existing research on OER has focused on how to make digital objects available and re-usable for educators and learners. Currently, there are millions of resources for basically all subjects, education level. However, their adoption has been limited, the consumption of them is passive, and there are still many barriers towards the uptake of OER. Amongst those, are the not-invented-here syndrome and the lack of involvement and recognition of users who feel that they do or cannot contribute appropriately. In our research, we focus on tweaking the steps that are accomplished before having the resources complete and shared. In particular, in situations when ideas are initiated, shaped, and shared with like-minded people in order to create new educational outcomes, such as OER

Design principles for collaboration platforms for open education

Increasing the current low uptake of Open Education Resources (OER) is a key challenge for researchers and practitioners in the field. User studies have shown that collaboration is a main success factor for successful open educational activities. However, effective collaboration in open educational contexts requires well planned processes and platforms supporting collaboration, in particular in physically distributed settings. We have been investigating the value of such platforms, their main features and user requirements to enable collaboration from immature ideas to completed resources. We used quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect insights from potential users of such collaboration platforms to validate our approach. Based on these insights, we developed a collaboration platform for open education. We validated our platform using observation groups and focus groups to identify the key design principles of powerful collaboration platforms for Open Education. Examples are the need for a simple tool, use of a common terminology, and considering Intellectual Property Rights. In this paper, we present our findings from an initial validation of our collaboration platform and give recommendations towards powerful collaboration platforms for open educational contextsEdukologijos tyrimų institutasSocialinių mokslų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta

Enhancing the experience of online users of open education

INSPEC Accession Number: 14853364The limited adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) has kicked off the launch of several projects to search for possible solutions. One of these projects is “Open Educational Ideas and Innovations” (OEI2). The goal of this project is to find alternatives for increasing the uptake of OER and facilitating the collaborative development of OER. To enhance the experience of the users of open education, we interviewed twelve educators and researchers from different higher education institutions across Europe focusing on gathering insights about idea sharing experiences. In this paper, we present our key findings based on these interviews and outline some recommendations for our next open educational platform. One of the main principles of our proposal is providing an end-to-end platform that supports educators right from the very beginning to the very end, instead of focusing on the content delivery only. An open education initiative starts with a preliminary idea whose owner shares with the other interested educators who in turn collaborate altogether to sharpen the idea and generate the content so that it becomes suitable for an open educational courseEdukologijos tyrimų institutasSocialinių mokslų fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta