1. O3 Makes free
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Online Higher Education and Open Online Courses : An overview
− p r o p o s a l by Dino Nijaz Deleut, Senior Consultant
Background policy
Responsible Sustainable Development (RSD) has the goal of improving the quality of life and
well-being on Earth for present and future generations. In other words, RSD effects how we live
and what we do each day and it shapes the lives of our children and our children's children.
Yet it is often seen as an abstract concept. So, for more on this, please see: www.earthcharter.org
In May 2011, partly in response to the “Arab Spring”, the European Commission (EC) and the
European External Action Service launched a new and ambitious European Neighborhood Policy
(ENP) – confirming the European Union's (EU's) determined and reinforced engagement with its
neighbors to the East and South. The policy document sets out the main priorities and directions of
a revitalized ENP strategy which seeks to strengthen individual and regional relationships between
the European Union (EU) and countries in its neighborhood through a “more funds for more
reform” approach. For more on this see: http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/com_11_303_en.pdf.
There is a focus on the mutual commitment to supporting progress towards deep democracy,
sustainable economic and social development and building effective regional partnerships within
the ENP, through a simplified and coherent policy and programming framework of the ENP and
the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).
“The next generation of wireless networks, the “fifth generation” or 5G, will change the way we
communicate, the way we do business, the way we do everything!” - Gunther Oettinger,
Commissioner Digital Economy & Society.
By the next decade, the digital economy should be a reality in all sectors of activity. As
“Connectivity” becomes more and more ubiquitous, more reliable and offers high speed and
higher capacity, it will become the new “life blood” of the digital economy and society.
The impact of 5G will extend well beyond telecommunications. It will induce a paradigm shift
in a number of existing industries and triggers the emergence of new industries ecosystems.
Communications networks in the G5 era will also have more important societal roles than today: by
connecting people, machines and things on a massive scale, it will facilitate the delivery of
personalized health care and support an ageing society, it will help optimize transport and logistics,
it will enhance access to culture and education for all, and it may virtually revolutionize public
services.
Online Higher Education (OHE) could be the future unlocking access to education for more people
than ever before – one can only imagine what that means for young generations of the UfM and its
EMUNI University.

2. How will it change traditional higher education and how can We, at EMUNI University, maintain
levels of achievement?
I'm confident that EMUNI University has a unique opportunity to become a major player in
e-Learning in the UfM. Therefore this p r o p o s a l for establishment of the first EMUNI's
Online Course - Master Study Programme - on De-pollution of the Mediterranean.
The world of Higher Education (HE) is changed trough the establishment of the Open Online
Courses (OOCs). These are educational courses accessed by participants through online means,
typically via personal computer (PS) or smart phones (iPhone, iPad), and often hosted on bespoke
platforms. E.g. University of Toronto, Paramount California University (www.pcu.edu), Campus
Lake University (www.campuslakeuniversity.com), Berkeley University of California, etc.
These can be followed by thousands of students simultaneously in contrast to traditional methods of
teaching with much smaller “class sizes.”
In principle the technology is based on the premise that the Internet can be used for open higher
education around the world and, at least in terms of accessing the course, is often free of charge.
The emergence of OOCs can be traced to around 2010 when tuition fee increase for higher
education, most notably in the USA and UK, drove interest in ways to make higher education more
accessible.
In Europe the use of OOCs still is less common owing to greater public funding (so far?) of higher
education whilst interest in this technology has spiked in the US which dominates the global
distribution of use of OOCs.
Many of private companies providing OOCs are also located in the US, with companies such as
Udacity, Coursera and Futurelearn being seen of the front-runners.
The technology is still in an experimental phase and a “basis OOCs model” has not yet been
established although the OOCs model has evolved to some extent with “x” and “c” OOCs being
created.
Expected impacts and development
The emergence of OOCs is expected to transform the way in which we both deliver and perceive
education, particularly HE.
Whilst not technology in itself, OOCs combine existing forms of highly innovative communication
technologies such as social media, and could disrupt education practices similar to the use of
“torrenting” for downloading music and film.
A clear impact of OOCs has been significant cost reduction for HE, widening access to sections of
the population who might not have previously availed of HE. For example, last year (2014) at
Georgia Technology University, a virtual OOCs for Computer Science was re-launched at less than
20% of its original cost to participants.
A future effect would likely be to increase employability, both of students and working
professionals, with increases access to education through OOCs, and the resultant impact on a
country's economic competitiveness.
Howard Rheingold, writer, educator, and thinker, is renowned for tracking not just what is going
on now in digital world, but where the digital world will be going next. His books, such as Tools for
Thought (1985), Virtual Reality (1991), The Virtual Community (1994) and Smart Mobs (2002),
usher in the next adventure in computer-human interaction.
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3. In 2008 he was one of the winners of the Digital Media and Learning competition sponsored by
HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation, an award he used to fund and design the Social Media
Classroom and Collaboration,a free service that integrates social media tools like wikis, chat
rooms, social bookmarking, video conferencing, skype, blogs and forums, and all social media with
its networks plus clouds into a coherent solution for both students and educators. He currently
teaches Digital Journalism at Stanford University and Virtual Community and Social Media at
California-Berkeley.
“The change that the Internet brought is that anybody is able to publish anything, so there has
been an explosion of information that's available. The person whose library is inadequate but who
has an Internet Connection has seen a radical expansion of the information that's available to
them. And that information is interconnected; there is information about information. There are
search engines, platforms, metadata, clouds and traditional libraries.”
At the same time, the authority of the information is no longer unquestionable. It's up to the
“consumer” of the information, not the publisher of the information to test the authenticity of that
information. So that's the radical change. They are changes so radical to our knowledge and
education structures that we don't really have time to use traditional means of changing education to
enable people to cope with the change in the environment.
Henry Jenkins and others from MacArthur Foundation said, quite wisely, that understanding the
importance of these new literacy that are reactions to the new ways that knowledge is produced is
not just another topics to shoehorn into curriculum. It entails a wholly different way of looking at
how education takes place. It's collaborative. It has less to do with delivering knowledge and more
to do with learning skills and learning critical thinking.
There is a significant change in the role of the teacher as the authority. Rather than the authoritative
delivery of knowledge, they're the chief learners.
Doug Engelbert, wrote Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. In 1962 he was
talking about system that used humans using language, artifacts, methodology, and training. Since
1962, we have seen enormous progress in the power of the tools and artifacts themselves, but the
language we use and the technology and the training have not advanced to that degree. And when
we are talking about education, this is a thing that technology has invented – the emergence of the
computer as an aid to thinking and as a “smart assistant.”
Going back to John Dewey, Paulo Freire, Neil Postman, there have been a number of educators
and theorists about education who talk about education being more about inquiry, more about
finding out for yourself than having knowledge delivered to you, more about collaboration rather
than performing strictly for teacher, more about constructing knowledge by doing things. These
ideas are not new, but technology affords all these techniques much better than they were afforded
before.
Thus, we have tremendous opportunities, all kinds of educators out there – Mike Wesch's videos
illustrate them very well – who are using all kinds of web technologies. It's really about teaching
and learning, and taking advantage of not only the knowledge and media that are available, but the
communication capabilities that are available today. So, for example, nobody rushes home to
watch their favorite TV shaw at 7:00 on Tuesday night anymore. They record it. All lectures are
online, in blogs, forums, and clouds for students to access (just as they access textbooks) at any time
Are we required to all meet at Tuesday at 3:00 to read textbooks? We assume that the textbooks are
read at the student's leisure during the week and that we come together to discus them.
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4. And, why do a thousand people spend all that time and carbon getting themselves into the same
room to hear a lecture give the same lecture they've given for the last 30 years – which could well
be put on You Tube?
So the question of what are we doing in this room together is radically changed.
Also, the kinds of collaborative projects that students can do now have real scope. It's not just a
toy project, but you can create a public good, a resource repository, or a tool that is available for
others to use in the world. It's hugely motivating not just to get a good grade from teacher but to
peer recognition and to get others in the world to be able to use what you've created.
“We don't have to buy all our culture from others, and we don't have to assume that you have to be
a specialist to be and artist. So I paint my shoes.” In fact, if you Google “How to paint your
shoes,” you'll get my page, pointed Howard Rheingold.
Unexpected impacts
There are several issues to consider when assessing the more uncertain impacts of the development
of OOCs. The increase use of OOCs is often closely associated with an increased level of choice;
this is seen as automatically beneficial for students who then have a free global education
database.
Would curbs on the provision of seemingly free OOCs exist?
Does low cost alone address low take-up of further education?
Simply lowering cost barriers of access to education would not necessarily result in automatic take-
up by “consumers.” Policy-makers may also need to think about how best to market OOCs,
particularly to the most of young population of the Union for the Mediterranean countries, or
disadvantaged groups such as older generations with lower computer and Internet skills.
In addition, certain OOCs providers may rely upon collection of information from participants to
use for marketing or advertising purposes as a way of reducing course costs, potentially to zero.
Since OOCs operate upon the principle of collectivization of information from a community of
participants there are implications for “consumer” protection data privacy to address.
What type of “knowledge economy” would the use of OOCs shape?
Who would be the winners and losers of on education market based upon such stronger principles
of knowledge-sharing and how can the institutions employing the use of such methods be
appropriately supported to maintain the integrity of Further education?
Other potential impacts of OOCs relate more to education “going online” and a shift away from the
more traditional forms of campus-based teaching in HE.
Would improving access to education have the effect of increasing numbers of participating
students, not only in OOCs, but in education overall?
If so, this may have a positive impact in terms of widening take-up; of but how might this skew
interest in education, in particularly universities or certain subjects and courses?
Will certain institutions attract more or less interest simply because they are already starting from a
position of celebrity and will lesser-known institutions be unwittingly biased against as a result?
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5. Looking ahead: demographic and societal dimension
As population grows or contracts its structure changes. In many developed economies the
population's age structure has become older as post-war baby-boom generations reach retirement
age. Furthermore, many countries have experienced a general increase in life expectancy combined
with a fall in fertility.
In 2009 Communication of an EU Strategy for Youth – Investing and Empowering, the European
Commission states that “Youth are a priority for the European Union's social vision” and that
“Young people are not a burdensome responsibility but a critical resource to society which can be
mobilized to achieve higher social goals.”
In 2012, the world's population exceeded 7 000 million inhabitants and continued to grow.
The total population of the ENP-South countries as a whole was about 200 million, the equivalent
of 40% of the population of the EU as a whole. Egypt was by far the most populated (80 million),
followed by Algeria (37 million) and Morocco (32 million).
The rate of population growth was generally much higher than across the EU-27 during the
2001-2011 decade.
It is projected that by 2030, under normal conditions, the population of ENP-South countries will
(at an expected total 257 million inhabitants) correspond to almost one half (1/2) of the EU-28.
The key driver of population growth in the ENP-South countries during the period between 2001
and 2011 was a relatively higher birth rates, than the world's average of 21.3 births per 1 000
inhabitants (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/fertility.htm), and much higher still when
compared to the provisional EU-27 average of 10.4 in 2011.
Conversely, there was a relatively small – if growing – proportion of the population over the age of
65 in the ENP-South countries, in comparison, those over 65 year olds accounted for about one in
every six (17.5%) persons in the EU-27 in 2011.
Over the next 10 years and beyond, improvements in health, education and living standards will
continue to drive population growth - UN and OECD estimate that the world population will reach
around 9 billion people by 2050 and peak at around 9.2 billion in 2075.
Reflecting rapid population growth, all ENP-South countries are characterized as having a
relatively young population. Those under the age of 25 represent at least 40% of the total
populations of all ENP-South countries in 2011.
These separate demographic trends and profiles have different economic, environmental and social
implications; for example, there is an urgent need for rapid job creation and for skills match
between education and employment in the ENP-South countries; the ageing population in the
EU-28 puts pressure on individuals to prolong their economically active life as well as to raise
social expenditure on health care and pension.
The question that matter are not only around general growth but also around balance.
Are people in the right place(?); and Do we have the right skills?
However, an increased quality of life in Europe may help to partially overcome the present
incompatibility between work and parenthood, as well as advances in technologies may help to
enhance the probability of late motherhood, leading to a recovery of fertility among richer and
higher educated women – a trend presently becoming visible in some parts of Europe.
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6. It is important for policy-makers and legislators to recognize the current limits to the EU's
competence on education. The EU currently holds the competence of coordination in education as
laid out in Article 6 of the Treaty of the European Union with the majority regulations determined
by Member States.
The EU is already committed to invest EUR 700 million in a 5G Public-Private Partnership or 5G
PPP for research, development and innovation. Why?
Simply because mobile traffic is expected to grow by up to 1 000 times over next decade, and this
will have a tremendous impact on the underlying network infrastructure. There will be over 6
billion smart phone subscriptions by 2020, and over 90% of the population over six years old have a
mobile phone, according to Ericsson's latest Mobility Report.
Industry and academia experts from NetWorld2020, the European Technology Platform that laid the
foundation of the 5G PPP, explain in a recent White Paper that 5G will be “providing a universal
communication environment that enables to address wider societal challenges, such as: transport,
automotive, safety, education, employment, health, environment, energy, manufacturing and food
production.”
The networks of today will have to go through significant evolution, if not revolution, since current
infrastructure is too complex to continue to grow organically. Soon, just about everything will be
wireless, be it over the last 100 meters or last 100 centimeters.
Thanks God, the same situation – even better – is in the UfM and EMUNI University. We do have
all what we need for good start, and it must be done ASAP. Our time is already run-off.
We must do this not for ourselves but because and for the present and future young generations in
the UfM. As we do know that education and training play crucial role in economic and social
development this EMUNI's e-Learning Course – Master Strudy Programme – on De-pollution
of the Mediterranean can encourage understanding, and support personal development and realize
Universities and HE Institutions (HEI) full academic and economic potential.
In the ENP-South countries situation is that a relative number of students in tertiary education, as
expressed per 100 000 inhabitants, rose strongly in two out of the three countries for which data are
available during the course of the reference period.
In particular, the relative number off students in tertiary education in Israel and Lebanon (2011)
exceeded the average ratio in the EU-27 (2010) by a considerable margin. In contrast, Egypt
registered a drop in the number of tertiary students.
A review of the educational attainment levels of those over 25 years of age helps to understand the
reasons behind the strong focus on improving enrollment rates and getting more young people into
tertiary education in the ENP-South countries. In Morocco and Egypt, between two-thirds (2/3) and
half (1/2) of all adults over the age of 25 had completed no more than primary education, the
highest proportion of this group being illiterate. In Morocco (7.4%) and Egypt (14.4%) there were
correspondingly small proportions of the adult population who had graduated.
This was in stark contrast to Israel, where 44.1% had completed their tertiary education.
The corresponding proportions in Palestine (21.2%) and Lebanon (18.2% in 2009) were broadly
similar to the average across EU-27 (23.5% in 2011).
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7. Generational shifts
There is much hype surrounding the young generation (sometimes called “digital natives”), but
when it comes to work arrangements, the next generation will change the rules of the game for
themselves and everyone else.
First, if the economy continues to grow in advanced economies and ageing societies, the young
generation will call the shots simply because there will be far more jobs than people. Employers
will have therefore to become more flexible about how and where people work and how they are
reworded.
Indeed, the young generation will increasingly search for more flexible and attractive works to
better fir with life aspirations, flexibility will not only imposed by the employers. The young
generations is also hyper-connected, so virtual and collaborative networks will grow in importance
as a way of getting things done. There will be a greater spread of ages, more ethnic diversity and
more women in the workforce, the latter significantly contributing to a shift away from the white
middle-aged alpha male culture that has dominated for so long.
Some facts help to grasp the situation in the EU: in the EU there are currently 96 million 15-24 year
olds. In 2030 this generation will be 35-44 years and in 2050 their cohort from 55 to 64 will still be
in working life.
The education of EU young people is high: more than half of all students are in upper secondary
education attending vocational programs. Gender difference will continue also in future because
girls prepare for higher education while boys prepare for employment (54% of girls in upper
secondary education attend general programs and 57% of boys attend more employment-oriented
vocational programs).
More than 1/3 of 15-24 year olds are NEETs (Not in Education, Employment and Training).
Every fourth (26%) of unemployed 15-24 year olds and third (35%) of unemployed 25-29 year olds
have been unemployed for more than 12 months, so they will have difficulties in transition to work
in the future.
This will be also true for that half of employed 15-24 year olds who is in a low skilled or
elementary occupation.
When more than half (65%) of employed 15-24 year olds have used to work on a temporary
contracts or in a part-time jobs their work attitudes have already changed.
Long-term unemployment is a key concern for many policy-makers, affecting social cohesion and,
ultimately, economic growth. The total long-term unemployment rates in the ENP-South countries
for which data are available were generally much lower in 2011 than in 2001; most notable was the
decline in Algeria from 20.1% in 2001 to 6.4% in 2010. Apart from Israel (1.2%) however, the total
long-term unemployment rates in 2011 remained considerably higher that the average for the EU-27
(4.1%).
The youth unemployment rate in the ENP-South countries was often more than double the overall
unemployment rate. This was also case in the EU-27 in 2011. where a little more than one out of
every five young persons (under 25 years of age) in the labor force was not employed, but looking
for, and available to work.
In Egypt and Palestine, this ration was closer to one in every three young persons, and in Tunisia it
was even higher.
Unemployment rates also varied considerably according to the level of education.
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8. Reference:
ACM – Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY, 1021, USA, an
interview with Howard Rheingold by Laurie Rowell, February 9, 2010, www.eLearnMagazine.com
European Commission, Global Europe 2050, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation,
Socio-economic Science and Humanities, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union,
2012
European Commission; eurostat Pocketbooks, Poketbook on Euro-Mediterranean statistic, 2013
edition, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013
European Commission, eurostat Statistical books, The EU in the world 2014 – A statistical
portrait,Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2014
research'eu Focus Magazine No. 15, Why the EU is Beting Big on 5G, Digital Agenda Europe,
Publications Office of the European Union, 2015
“Ten technologies which could change our lives” - Potential impacts and policy implications;
EPRS (European Parliamentary Research Service), In-depth analysis, January 2015, authors: Lieve
Van Woensel (Head), Geoff Archer, and Darja Vrscaj from Scientific Foresight Unit, DG EPRS, and
Laura Panades-Estruch, IMCO Secretariat, DG IPOL, Brussels, European Union, 2015., or on:
www.ep.europa.eu/stoa/
Watson, R., Future Files, A Birth History of the Next 50 Years, NB Publishing, 2010
O3 Macht frei
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In Novi Vinodolski, Croatia, March 15th
2015.