Workshop I (28 Oct, 16:45–18:45)

Institutional repositories and their federation: New roles in the MOOC and post-MOOC era
Prof. Tsuneo Yamada
Professor, Department of Informatics
Open University of Japan

New roles and value-added services are being sought for institutional repositories and regional/global federated referatories in the midst of rapid ICT advancement and an enormous accumulation of academic and educational content. In this workshop, you will: (1) gain an overview of the new e-learning technologies that allow the customization and personalization of learning environments and processes, such as ‘mash-ups,’ learning metrics/analytics, digital textbooks, and MOOC/SPOC (massive open online course/small private online course) platforms, (2) experience the latest institutional repository system, WEKO (a multilingual open source software package developed by the National Institute of Informatics [NII], Japan), (3) be introduced to a relevant project at Wawasan Open University (WOU), Malaysia and (4) discuss with other participants what we can share for collaboration in Asia through the AAOU.

The following speakers will also share their related experience and views in this workshop:

• Kazutsuna Yamaji, Associate Professor, National Institute of Informatics (NII), Japan
• Masumi Hori, Chief Architect, TIES Consortium, Japan
• Seishi Ono, Vice Executive Director, TIES Consortium, Japan
• Kamsiah Mohd Ali, Director, Learning and Library Services, Wawasan Open University (WOU), Malaysia
• K S Yuen, Director, Educational Technology and Publishing Unit, The Open University of Hong Kong
• K C Li, Director, University Research Centre, The Open University of Hong Kong

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Prof. Tsuneo Yamada is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Informatics, and a Professor of the Center for Open and Distance Education at the Open University of Japan (OUJ). He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Cyber Society and Culture at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI). His main research fields are Educational Technology, Learning Psychology and Second Language Learning. His current interests are the development and evaluation of learning objects and MOOCs, strategies for their sharing and distribution, and quality assurance. He is participating in several open educational resources (OER) movements, such as Global Learning Object Brokered Exchange (GLOBE), OER Asia and, as Deputy Secretary General, Japan Massive Open Online Course (JMOOC).

Workshop II (29 Oct, 15:30–17:45)

Open universities in MOOCs and opening up education. How about Asia?
Prof. Fred Mulder
UNESCO/ICDE Chair in Open Educational Resources and
former Rector, Open University of the Netherlands

Mr Abel Caine
UNESCO Programme Specialist
Open Educational Resources

Despite the fast growth of MOOCs in conventional institutions, Open Universities (OUs) have been to a large extent passive in offering MOOCs, which is difficult to understand or even risky because MOOCs targeting similar groups of learners. In Europe, this has led to the OpenupEd MOOCs initiative, launched in April 2013 by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) jointly with the European Commission.

OpenupEd aims to reach out to all learners who are interested in taking part in online higher education in an open context that meets their needs and accommodates their situations. This is at the core of the missions of OUs. It builds on their relevant expertise and experience, but at the same time it can reshape their current mode of open and distance learning (ODL) into a modernized mode of opening up education (OuE). UNESCO, recognizing the potential of MOOCs for its ambition to bring about ‘Education for All’, embraces opportunities for globalizing the ideas behind OpenupEd in this respect.

By attending this workshop, you will:

• identify issues regarding the need for and urgency of a strategic response from the global OU community to the global MOOCs movement;
• gain insights into the pan-European OpenupEd MOOCs scenario and partnership as compared to the US-based Coursera, edX, and Udacity and the European country-based FutureLearn (UK), MiríadaX (Spain), iversity (Germany), and FUN (France);
• be introduced to examples of the MOOCs initiatives of Asian OUs, their current status, their targeted scope, and their future perspectives; and
• share views on different scenarios for establishing an Asian-OU-flavoured MOOCs movement, possibly beneficially linked to counterparts in Europe (OpenupEd) and other parts of the world (Globalizing OpenupEd).

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Prof. Fred Mulder currently has a strategic full Professorship at the Open Universiteit in The Netherlands (OUNL). At the OUNL he also holds a UNESCO Chair in OER (Open Educational Resources), which was combined in 2013 with an ICDE Chair in OER. For more than a decade prior to this, until the end of 2010, he had served as Rector at the OUNL. He has long been actively involved in OER initiatives and policies organized at the national level, as well as those organized by UNESCO, the OECD, the EU, EADTU and ICDE, and other European and global organizations of open universities. From 2009 until 2012 he chaired the Steering Committee of the Dutch National OER Program Wikiwijs, and from 2002–2011 he was on the Executive Committee of EADTU. He presently chairs the EADTU’s Taskforce on OER and Open Education, which in April 2013 launched — jointly with the European Commission — OpenupEd, the first pan-European MOOCs (massive open online courses) initiative. Since September 2012 he has also led the Global OER Graduate Network, a worldwide OER research initiative, while in October 2013 he was appointed to the European Commission’s High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education. In recognition of his efforts to promote OER, Prof. Mulder has been the recipient of several awards and honours. In October 2013 he was granted an honorary Professorship at Tianjin Open University in China. In 2012 he received the ICDE Individual Prize of Excellence for his work on OER, and in 2014 the Leadership Award for OpenCourseWare Excellence. Finally, in recognition of his extensive efforts to promote Lifelong Learning, he received the honour of a Royal decoration in 2007.

Mr Abel Caine is a Programme Specialist with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Knowledge Societies Division based at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. He is responsible for the global-level Programme for Open Educational Resources (OERs) and the YouthMobile Initiative.

Mr Caine manages a comprehensive programme assisting governments and key stakeholders with expert advice on policy development, capacity building, online communities of practice, research and publications, and convening large events for the sharing of best practices to achieve UNESCO’s Education for All Goals.

Workshop III (30 Oct, 13:45–15:30)

Using mobile technologies/apps to enhance teaching and learning
Dr Eva Tsang
Deputy Director (Learning and Teaching)
Educational Technology & Publishing Unit
The Open University of Hong Kong

The workshop presenter will demonstrate the OUHK’s latest in-house mobile-learning technologies/apps and discuss the m-learning development approaches involved. A series of mobile technologies/apps will be introduced, including multimedia enhanced e-books, mobile records and assessments for nursing clinical practicums, a student response system, language enhancement apps and so forth. Participants in this workshop will learn how e-learning materials can be converted and created for use in mobile learning. Design pedagogies which enhance teaching and learning as well as best practices for m-learning development will also be discussed. Finally, some tips and guidelines on implementing mobile learning projects will be mentioned.

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Dr Eva Tsang is the Deputy Director (Learning and Teaching) in the Educational Technology & Publishing Unit (ETPU) of the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). Her expertise lies in the design, development and delivery of distance and open learning courses, e-learning courses and mobile learning modules and in the establishment of a quality-assurance system for use in the production of learning materials. Her recent work is on the provision of an online learning environment, blended learning and mobile learning, and the innovative use of educational technology in teaching and learning. She has been appointed as the Project Director of the University’s Centre for Innovation and is in charge of various e-learning projects, including the development of online learning platforms, open textbook platforms and mobile learning apps.

Dr Tsang has given a number of workshops. Topics have included ‘Best practices for designing mobile content,’ ‘Mobile learning in action,’ ‘Developing e-learning materials for classroom teaching,’ ‘Development of free courseware,’ ‘The development of a Smart Learning/ Teaching Space and the integration of e-learning tools’ and so forth. In the past five years, she has conducted and organized a series of training workshops in course development, instructional design and e-learning for distance education planners and practitioners from Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and mainland China.