EDEN Annual Conference 2016
14-17 June 2016, Budapest

Re-Imagining Learning Environments

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS OPEN!

INVITATION | CONFERENCE SCOPE | THEMES | CALL | SUBMIT | VENUE

The responsibility of the scholarly community includes widening the concept of learning and its role in society and exploiting transformative knowledge to drive social change.

We need renowned reflections of practice that support paradigm-changing transformations based on systematic knowledge.

Join the Conference in Budapest to tell
about your research, projects and experience!

Networking and interactivity, sharing and discussion will be core aspects of the conference experience, focusing on what you can learn from and with your peers.

Submissions that relate to the Conference Scope and one or more of the Conference Themes are welcome in paper, poster, workshop, training, demonstration and synergy formats. Read more...

#eden16

Invitation

25 Years with EDEN

From member to member - the #EDENChat

#EDENChat is a scheduled online discussion event on Twitter where anyone can join in and contribute to the discussions on current issues in distance, open and e-learning. Stay tuned for the anouncement of the January event by following us on Twitter.

The final #EDENchat of the 2015 year was discussing New Learning Environments. Read the archived discussion here and see the other 2015 #EDENChats by clicking on the title:

• Distance Learning in Transit? - Special Edition #EDENChatUS
• Reflecting #EDEN15 Keynote Themes
• Experiences with Personal and Networked Learning - Live from #EDEN15 Barcelona
• Personal Learning
• MOOCs and online learning
• How effective is mobile learning?
• What does openness in education mean?

New members

The EDEN community welcomes its newly joined members

• Moscow State University of Railway Engineering - MIIT
• Central European University
• Confederation of European Probation - CEP

Winter holidays at the EDEN office

We inform you that between 21 December and 6 January, the EDEN Secretariat will be partly attended.

We wish all of you a peaceful holiday season and a successful new year!

Public consultation on a renewed Modernisation Agenda for Higher Education in the European Union

The European Commission has started to review the EU's modernisation agenda for higher education, published in 2011, to ensure EU activities in higher education are as useful as possible. As part of this review, the Commission has launched an online consultation to collect the views of stakeholders about the current situation in Europe's higher education systems, as well as on priorities for change.

All stakeholders and individuals are welcome to contribute to this consultation via this online questionnaire open until 29 February 2016. Summary of the results are expected to be published one month later.

ET 2015 Joint Report adopted

The Council of the European Commission have adopted the 2015 Joint Report of the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the Strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET 2020).

The Report, which sets new priority areas and identifies concrete issues for further cooperation in education and training up to 2020, is the outcome of the ET 2020 mid-term stocktaking to which you have made an essential contribution, notably at the Forum discussions. The Report has now been published in the Official Journal in all EU languages.

Visions of The Knowledge Future 2050

The Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission published a report prepared by a group of experts entitled “The Knowledge Future: Intelligent Policy Choices for Europe 2050”. The report highlights the key role that higher education institutions should play in the knowledge future and its review of the appropriate policy opportunities that could be pursued, and the pitfalls that should be avoided. Read more on the EUA website.

Opening up education through new technologies

As a next step in the Opening Opening up Education initiative of the European Comission projects funded through Erasmus+ will have an Open Access Requirement to their educational materials, meaning they must be made openly and freely accessible through open licences.Read more here.

Erasmus+ programme: Call for proposals 2016

Kind reminder of the 2016 Erasmus+ Call for Proposals, with the earliest deadline being 2 February (including calls in KA1 - Mobility of individuals in the field of youth and in the field of education and training, KA2 - Strategic partnerships in the field of youth).

The deadline of the call for proposals Capacity Building in the Field of Higher Education is 10 February 2016.

Special Edition: Best of EDEN 2013-2014

The finalists of the Best Research Paper Competition at the EDEN 2013 Annual Conference in Oslo and 2014 in Zagreb have been invited to further elaborate their contributions for a special printed volume – the present EURODL selection contains these papers.

Research Trends in Turkish Distance Education: A Content Analysis of Dissertations, 1986-2014

Aras Bozkurt, Evrim Genc Kumtepe, Alper Tolga Kumtepe, Irem Erdem Aydin, Mujgan Bozkaya, Cengiz Hakan Aydin

Attitudinal Factors Affecting Wiki Group Collaboration for English Writing

Chwen Jen Chen, Kee Man Chuah, Jimmy Tho, Chee Siong Teh

Emotions Experienced by Learners and their Development through Communication with the Tutor-Counsellor

Michail Kalogiannakis, Sotiris Touvlatzis

Who are the Open Learners? A Comparative Study Profiling non-Formal Users of Open Educational Resources

Robert Farrow, Beatriz de los Arcos, Rebecca Pitt, Martin Weller

A Learning Analytics Methodology for Detecting Sentiment in Student Fora: A Case Study in Distance Education

Vasileios Kagklis, Anthi Karatrantou, Maria Tantoula, Chris T. Panagiotakopoulos, Vassilios S. Verykios

www.eurodl.org

Learning Analytics Evidence Hub

Everyone is welcome to add evidence about learning analytics for or against the propositions concerning learning, teaching, uptake and ethics at the LACE Evidence Hub site. A Projects category was now added to collect activities in learning analytics that are interesting to the community but are not directly evidence for or against the propositions.

Taking part in Bett this year?

then join the learning analytics community for LACE Learn Live events and Annual Meeting taking place on 20 and 21 January 2016. LACE partners are organising a high profile meeting in London during the annual Bett show centred on two seminars (taking place as part of the Learn Live Seminar Series): Scaling up learning analytics aimed at the Higher Education sector and Implementing learning analytics in your school (school sector). Registration for BETT is free.

For more news related to learning analytics, please check out the latest newsletter of the Learning Analytics Community Exchange project.

www.laceproject.eu

Developing e-Learning in the Transcaucasus region

The ARMAZEG project aims to stimulate educational reform in Armenian and Georgian universities by developing lifelong learning methodologies, implementation strategy, teacher training and setting up of e-learning centres.

Highlights in the present newsletter include country reports on Armenia and Georgia on the Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education wiki and the strategic document on the consecutive strategic and operational goals for the realization of this project vision.

www.armazeg.com

OpenPROF Newsletter: New Open Educational Resources Available

The OpenPROF project issued its 3rd Newsletter this week. The Newsletter features new OERs as well as Webinar recording on OER development challenges in Europe as well as the recorded conference sessions of the project's recent multiplier event. Read the newsletter by clicking here.

www.openprof.eu

Time to Assess Learning Outcomes in E-learning

The TALOE (Time to Assess Learning Outcomes in E-learning) project approached the e-assessment concept by using technology for assessing students’ learning.

Read about its founding premises and main results, the TALOE web tool (free service) that is developed to help teachers and trainers decide on the assessment strategies to use in their online courses and its webinar series Talks on E-Assessment and Learning Outcomes in the final newsletter of the project.

http://taloe.up.pt/

From Commonwealth of Learning: Understanding Open Educational Resources

Understanding Open Educational Resources by Neil Butcher and Andrew Moore is a short three-lesson course on OER, which is also available online and in CD format. It explores the challenges OER helps to address, including the limited availability of good-quality educational materials due to prohibitive cost. Read more here.

UOC call for grants applications for doctoral programmes

The call for grant applications for the Information and Knowledge Society Doctoral Programme; Education and ICT (e-learning) Doctoral Programme, and Network and Information Technologies Doctoral Programme is open.

The deadline for applications for the doctoral programmes is 31st January 2016. The UOC is offering grants for these three doctoral programmes for the 2016/2017 academic year. For details, please click here (pdf).

Distance Learning: Hit It Out Of The Park! - Registration Now Open for 2016 USDLA Conference

The United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA) 2016 National Conference will be held on May 10 – May 12, 2016 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Manifesto for Adult Learning in the 21st century

The European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) published a manifesto that presents seven contemporary European challenges in which adult learning can answer: Active citizenship, democracy & participation; Life skills for individuals; Social cohesion, equity and equality; Employment and digitalisation; Migration and demographic change, Sustainability;European policies. You can download the manifesto here.

Trust, Social Capital and Human Capital

How to explain the huge variation in social trust between individuals, regions and countries? How to explain the huge variation in corruption between countries? Understanding the nexus of education, social trust and corruption - presentation by Bo Rothstein from the Universities of Gothenburg and Oxford at the GCES Conference on Trust and Education in The Hague on 7 December.

E-tutorial on the international dimension of Erasmus+ in Higher Education

This E-tutorial provides an overview of the funding opportunities offered by Erasmus+ to Higher Education Institutions and their staff and students based in Partner Countries outside the European Union.

Ten steps to success in tech transfer: the case of KU Leuven

A new Science|Business report analyses the principles and strategies that lie at the heart of one of the world’s most productive tech transfer offices, Leuven Research and Development. Read more...

University of Edinburgh Puts Video at the Heart of Learning

Checkpoint-elearning

The goal is to use video to enrich learning, communicate more effectively to external audiences, and further enhance the institution’s research activities. Read more...

The Structure of the European Education Systems 2015/16: Schematic Diagrams

This report provides an overview of the structure of education systems in Europe for 2015/16. In total, 42 education systems are represented showing how they are organised at five educational level. Information covers the 28 EU Member States as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, and Turkey.

Dropout and Completion in Higher Education in Europe

This new study demonstrates that study success is measured differently across Europe and that policymakers at national and institutional levels apply different measures to improve completion and reduce dropout in higher education.