OpenupEd is an open, non-profit partnership offering MOOCs that contribute to open up education – much to the benefit of individual learners and the wider society. The vision is to reach out to all those learners who are interested to take part in online higher education in a way that meets their needs and accommodates their particular situation.
OpenupEd offers high-quality learner-centred courses that are designed for self-learning, to be studied independent of time, place, and ideally also of pace, and to be taken by either informal learners or formal students in a language that suits them. Note that OpenupEd offers both self-paced and scheduled MOOCs. Our MOOCs are designed in such a way that they truly open up education. I.e. we see MOOCs as part of open education. The aim of open education is to increase access to and successful participation in education by removing barriers and offering multiple ways of learning and sharing knowledge.
Note that we don’t expect that MOOCs can remove all barriers to learning, and hence can only contribute, to a certain extent, to ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all. Our analyses on this is described in this book chapter ‘MOOCs for Opening Up Education and the OpenupEd initiative.’
OpenupEd has some strong assets as compared to other major MOOC providers by focusing on ‘full’ openness, quality and diversity.
