conference

Recently Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have shaken up the blogosphere and media reports on higher education. These courses make use of open digital resources for learning and have attracted hundreds of thousands of online learners at no cost. A digital resource for learning can be a written text, pictures, slides, videos, a 3-D simulation or a website combining all of them into ready-made curricula including tools for (self-)assessment for educators or learners. More and more digital resources with open licenses facilitate educators and learners in editing, improving, and adapting to different learning situations inside or outside of the classroom and in turn share their own work with the online community. These open digital resources provide the foundation for a borderless exchange of teaching and learning methods in many different fields. But a potential conflict exists between open learning resources and the quality of those resources. Restrictions on the certification of the creators of such content or the access to learning materials through paywalls have to some degree defended the quality of those resources in the past. How can creators ensure that their digital resources meet an appropriate level of quality and how can users be certain that said resources are worth their time?

The LINQ conference will bring together current initiatives from all areas of education - schooling, adult learning, informal and on-the-job learning - to demonstrate their online resources and methods of quality development and thereby address this potential conflict. An example of such an initiative is VOA3R (Virtual Open Access Agriculture and Aquaculture Repository), a European research project consortium of a variety universities and research centres. This group is building a hub for resources in agriculture and aqua-science through a social network in which researchers can share, comment and rate content. Through the VOA3R platform advances are being made in the sharing, reciprocal reviewing, and rating of learning innovations in the aforementioned fields, thereby addressing the important aspect of learning quality which should accompany learning development.  These advances have proven of great interest to the Global Headquarter of United Nations' organization Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) - LINQ conference host and supporter of the VOA3R project.

In Rome, discussions will deal with the following questions:

·   How can the quality of resources be improved and what does “quality” actually mean for teachers, learners and institutions?

·   Are teachers and educational institutions ready to make use of the wealth of resources and how do they find the “right” thing?

·   Will the future of digital resources be determined by metadata, i.e. the data about data, feeding databases and search engines?

·   What must be done to ensure that we can still access valuable resources in 15 years from now (think about your files from 1998)?

·   Do more easy-to-find resources lead to better learning?

Especially but not exclusively for those who do not plan to travel to Rome in May, the University of Duisburg-Essen is inviting interested parties to exchange views on the future of digital resources on Facebook: www.facebook.com/LINQConference. Two conference fee waivers will be given away to Facebook-Followers.

The 2nd European Conference on "Learning Innovations and Quality" (LINQ 2013) has announced several high-ranking speakers to be present during the event on May 16th and 17th at the Global Headquarters of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy. Figures such as the esteemed Prof. Dr. Rory McGreal and Prof. Dr. Fred Mulder, both UNESCO chairs for Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr, Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), will contribute their experience to the conference. Their support of LINQ’s continuing mission to examine the intersections between learning innovations and quality will provide an excellent framework for the state-of-the-art research and project work collected through the LINQ call for papers and projects, ended on March 4th.

“Rory McGreal and Fred Mulder have long been crucial pioneers in the development of Open Educational Resources as UNESCO Chairs,” says Christian M. Stracke, LINQ Conference Chair and international ISO Convener for learning quality from the University of Duisburg-Essen. “We will be honoured to greet them at LINQ 2013 and to learn from their professional and academic expertise. Likewise, Christian-Friedrich Lettmayr’s familiarity with the inner workings of CEDEFOP will prove incredibly valuable to practically situate the newest research efforts submitted to LINQ 2013. We are certain that the discussion at LINQ 2013 will benefit enormously from their presence.”

More than 150 researchers and practitioners have answered the LINQ 2013 call for papers and projects and the contributions of the highest quality will make the conference programme insightful and exciting. Early-bird registration at the reduced rate of 90€ will remain open until March 31st, 2013. All interested parties active in the fields of new learning methods and design, Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL), quality standards and certification, human resources development, competences and skills, digital resources, learning materials, and online collaboration and communities are encouraged to register for LINQ 2013 and take part in the continuing development of learning innovations and quality. For more information on specific registration requirements and other matters, please visit the conference website at www.learning-innovations.eu. 

Overview of the important dates:

-          End of early-bird registration period (90€): 31st of March 2013

-          Conference Programme Ready: April 2013

-          Conference date: 16th and 17th of May 2013

For the latest information on the conference and to submit any pre-conference feedback, please visit the LINQ Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LINQConference and follow the LINQ Twitter account at www.twitter.com/LINQ_Conference.