Who are we?

The European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) is Europe’s leading institutional association in Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education (OOF-HE), and is at the heart of the modernization agenda of European universities. Growing from its 11 founding members in 10 European nations, EADTU now has a membership of 15  institutions and 14 national associations across 25 nations. Its membership covers over 200 universities and around 3 million students.

EADTU has a European coverage and is regarded as a key partner of the European Commission as far as lifelong open and flexible learning in distance higher education is concerned. The Association is committed to the creation of a European Learning Space in accordance with the Bologna Declaration and the ET2020 Strategy.

EADTU operates in the field of 6 policy areas: Lifelong Learning, Research & Innovation, Open Education & MOOCs. Virtual Mobility, Skills & Employability and Quality Assurance. The Association  have fostered the creation of fully facilitated Virtual Mobility schemes including the development of templates for bilateral agreements between universities under the project E-MOVE and EPICS (European Portal for International Courses and Services) and will bring expertise, templates, guides, showcases and good practices in Virtual Mobility including Virtual Internships to ECCOE.

Why we are participating in the project

For EADTU it is important to be part of this project for the following reasons:

• be connected and contribute to a pool of experts in the field of micro-credentials;
• sharing our expertise gained from other projects (European MOOC consortium; E-SLP; EMC-LM) in the field with ECCOE partners;
• generate awareness of the common micro-credentials framework (CMF);
• exploring ways for validating micro-credentials
• contributing to greater efficiency quality and transparency offering flexible education for LLL.

Our role in the project

EADTU’s contribution to the ECCOE project:

• put in practice the results and lessons learned during the e-SLP project to inform the quality criteria development for optional courses (IO1)
• utilise the templates developed for bilateral agreements between universities under the project EMOVE and EPICS (European Portal for International Courses and Services) in the IO2 work
• identify and analyse 50 modules/MOOCs on transversal competences and 5 disciplinary courses for involvement in the ECCOE-System
• promote ECCOE through Online, Open & Flexible (OOF) Higher Education, supporting collaboration and development of new methods
• share expertise in OOF education such as organizing events, staff-students exchanges, expert pools and task forces
• support policy cooperation and policy-making at rectors level and in cooperation with the EU, European stakeholder organizations and national governments
• act as a forum and structure for communication and dissemination of the ECCOE results, e. g. at events, like the annual EADTU conference on OOF education
• organise and host the 3rd ECCOE Multiplier Event
• support ECCOE sustainability beyond the project lifetime

Our Team