During the HOME conference Mapping the European MOOC Territory held on 27 November 2014 in Porto, participants discussed and agreed the text of a declaration about MOOCs and the opportunities they present in Europe.

The Porto Declaration on European MOOCs highlights the opportunities that massive open online courses offer for scaling up higher education to reach wider audiences in the EU and which offer the kind of flexible, creative and modern approach to learning that today’s complex world requires.

It calls for more openness: open access, open licensing policy, and open pedagogy, and urges governments and institutions within Europe to support and actively implement the Paris OER Declaration of Unesco (2012).

The Porto Declaration calls Europe to “seize this moment to grab the opportunities offered by MOOCs” and states that a cohesive and collaborative pan-European response is the only way to achieve these aims.

Next to EADTU, initiator of the HOME project, the document was signed by many projects, associations and institutions like Media Literacy Lab, EDEN (European Distance and E-Learning Network), EFQUEL (European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning) and The Open University.

Keywords

educational policy · Europe · international politics ·  · OER