Overview of papers on enhancement of European Higher Education as presented during the Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference in Rome, October 2016

The numerous MOOCs produced by universities in recent years lead to a widespread offer of freely accessible videos for teaching and learning. This paper examines the question of how these videos - which can be classified as Open Education Resources (OER) - could be sustainably integrated into distance degree courses. The aims of such sustainable integration are not only to achieve frequent playing of the videos, but also to adapt the video material to the students' learning situations, thus fostering a learner-centric approach of teaching.

A corresponding pilot project was conducted at the FernUniversität in Hagen. Videos of a MOOC about statistics (#ExIF14) were integrated in the module "Quantitative Empirical Education Research". The students had the opportunity to watch the videos together with the tutors, synchronised on a freely accessible social media platform, and to comment on them in the built-in chat room. Thereby the students' questions could be answered straight away and the tutors could explain any divergences between the video content and the course-specific study material.

The evaluation of a questionnaire survey showed that active learners regarded this opportunity of synchronised watching as helpful and motivating. In addition, monitoring the frequency of access to the videos revealed effects of the project concerning students who did not participate in the online-meetings. Feedback from the students is being considered for the second pass of the project. On the basis of the concept presented, the potentials and challenges for sustainable integration and adaptation of MOOC videos in distance higher education are discussed.

Keywords

adaptive integration · learner-centric teaching · MOOC videos · OER