UOC - Open University of Catalonia - the Global Online University Pilot Course on Facebook to Assess Its Potential for Teaching

Barcelona, Spain, September 24, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The aim of the pilot course being started in October on Facebook by the UOC Open University of Catalonia - The Global Online University is to test an open learning model in an open virtual environment on the internet based on the use of open educational resources and a methodology driven by interaction on social networks. It will be open to the whole of the social network community and last for two months. If there are positive results from the experience, the University will study offering some new subjects using social networks.

The plan is to create a Facebook group for a virtual course where students take part in a training process looking at a specific subject. This will let the University analyse the social knowledge building, and the advantages and disadvantages of UOC students’ using a social network; determine whether these open-content social networks aid greater personalisation and enrich the learning process; assess the possibilities offered by a system involving a high level of self-learning and basing learning support and assessment on a peer-to-peer structure and the students themselves, and evaluate the appropriateness of the different designs, tools and functionalities of social networks, and their reuse at the UOC.

This course will allow for the evaluation of the possibility of using a social network as a forum for training and, thus, will be decisive when it comes to looking at the possibility of offering subjects using social networks. It will also serve to evaluate the possibilities offered by a system which, alongside the key teaching role, also offers a high level of self-learning and bases part of the support and assessment on peer-to-peer relations with the rest of the community. The quality and rigor of the University’s training will provide the backbone to all the activities planned.

The materials used will be the UOC’s, offered under the Creative Commons - Attribution licence. This initiative, led by Elena Barberà, Julià Minguillón and the Learning Technologies team, forms part of the innovation projects developed by the UOC’s eLearn Center.

UOC - Open University of Catalonia - The Global Online University, offers online courses in the languages English, Spanish, Catalan and French. For more information about the online courses offered by UOC visit the website TheGlobalOnlineUniversityUocEdu. For individual questions or enquiries, contact the training advisor team at +34 93 326 30 00, or send an e-mail to: queries@uoc.edu

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