Post-Covid Prospects for Massive Open Online Courses – Quarantine boost or backlash?

After a long period of travel restrictions, we were very excited to host EMOOCs 2023 locally again. The Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering welcomed participants from all over the world to our beautiful Griebnitzsee campus in Potsdam near Berlin. EMOOCs 2023 was held as a hybrid conference. Online participants could follow the keynotes and sessions via Zoom.

These topics were in focus

• Impact of the pandemic on digital education: Digital education, whether micro-credentials, MOOCs, blended learning formats, or other e-learning tools, received a major boost. How has the pandemic affected the development and delivery of MOOCs and other e-learning offerings all over Europe? Which projects can serve as models for successful digital learning and teaching? Which roles can MOOCs and micro-credentials bear in the current business transformation? Do we return to the routine we knew from pre-Corona times? Or have many things become established in the meantime, e.g. remote work, hybrid conferences, etc.?
• Formalization of digital learning: we are currently seeing how the formerly informal MOOC offerings are becoming more and more formalized and embedded in existing ecosystems. Micro-credentials are just the beginning. From online study programs to fully online universities – what scenarios are conceivable?
• MOOC networks and cooperations: Cooperations and networks such as MOOChub, the European MOOC Consortium, and the Common Micro-Credential Framework not only make MOOC research and developments more visible but also are an important building block for more standardization of formats and metadata.