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Draft, originally published in: Ebner, M., Kreuzer, E., Schön, S., Edelsbrunner, S. (2025). Opening Up
Teaching and Learning at Universities: OER, MOOCs and Microcredentials. In: Vendrell Vidal, E.,
Cukierman, U.R., Auer, M.E. (eds) Advanced Technologies and the University of the Future. Lecture Notes
in Networks and Systems, vol 1140. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-71530-3_18
Opening up Teaching and Learning at Universities:
OER, MOOCs and Microcredentials
Martin Ebner1 [0000-0001-5789-5296], Ernst Kreuzer1, Sandra Schön1 [0000-0003-0267-5215]
and Sarah Edelsbrunner1
1 Graz University of Technology, Münzgrabenstraße 36, 5010 Graz, Austria
martin.ebner@tugraz.at
Abstract. [To be done]
Keywords: higher education institution, open educational resources, massive
open online courses, microcredentials
1 Facets of “openness of digitalization” in higher education
The increasing digitalization and most recently the phase of enforced distance learning
at many universities worldwide has shown that the needs of learners and teachers
concerning open and digital learning and teaching opportunities are evolving. For
many, digitalization means the possibility of maintaining teaching at one's own
university even though it is closed. This was also the case at the Austrian Graz
University of Technology (TU Graz; Ebner, 2020). Nevertheless, digitalization and the
corresponding strategic decisions began several years earlier (Ebner, Mair et al., 2023).
In this article, we describe developments regarding the digitalization of teaching at TU
Graz that are very similar in terms of one characteristic: All developments can be
assigned to the principle of opening up academic teaching.
Opening up education is not always understood to mean the same thing - and in this
article we also refer to different aspects. Opening up can refer to the opening of higher
education institutions to individuals without college access. The Open Universities, for
example, are in this tradition. Opening up can also refer to the possibilities of external
persons using resources provided by universities, e.g., research laboratories and
libraries. Especially in the context of Open Science, the term "open" refers primarily to
the possibility of openly licensing data, research articles and educational resources.
Prominent examples of open licenses are the Creative Commons licenses CC BY 4.0
or CC BY-SA 4.0. Open licenses allow re-use, modification, and re-publishing.
Inamorato Dos Santos, Punie & Castaño (2016) identified ten dimensions of open
education in higher education, depending on where and how openness is possible and
needed. This article presents the situation at TU Graz with respect to three
developments concerning opening up education: Open Educational Resources (OER),
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and the introduction of microcredentials.
2
OER are defined as educational resources where modification, revision, re-use, and
publication are allowed, because they are available in the public domain or with open
licenses (UNESCO, 2019). Educational resources produced by universities are thereby
made available to the public, such as self-organized learners, teachers in schools and
beyond. Many different positive aspects and purposes of OER are known, among them
inclusion, sustainability of investment, and less copyright infringements (Ebner et al.,
2016). OER are also seen as a measure to support open educational practices (Geser,
2007).
MOOCs, short for Massive Open Online Courses, a term first coined in 2010, are
freely accessible online courses that usually serve a very large number of registered
learners at the same time (McAuley et al., 2010). Additionally, those MOOCs are
hosted by MOOC-platforms like Udacity, edX, future learn or the Austrian pendant
iMooX.at. These platforms are similar to typical Learning Management Systems, with
special features as well as user interfaces allowing thousands of learners to interact in
parallel. Each MOOC consists mainly of four components: (a) the main learning objects
are (rather short) learning videos. Instructors present their topic by producing videos in
different ways; (b) further learning content is presented by linking to other web content,
uploaded documents, or interactive learning objects, (c) self-assessment is provided to
assess learners’ knowledge after watching the videos and interacting with the learning
objects, and (d) a certificate is available if all self-assessments, tasks and homework
has been successfully completed.
Finally, microcredentials as defined by the European Commission (2022) “certify
the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences, for example a short course
or training [and] offer a flexible, targeted way to help people develop the knowledge,
skills, and competences they need for their personal and professional development.”
Typically, microcredentials in Europe are referring to the European Crediting Transfer
System (ECTS) and certify a workload of 3–30 ECTS. As one ECTS credit equals about
25 working hours, a microcredential refers to 75–750 working hours. Microcredentials
should be accepted by all (higher) education institutions. The main driving force in
introducing microcredentials is the idea to make education more attractive to the labor
market following the idea of professional continuing education in the sense of lifelong
learning.
Figure 1 gives an overview of how these three developments differ from traditional
teaching as measures to open up teaching to the public.
3
Fig. 1. Measures to open up teaching to the public in higher education versus traditional
teaching in higher education
2 A case study on opening up teaching at TU Graz
In this paper, we would like to present three measures in the context of the digitalization
of teaching, which we suspect are not unique, but may represent a special feature in our
combination at TU Graz. We would like to present these developments in the form of
a case study, which we describe as those affected by them and actors ourselves. This is
intended to provide a basis for third parties to compare our measures and developments
with their decisions.
The guiding questions are:
1. What do the three selected measures currently mean for TU Graz and how are
they dealt with?
2. In what way can the measures be described as “open”? How does this openness
work and what does it change, if anything?
The article not only discusses the opportunities and positive effects of these
developments at TU Graz as part of the digitalization of teaching (Ebner et al., 2021)
and lifelong learning activities, but also addresses the challenges in an increasingly
globalized and competitive higher education landscape.
3 The Austrian higher education landscape
Austria is a German-speaking European country with about 80 higher education
institutions. Besides 22 public universities, Austria has 16 private universities. There
are also 21 universities of applied sciences and 14 University Colleges of Teacher
Education. Most students in Austria are enrolled at public universities which can be
attended for comparatively low tuition fees; especially when compared internationally
(Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, 2022). As in other countries,
higher education autonomy was introduced in Austria in 2002 (Janger et al., 2012), but
in terms of implementation, Austria is in the international midfield, in other words, the
universities are still clearly dependent on the Ministry of Education in financial terms,
for example, through budgeting and guidelines (Esterman et al., 2011).
4
4 Open educational resources at TU Graz
OER are and have been promoted, in demand, and increasingly published, not least
because of Austrian copyright restrictions on the use of proprietary educational
materials (Schön & Ebner, 2020). OER make university content available to a larger
public. In Austria, OER has been mentioned in several national policies for higher
education for several years (Edelsbrunner, Ebner & Schön, 2021), and is explicitly part
of the “Open Science Policy Austria” (2022). Compared with the situation of OER
policies in higher education institutions with neighboring Germany and Switzerland, it
was stated that
“(...) Austria has a significantly higher penetration of policies at
institutional level compared to Germany and Switzerland. Now, we
can only speculate about the reasons for this. One possible
explanation could be that (according to the OER World Map) the
number of national policy documents is also higher than in Germany
and Switzerland, which could have supported the trend towards
adopting institutional policies. Another explanation could be that the
topic of OER was taken up earlier in Austria’s higher education
system than in Germany and Switzerland and therefore has been able
to develop further than with its neighbours.” (Neumann et al., 2022,
p. 141).
According to the latest analysis of the current performance agreements (2022-2024),
all 22 Austrian public universities mention OER in their planned activities
(Edelsbrunner et al., 2022).
One of the stakeholders in the OER movement in Austria is TU Graz. As of 2010,
there is evidence for a first strategic orientation of TU Graz towards open educational
resources in the form of a publication entitled “Open Educational Resources as a
Lifelong Learning Strategy using the example of TU Graz” (Ebner & Stöckler-Penz,
2011). Since the winter semester 2013/2014, there has been a dedicated continuing
education course for OER, but due to lack of demand, it has only been held regularly
since 2015. Since 2017, OER have also been anchored in the development plan as well
as in the performance agreement. In the section on teaching and learning technologies
of the development plan, this is described as follows
“In recent years, TU Graz has been able to establish itself
particularly in the area of Open Educational Resources (OER) and,
in addition to intensive activity at the national level (co-author on the
recommendation letter of the Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre
association), can also point to collaboration in the Open Education
Austria project (2016-2019). Furthermore, internal further
education offers on OER and copyright should also be established.
The offer of free educational materials should help fulfill the public
educational mandate, make content easily accessible for future
students or graduates and also actively support students and teachers
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on site by simplifying the handling of educational materials.” (TU
Graz, 2017, p. 60; translation by authors).
To elaborate further: In the performance agreement 2019 to 2021 of TU Graz, OER
are mentioned in quite a few places, and similarly to the development plan, concrete
activities are described, one of which was to point out an “OER Policy” planned for
2020 (TU Graz & BMBWF 2018, p. 10; p. 59). In the OER Policy (TU Graz, 2020),
among other things, the organizational unit “Educational Technology” is listed as a
contact for OER. For example, it was stipulated that the “Award for Excellent
Teaching” will be linked to OER. To monitor and assess the impact of activities around
OER, the Educational Technology team is aware of the need and possibilities of OER
impact assessment, has carried out first research of existing approaches and developed
measures for it (Ebner, Orr & Schön, 2022; Ebner, Schön et al., 2022).
[Fig. 2 here]
Figure 2: TU Graz activities, results, outcomes and expected key impact according to the TU
Graz OER Policy.
One important OER activity at TU Graz is the possibility to publish and archive OER
in an OER repository: The development of this OER repository and a plug-in for
teachers in the learning management system started in 2019. Now, after completing an
OER further education, teachers are allowed to use the OER plug-in and their material
is automatically published (Ladurner et al. 2020). The OER repository is additionally
connected (via API) with the Austrian-wide higher education OER referatory
OERhub.at (Gröblinger et al., 2021). TU Graz, the “Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre
Austria” (fnma) and partners are responsible for the development of an OER
certification for higher education institutions and staff, which is a unique national
development (see Schön et al., 2021).
The Educational Technology team serves as OER support and develops a variety of
materials about OER for teachers and students, as well as other materials concerning
technology-enhanced teaching, which are provided as OER as well. These materials are
for example canvases for the creation of OER and the ReDesign of lectures (Schön et
al., 2021). One highlight is the TELucation collection, providing recommendations for
technology-enhanced learning (Ebner, Edelsbrunner et al., 2022).
5 The national MOOC platform iMooX hosted by TU Graz
Massive Open Online Courses (short MOOCs) on the Austrian MOOC platform
iMooX.at (hosted by TU Graz) allow all Austrian universities to offer online courses
free of charge to their own students as well as to the public and lifelong learners (Ebner,
2022). This allows for new collaboration among universities and opportunities for
learners and students to learn with MOOCs by other universities.
The platform was founded in 2013 by TU Graz and University of Graz, aiming to
offer “education for all”. Hence, from the very beginning, it was defined that each
6
learning object - videos, documents, etc. – as well as the course must be licensed with
a Creative Commons license. Therefore, the platform consists only of online courses
for many learners on a higher education level as Open Educational Resources. Since
2013, more than 500 different courses have been offered in different fields of research
and for different educational levels (bachelor, master, high school, adult education, and
others) for learners of all ages.
In 2020, the MOOChub consortium was founded by TU Graz following the idea to
bring together all MOOC platforms in the German-speaking area. As a follow up, a
common standard for MOOC descriptions has been elaborated and coordinated
between the different providers. As a result, the website moochub.org holds more than
600 online courses today, which are searchable via topics, providers, and interests. In
2021, iMooX.at also became a member of the European MOOC Consortium (EMC)
and is currently one of the six European MOOC platforms committing to the EMC
common microcredentials framework:
“The European MOOC Consortium is collaborating on a
Common Microcredential Framework (CMF) to be used by these
platforms on a voluntary basis, but which may under the right
circumstances could be converted into a formal qualification or
standard for use by a wider set of universities adhering to the
framework, achieved in partnership with national and supranational
agencies.“ (European MOOC Consortium, 2019)
The impact of the iMooX platform was investigated through a survey of MOOC
creators, as part of the project “MooX – The MOOC Platform as a Service for All
Austrian Universities” (2020–2023), which aims to expand iMooX.at as a national
platform for higher education institutions. The study by Ebner, Edelsbrunner et al.
(2023) presents the findings and impacts of the project. The study collected data
through an online survey with 17 course creators revealed that a significant majority
affirmed that iMooX.at contributes to the dissemination of Open Educational Resources
(OER) and has positive impacts on various groups. It is worth noting that staff from TU
Graz have offered the most MOOCs on the iMooX platform so far, highlighting the
university's active role in promoting and utilizing OER through this national initiative.
This engagement not only underscores TU Graz's commitment to educational
innovation but also its leadership in the broader adoption of OER across Austria.
6 Microcredentials development at the TU Graz
Thirdly, microcredentials are presented, i.e. the possibility for external learners and
students to receive an accredited confirmation of their qualifications from the
university. It will be described how microcredentials are currently under development
at the TU Graz.
The principle of lifelong learning is essential in today's world and must be spread
multidirectionally and multidimensionally across all areas of life. For this reason, the
7
organizational unit “Life Long Learning” (LLL) was established in 2005 at TU Graz as
an interface between university (educational sector), economy and society.
Continuing technical education and training is becoming a constant, while at the
same time the demands on continuing education are changing towards flexible,
demand-oriented, and modularized learning settings. In the European Commission
(2021) “Recommendation on Effective Active Support to Employment”, upskilling and
reskilling opportunities aligned with labor market needs are seen as essential. Thus,
new and/or realigned educational offers in the form of short training courses, certified
by micro-credentials, could play an important role for companies as well as employees.
The work of the future will be more flexible, more mobile, and more digitally
networked. This is a consequence of the current transformation processes toward
digitalization affecting all areas of human life, especially that of continuing education.
Against the backdrop of change in the world of work, it seems obvious that progressive
specialization also requires adapted operational or organizational learning processes.
This means that companies are increasingly required to design, manage, and integrate
learning processes and learning environments into their organizations to create or be
part of a life-long learning ecosystem to prepare employees for changing work fields
and tasks. Companies need to become learning organizations, and employees also need
to acquire lifelong knowledge. A sustainable change in the world of work also requires
a new conception of academic continuing education or an adaptation in a holistic way,
i.e., both on the institutional level and about transdisciplinary cooperation with the
business community, as well as an acceleration of national and international
cooperation (Fomunyam 2019). A new kind of degrees is seen as a possible chance for
universities all over the world: microcredentials (Pelletier et al. 2021).
The State University of New York (2021) describes microcredentials as follows on
their website: “At the most basic level, micro-credentials verify, validate, and attest
specific skills and/or competencies have been achieved. They differ from traditional
degrees and certificates in that they are generally offered in shorter or more flexible
time spans and tend to be more narrowly focused. Micro-credentials can be offered
online, in the classroom, or via a hybrid of both.” In other words, microcredentials
describe the awarding of certificates that comprise less than a study program but more
than one course, i. e. roughly an effort of 5 to 30 ECTS. MOOC providers unfortunately
use different names for these certificates, for example, edX speaks of “professional
certificates”, Udacity of “Nanodegrees”, Coursera and others of “MasterTrack
Certificates” (Shah, 2019). These inconsistencies in designations and implementations
of microcredentials, especially among MOOC providers, have been criticized (Pickard
2018) and there are numerous initiatives to ensure consistency. In Austria, for example,
the Ministry of Education, Science and Research has made an initial proposal on a
uniform understanding and descriptions of microcredentials that was sent to the
universities.
Austrian higher education takes a positive view of the European developments on
microcredentials, especially in the context of lifelong learning, which is becoming
increasingly important, and see this as an opportunity for higher education institutions
to qualitatively expand their educational offer, to develop new target groups and to
expand cooperation with non-university partner institutions.
8
The following list names possible parameters of a microcredential in the sense of a
short learning unit): title and short description of the micro-credential; references to the
effort (in Austria, described with European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System,
in short ECTS); target groups and participation requirements; performance
assessment/examination modalities; description of learning outcomes,
teaching/learning forms and formats (online, on site or blended); quality assurance;
connection and credit options (integrated or standalone microcredential; continuing
microcredential); and completion/credential.
The academic continuing education offering by TU Graz Life Long Learning (LLL)
was reorganized and restructured with the continuing education campaign in the area
of “Digitalization and Digital Transformation”. Now learning offers and certificates are
structured in “modules” that consist of learning units of five ECTS credits each. The
learning effort to complete such a LLL module is calculated as about 150 hours. As
shown in Figure 3, it combines blended learning activities such as a MOOC or online
course, face-to-face training (which can also take the form of virtual presence) and a
transfer assignment to prove application skills. If all components are demonstrated and
met as sufficient, a microcredential will be awarded in the future. (Kreuzer &
Aschmann, 2021)
[fig3. here]
Figure 3: Components of a LLL module and microcredential
In addition to a highly modularized program architecture based on 5 ECTS
modules/microcertificates, which can be combined to form individual modules (mixed
format: online phase/in-person phase and transfer phase) into a complete master's
degree program (“up-scaling”) or which also enable shorter target group-specific
continuing education formats (“down-scaling”), the key features here are the selected
three-phase and digitally supported teaching and learning arrangement. The
flexibilization of continuing education is additionally supported by the increased use of
methods and formats of technology-enhanced learning. These two new features enable
a scalable and stackable continuing education portfolio (see Fig. 3), which better meets
the requirements of contemporary academic continuing education and specifically
promotes and supports life-long learning.
The objective of the further expansion of the continuing education offers of TU Graz
LLL is to generate research-based continuing education content in a stackable manner
in the sense of a modular system, to continuously expand it (also with
modules/microcredentials/micro-certificates from partner institutions and universities)
and thus to address specific target groups and their needs through a mix and match of
micro- or also nano-certificates. MOOCs can play an important and leading role in
designing flexible curricula and individual learning paths in continuing academic
education, either as stand-alone offers or as part of a blended learning format.
As shown in Figure 4, by combining individual microcredentials, a broad, flexible
and topical offer can be developed in a structured and systematic way in the thematic
continuing education clusters of TU Graz LLL, consisting of both shorter units
(microcredentials), such as a module with a scope of 5 ECTS credits, and longer
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continuing education measures such as certificate courses (10/15/20/25 ECTS credits),
up to multi-semester continuing education master programs (60/90/120 ECTS credits).
[Fig 4. here]
Figure 4: Modular architecture of different LLL certificates at TU Graz (see Kreuzer &
Aschmann, 2021)
7 Interrelationships of OER, MOOCs and microcredentials at
TU Graz and their effects
In this chapter, we explore the intricate connections between Open Educational
Resources (OER), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and microcredentials at
TU Graz. While these elements were discussed separately already in the first chapters,
their interrelationships have significant implications for the digitalization of teaching
and learning at the university: The following sections will detail how these components
interact and the resulting impacts on business models, quality assurance, and TU Graz’s
position in a globalized higher education landscape.
7.1 Interrelationship of OER, MOOC and Microcredentials at TU Graz
Although the activities regarding OER, MOOCs and microcredentials were presented
separately in this paper, interrelationsships became apparent. Figure 5 summarizes
these interrelations that might be unique for TU Graz: MOOCs on the iMooX platform
use OER, and microcredentials use MOOC participation or certificates as a component.
Therefore, if people pay for LLL offers to get microcredentials, additional MOOCs
might be required, which themselves require more OER.
Figure 5: Interrelationship of OER, MOOC and Microcredentials at TU Graz
7.2 Changes in business models due to openness
The introduction of microcredentials and MOOCs each pose challenges because
teachers at TU Graz are expected to perform more advanced and novel activities. In
fact, the essential peculiarity lies in openness: The fact that the individual materials may
now also be used by others, and that MOOCs are free of charge per se, clearly changes
the business model and sales potential for LLL offers. On the producer side, there are
new development opportunities and possibilities to use existing materials. As far as the
10
customers are concerned, it must be made clear and communicated that, in the case of
the LLL modules, TU Graz also generates real qualitative added value for the
participants that they must pay for.
In the described manner, two MOOCs have been pre-financed by microcredentials
so far; the LLL courses were held 2 and 3 times respectively, and currently, a third
MOOC is just opened for registration and part for another new microcredential course
(June 2024). The costs of creating the MOOCs were thus already refinanced through
the LLL courses.
These developments illustrate that the combination of financing MOOCs through
the course fees of microcredentials represents a novel approach, showcasing TU Graz's
innovative strategy in ensuring the sustainability and quality of lifelong learning
offerings, combined with TU Graz's aim to ensure broad accessibility of their
knowledge through MOOCs and the OER shared within.
7.3 Openness as an opportunity to show and maintain quality
At the same time, the use of OER and MOOCs also changes marketing: It is clearer for
customers what the content and quality of the courses offered by TU Graz is in general.
One can find out whether they like the content or the course management in the
MOOCs, which provides a decent insight into the LLL module. OER and MOOCs are
both free of charge and openly accessible, which means that more people can be reached
directly and possibly also convinced of the quality of the offer. At the same time, this
coupling of OER, MOOCs and LLL microcredentials also ensures that quality is strived
for.
7.4 Development before the background of a globalized and competitive higher
education landscape
Finally, we believe that TU Graz is well positioned for an increasingly globalized
higher education landscape with these developments around OER, MOOC and
microcredentials, not least due to the increasing digitalization and good accessibility of
online offers. OER and MOOCs potentially ensure a broad dissemination of content
and awareness of TU Graz. Thus, OER and MOOCs are not only a component of
microcredentials, but also the basis for the attractiveness and marketing of
microcredentials, if OER and MOOCs by TU Graz are perceived as attractive. At the
same time, we also see these offers as a flagship for future cooperation.
8 Outlook
Given the promising results from our initial implementations, we are optimistic
about the continued development and integration of OER, MOOCs, and
microcredentials at TU Graz. Since the launch of the iMooX platform in 2014 and the
publication of our explicit OER strategy in 2020, we have amassed substantial
experience in utilizing these resources to enhance our educational offerings. The
11
introduction of microcredentials in autumn 2022 has further enriched our approach,
demonstrating its potential through positive feedback and successful outcomes from the
first rounds of implementation.
We believe that our strategy of financing specific MOOCs through the course fees
of microcredentials is both innovative and sustainable, particularly for topics that are
important for microcredentials and often aligned with the needs of companies for new
and emerging fields. This targeted approach ensures the high quality and broad
accessibility of our lifelong learning programs. While of course not all MOOCs can and
will be funded in this manner, this model allows for the rapid development and
financing of MOOCs that are essential for microcredentials. This is particularly
beneficial given that alternative financing through third-party funding often involves
longer lead times.
Looking forward, we remain open to adaptations and new ideas that can further
leverage the synergy between OER and microcredentials. As the higher education
landscape becomes increasingly globalized and competitive, TU Graz is well-
positioned to continue leading in this space, using digitalization to expand access and
improve the quality of our educational offerings. We hope that this text and our
description of the approach will inspire others to adopt similar strategies, fostering a
broader movement towards openness and innovation in education. These developments
not only enhance our current programs but also serve as a flagship for future
cooperation and advancement in higher education, ensuring the openness and
sustainability of education.
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