Press room

This academic year has seen the start of a new phase of expansion in cooperation with institutions around the world, marked by mobility (of knowledge, students and faculty); technological innovation (Virtual Campus 5.0) and teaching innovation (quality and multilingual offer); a drive towards research (new areas of knowledge) and the commitment to social well-being (quality of life) inside and outside the university. In this sense, the commitment to cooperation with other universities, public institutions, companies and state, European and world civic bodies is in keeping with the aim of universalising quality lifelong learning.

The UOC’s priority “partners” when searching for links are other European universities, which constitute essential references for sharing experiences, particularly in all things related to the construction process of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the socio-cultural contextualisation of academic programmes. Consequently, the UOC is part of the European University Association (EUA), the European association that sets the trends in European higher education and which is especially sensitive to European public policies in this area.

Likewise, the UOC is part of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), the network that encompasses European distance and online universities, and the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN), which is geared towards e-learning professionals, promoting development and collaboration in e-learning through support to institutions and other networks.

ICTs in higher education

In addition to networks that focus on higher education, the aim of the UOC, given its nature and teaching model, is to link up with cutting-edge ICT networks – another strong point when seeking alliances. The UOC is therefore committed to sharing experiences and collaborating with the most cutting-edge universities at the technological level, and also with every university with a desire to begin operating and progressing in the e-learning sphere. To this effect, it is part of EDUCAUSE and its more specialised branch of e-learning (ELI), which includes the majority of North American universities and also increasingly more universities from Europe and other regions. The main aim of EDUCAUSE is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

The UOC recently became part of two more networks, the NMC and the IMS GLC, which represent two sides of the work that the UOC has to undertake: to continue exploring and innovating the possibilities that new technologies – and therefore new applications, new ways of working and communicating – offer education; and, likewise, to work to ensure that e-learning technology has guarantees of quality and allows accessibility and interoperability. The New Media Consortium (NMC) focuses on developing new technologies while promoting educational innovation at both technological and methodological level. The IMS Global Learning Consortium is a consortium that offers specifications and standardisations of educational tools and applications.

Fostering interculturality

The UOC’s international vocation is also reflected in the desire to start up a multilingual academic offer by taking on faculty from other countries and designing programmes that incorporate the vision of cultural realities which differ from our own. Therefore, the UOC participates in the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), an organisation recognised by the United Nations, which encompasses online, flexible and blended learning. Its main aim is to promote cooperation and intercultural understanding through learning. Similarly, the UOC also belongs to the International Association of Universities (IAU), an association devoted to the construction of a worldwide higher education community, which promotes the principles of liberty, justice, human dignity and solidarity. It contributes to the development of material and moral assistance to strengthen higher education through international cooperation.

A commitment to serving others

The UOC is a university committed to international education. It therefore participates in international initiatives to transform the educational environment into a space with social and civic roots and in initiatives that make access to quality education at any time in life and from anywhere possible. The OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW) works with this aim in mind. This is a consortium which promotes the teaching materials that are publicly available on the web. The UOC currently offers around thirty courses in three different languages: Catalan, Spanish and English.

Other examples include RECLA and AUIP, committed to the promotion of lifelong learning. The Latin American and European Continuous Education Network (RECLA) fosters the development of continuous education strategies and policies at universities and promotes the creation of a Latin American association of universities interested in cooperating in this sphere. In turn, the Ibero-American Postgraduate University Association (AUIP) promotes mobility between students, faculty and PhD researchers between Latin American countries. This is a space for the dissemination of the postgraduate training offer of all associate universities and provides support to research networks. In a similar vein, the UOC is part of the Talloires network, an international association of higher education institutions committed to strengthening civic roles and social responsibilities.

A new area on the UOC portal reports on the European and international networks of which the UOC forms part.