"Education institutions must rethink their mission and build from a foundation of excellence in learning"

Access, equity and impact continue to be our main concerns. We are still seeing problems of access due to technical constraints. We also need e-learning resources to be responsive so that they can be used on different devices; there is an urgent need for learning solutions compatible with all devices, regardless of size, form, resolution or operating system.

The ability to provide productive e-learning activities and quality content is a considerable and widely debated challenge. Another major issue is the level of technological expertise that is required of educators and students, and a general lack of fluency in new digital languages. Plagiarism and intellectual property rights also continue to be a problem, one that is proving difficult to solve. It's a great question, but I don't think that anyone can really provide a satisfactory answer. Motivation is eminently personal and highly dynamic. Since it has so many facets, there isn't a single way to boost someone's motivation. In all likelihood, the foundations of lifelong learning are laid during childhood. It may even be that a motivation for learning is an innate human quality. Most research assumes that the motivation to learn disappears or remains in a latent state in some cases, but I believe that people continue to learn throughout their lives, maybe some more than others. Anyone who has children knows that becoming a mother or father is in itself a learning process. People learn how to cook, how to drive... There are any number of examples of lifelong learning. So perhaps the real question is how we can encourage people to learn more and to learn what we - educators, governments, the economic sector - want them to learn. I suppose that by choosing to pursue a career in a higher education institution I was showing signs of an on-going interest in understanding the world. In my role as the director of a research centre, hardly a day goes by that something new doesn't come to my attention. I continually come across things that pique my curiosity. To learn, I use the Internet to a sensible degree, but I also draw on other sources, such as books and contact with experts. But it's easy for me: reading and learning have always been by favourite hobbies. I would say that mobile technologies show the same potential in lifelong learning as they do in any other form of learning. Immediate access to information and communication is beneficial to many types of education. Mobile technologies require relatively little infrastructure and can therefore reach remote areas more cost-effectively than other ICTs. Mobile devices don't require a great deal of knowledge, so there are very few barriers in terms of ease of use. They are already being used in teacher training and allow institutions to be in close touch with their students, making them a more effective and economic learning platform. It has even been suggested that they improve student retention and lead to greater academic success, facilitating collaborative learning and encouraging greater independence, paving the way for lifelong learning. There can be no denying the explosion in the use of mobile phones in developing countries and that this has led to something of a boom (driven to a considerable extent by the manufacturers themselves), creating interest among governments and educators and drawing the eye of international developers, who have put money into mobile learning projects. That said, it's difficult to determine the precise impact of m-learning or to say whether mobile technologies have had a significant effect on access to and the quality of learning opportunities. At the moment, there is still a considerable gap between the potential of m-learning and its actual implementation. Despite the widespread use of mobile phones, the fact is that if we look at the world as a whole, handsets without Internet access continue to dominate. So, there are still obstacles to promoting mobile phones as learning tools, as well as other problems such as the level of expertise in the use of ICTs, a lack of technological literacy among educators, gaps in global Internet coverage, the lack of low-cost devices, the frequency with which consumers change numbers and SIM cards to take advantage of offers, compatibility, the constraints of the devices themselves (limited functionality and storage capacity, for example), security considerations, and excessive service charges and data costs. There's the question of equity, not only in terms of those who can't afford to buy a phone or top up their credit but also for those who don't have access to telephones for other reasons. Another considerable obstacle is that most content is designed for desktop computers, written in English, laid out for western users, and increasingly reliant on streaming and multimedia. None of these factors is likely to appeal to users in developing countries, where mobiles are predominantly used for calls and messaging, connection speeds are poor and downloading a video from YouTube can cost a day's salary. Mobile technology will not solve the problems of education in the developing world, but I do think that if infrastructure improves, devices become more affordable and technologies are deployed with the right strategy, mobiles will become catalysts in creating broader access to learning, even in the poorest and most remote communities. I'm hopeful that as more educators in developing countries become smartphone owners, the greater the contribution they will be able to make to developing suitable content and m-learning models. When the Austalian government funded the DEHub Project, it was the first time that Australia had funded a centre to generate knowledge about the adoption of effective technologies for higher education, although similar bodies did exist in other countries. We thought that some form of collaboration was needed between different institutions that put money into research and knowledge creation and transfer.

By generating, disseminating and sharing knowledge, dehub can inform and influence policymaking and improve e-learning practice, as well as promoting a more positive view of the value of online and distance education. It's difficult because there will always be more recognition in a specific discipline area than in a general topic like higher education. The best approach is probably to change institutional policies and address the working culture that currently exists in academic research and higher education. Generally, a lecturer enjoys less prestige than a researcher, since university ranking positions depend largely on the quantity and quality of their research. As a result, innovation and improvements in education and learning are rarely acknowledged or rewarded. To change this, institutions must rethink their mission and build from a foundation of excellence in learning, establishing career structures that attach greater importance to educational capabilities and increasing recognition and awards for learning and educational tasks. eduONE was a pilot project set up by the Australian government to explore how multimedia can be used to improve online learning. The initial project has already been completed, but the web platform (www.eduone.net.au) can still be accessed by the public and contains a number of free and open courses in a diverse range of subject areas, including melanoma, ancient history and health. At a summit organized by the DEHub Project, held in Australia in 2011, I met Dr Josep M. Duart, who later returned to New England as a visiting scholar to explain the UOC experience and its online teaching model. We set out general plans for future collaborations between our institutions, which have led to a number of successful initiatives. For example, the University of New England Business School and the Economics and Business Studies Department at the UOC have been working together since the end of 2012 and have developed a joint course of study, the International MBA in Social Entrepreneurship. In 2012, dehub signed an agreement with the UOC to co-edit and publish RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal. dehub was happy to enter into the agreement because the journal is free, open-access and published online and is an ideal channel for disseminating knowledge about learning and research in different regions, creating dialogue between Spanish-speaking and English-speaking academics. We believe that the partnership is a major step forward that will greatly enhance the quality, visibility and positioning of RUSC, helping it to become an international journal in the field of e-learning research. The UOC and dehub continue to discuss other initiatives on which they can work together.