University of Minho Distance Education: bridging the gap between university and society

University of Minho Distance education Project is an ambitious initiative aiming to open university knowledge to society, attracting students worldwide to study at a distance in this young University located in the north of Portugal. The project offers online courses with 2 to 5 ECTS in mainstream research domains, bridging the gap between university and society. By 2016 the University delivered 10 online courses to more than 1000 students worldwide. Offering courses in Portuguese, Spanish and English, the project aims to target online students regardless of their origin, facilitating digital access to the eUniversity of Minho, its teachers and knowledge. University of Minho teachers are trained in online education, learning about e-learning pedagogy and technology. During the courses teachers are online students, with tasks and deadlines, they learn about distance education design, development and implementation. During the courses, teachers design a courses of their own and at the same time they are online students, and learn about online timing, pedagogy and technology. At the end of the courses, the participants learned how to design an online courses, to produce content and to evaluate students at a distance. Following this training, teachers formalize the courses (ECTS) in the university senate, in line with the distance education regulation, and begin their own online courses development, oriented by a team of online education experts that advise on course design, support content production, the use of technologies and the contact with students. By 2020 University of Minho intends to increase its student’s numbers by 30% and, hopefully, the distance education initiative will be a major contribution to accomplish this aim.