e-Learning in Europe: Overshadowed by MOOCs?

The European commission adopted the eEurope plan in 2000, which focused on "exploiting the advantages offered by the Internet" for the benefit of all European citizens through the European e-learning program launched in 2001. One of the program’s actions concentrates on European virtual campuses, with the goal of encouraging new organizational models for European universities, including exchanges and sharing based on virtual mobility. Among the many challenges to be met, low faculty involvement and lack of integration of "e-modules" within curricula (aka “unbundling”) pose a major threat to sustainability of cross-institutional virtual campuses. More than 10 years later with the emergence of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) one can only ponder on the future of those virtual campuses. Based on experience drawn (1) from the League of European Research Universities' (LERU) network, which regroups 21 leading multi-faculty research universities, and (2) from the University of Geneva, I will address the problems and prospects of e-Learning in this context and highlight potential paths that higher education could follow in this fast-changing landscape