Norway Opening Universities

From Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education

Norway Opening Universities (NOU) is a national political initiative for the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research in Norway in the field of lifelong and flexible ICT-supported learning in higher education. NOU supports Norwegian institutions of higher education by funding projects for developing ICT-supported flexible learning and distance education courses through a yearly application process. The criteria for support are decided by the Ministry of Education and Research after a discussion process with NOU. (Thus in some ways NOU is rather like agencies like JISC in the UK, SURF in the Netherlands, the Swiss Virtual Campus, etc.)

Norway Opening Universities is also tasked to develop and enhance the national knowledge base by analyzing and evaluating activity and experience in the field of flexible learning in higher education in Norway and internationally. Development projects funded by NOU contribute to a large amount of input for the knowledge base by sharing experiences and results.

Some 30 projects have received funding from Norway Opening Universities in 2007. The projects range in content from pedagogical and didactic questions to more administrative and educational themes. Some projects cover relatively practical subject matter, while others deal with more theoretical analyses. One aspect all of the projects share in common is the use of ICT and digital media, with the purpose of strengthening and further developing flexible learning options for adult students and other student groups in the working community and society in general.

(sourced from http://norgesuniversitetet.no/filearchive/NOU-projects2007.pdf)

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