Lithuanian OEPass Multiplier Event

The third official OEPass multiplier event was organised by the Lithuanian Distance and e-Learning Association on the 27th of September, 2019. There are 50 Lithuanian educational institutions (universities, colleges, adult learning centres, etc.) in the membership of the Association. The educators from these institutions were invited to participate in the event, leading to the attendance of more than 25 participants at the event.

The OEPass project results, and their applicability for other educational institutions, were presented and discussed. Thus the results of event may be summarised as follows:

• The OEPass Learning Passport is a useful tool for the representatives of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as it is a tool for today’s learners to gather and provide institutions with the evidence of learning; it is a tool for institutions to analyse what kind of information may be provided by learners; and also to guide learners that when selecting open learning opportunities they need to focus not only on the topic of a MOOC, but also to think how it might be recognised in their formal learning records.
• Other types of institutions (Schools, VET centres and teacher qualification centres) found the Learning Passport too complicated to be used in their daily activities due to its availability only in English (that is not spoken by the majority of older teachers) and due to the fact that their programmes are relatively short and former recognition possibilities are not a necessity.
• All institutions’ representatives were glad to learn about the classification of education credentials. The quality criteria for credentials attracted most attention from the institutions which focus on open course preparations.
• The technological roadmap of open credentials was an interesting outcome for the event participants, but as most of them are not IT experts but teachers working in online learning, it drew less focus and led to limited discussion.