EMMA – providing multilingual access to European MOOCs
The European Multiple MOOC Aggregator, called EMMA for short, was a 30 month pilot action supported by the European Union.
It aims to showcase excellence in innovative teaching methodologies and learning approaches through the large-scale piloting of MOOCs on different subjects. EMMA provides a system for the delivery of free, open, online courses in multiple languages from different European universities to help preserve Europe’s rich cultural, educational and linguistic heritage, to promote real cross-cultural and multi-lingual learning, to allow for a research-based novel educational approaches.
Who’s involved?
The project was led by the Federica Web Learning team at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy and involved other universities: Université de Bourgogne, Tallinn University, Universitat Politècnica de València, Universitat Oberta De Catalunya, Open Universiteit Nederland, and Universidade Aberta. These institutions provide MOOCs as well as experience and expertise in the field of e-learning, learning analytics and innovative translation technology. The Italian CSP – Innovazione Nelle ICT S.C.A R.L was a partner and supported the implementation of a platform component, while ATOS in Spain leaded on the exploitation work. IPSOS srl realized the market analysis on users and contributors, and ATiT in Belgium was responsible for communication and dissemination activities. In 2019, the Emma Platform has received funds as an European research-oriented platform to support the Project “A Holistic and Scalable Solution for Research, Innovation and Education in Energy Transition”, shortly ASSET, to deploy its educational programme.
How EMMA works?
EMMA operates in two main modes: as an aggregator and hosting system of courses produced by European universities and as a system that enables learners to construct their own courses using units from MOOCs as building blocks. The EMMA team is taking a deliberate multi-lingual, multi-cultural approach to learning by offering inbuilt translation and transcription services for courses hosted on the platform.
How many MOOCs EMMA offers?
The platform operates first by making available a significant number of existing courses from previous project partners and/or MOOCs providers and then by bringing on board a second tier of universities and European projects keen to experiment with MOOCs. Advances in learning analytics feature in the analysis and evaluation work and a series of innovative approaches are trialed to make the service sustainable in the medium to long term.
What’s in it for students?
Easy access to MOOCs from different parts of Europe on a range of different subjects along with the opportunity for students to create their own courses made up of modules from different MOOCs. Students benefit from the multilingual approach that underpins the EMMA approach helping them access transcriptions and translation of courseware in multiple languages.
Where’s the funding coming from?
EMMA has been funded under the CIP (Competitiveness and Innovation Programme) Framework Programme of the European Union. From 2019 to 2021 it enjoy of new funds from the ASSET Project (H2020 GA837854).
