It was a first. Last year, around thirty engineering students from the École Centrale Nantes and Télécom Bretagne attended an online course on acquiring knowledge on the Web. A small group. In reality, there were many more. The course is accessible to Internet users worldwide: 1,300 students, from Madagascar to Canada via Martinique, are following the presentation via the Internet.
In the age of tablets and smartphones, French universities are embarking on a new form of teaching that should revolutionize access to knowledge.

Born in the United States, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are now arriving in France. These are courses offered free of charge online by top institutions and made available to anyone who wants to learn around the world. Today, any student can enroll in one of the many MOOCs at Harvard, Stanford, or MIT. Tomorrow, it will be at Polytechnique, the Sorbonne, etc. Geneviève Fioraso, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, was due to launch France université numérique (FUN) on Wednesday, October 2.

An Anglo-Saxon-sounding acronym for a national issue. FUN will offer a platform, deployed by the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (Inria), intended to enable the development of new digital services for students. In short, the large-scale deployment of MOOCs starting in January 2014.

Studies predict that the next five years will see the global e-education market explode. The stakes are high: not only do we need to revolutionize the transmission of knowledge, but we also need to prevent it from falling into the hands of a few entities. The goal of this digital university plan is to ensure that every student has access to online courses within five years and, ultimately, be able to obtain certification and, why not, a diploma. This is also one of the challenges of distance learning.

It was about time France got on board. While 80% of institutions in the United States offer online courses, this figure is less than 3% in France. Across the Atlantic, two platforms, Coursera and EdX, founded respectively by two Stanford computer science professors and by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, have invested $43 million and $60 million in developing tools and content. Today, more than three million students can take courses from the most prestigious universities: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc.

In Europe, the United Kingdom and Spain have created entirely virtual universities. Students there are already graduating. In the coming days, the United Kingdom is also due to launch its FutureLearn platform. Germany will do the same with Iversity. In France, the initiative by the Ministry of Higher Education is a first. Until now, while a network existed to connect universities and research laboratories (Renater, created in 1993), nothing had been thought through regarding content. Everyone was free to develop what they wanted in their own corner.

"Obviously, digital technology can't be planned from the top down," Ms. Fioraso reassures. "We need to leave room for initiatives, but we still need to have a vision of what the digital university in France is." In short: FUN will help define what online courses and validations can be, implement them, and raise awareness of institutions' best practices. "The idea is really to encourage initiatives and for them to be linked on the same platform," the minister explains. Without imposing anything on universities, autonomy requires it. No "Gosplan," but a team dedicated to serving universities.

For the past few months, a new MOOC has been launched almost every day. Around sixty have been identified, and twenty of them are already available. Around ten institutions, schools—Centrale, Mines Télécom, Polytechnique—as well as universities—Bordeaux-III, Montpellier-II, Paris-X, Paris-II—are developing courses in numerous subjects: history, mathematics, health, philosophy, law, etc.

FROM MASTER TO SCOUT

In total, this plan is broken down into eighteen actions, with MOOCs intended to serve both to facilitate the implementation of guidance for high school and college students and to promote success in undergraduate studies through a different teaching method. The challenge? That lecture hall courses, while not completely disappearing, will become fewer and fewer in number.

The professor, for his part, will have to move from a master's posture, standing on the platform and reigning over knowledge, to that of a scout alongside the students. More personalized support, interactive courses, online tutoring... As part of the establishment of the Higher Schools of Teaching and Education (ESPE), new professors should be trained "in" and "by" digital technology. One of the eighteen actions will also consist of recognizing and promoting, in the career development of teacher-researchers, their investment in integrating digital technology into their teaching practices. This is a huge upheaval, given that today the career of a teacher-researcher is influenced more by their research activities than by the recognition of their teaching activity.

To ensure this modernization is firmly anchored in people's minds, the "Fioraso" law, promulgated in July, provides for the appointment of a vice president responsible for digital issues and resources in university communities. With FUN, the ministry obviously hopes to prevent universities and schools from becoming dependent on American platforms. FUN will have a special funding fund through a foundation—€12 million, in successive waves, will be allocated. While nothing is imposed, each proposed project will nevertheless have to be creative. It's about going beyond the professor speaking behind a microphone...

Beyond students, the entire professional training sector is targeted. Of the €32 billion, universities receive only 4%. Finally, the ministry is obviously targeting all French-speaking countries. Here again, the stakes are enormous. In science and technology, for example, African elites are now sending their children to Anglo-Saxon universities.

Nathalie Brafman
Journalist at Le Monde
Source: Le Monde, published on 02.10.2013 at 10:50 a.m. • Updated on 02.10.2013 at 11:45 a.m.
More information: http://www.lemonde.fr/enseignement-superieur/article/2013/10/02/l-universite-francaise-passe-de-l-amphi-aux-cours-en-ligne_3488383_1473692.html