Open education experts met in
Rome on Monday to draw up guidelines for the creation of quality
free online university courses making knowledge equally
accessible to European and Mediterranean-area countries.
The guidelines are to be set out in the Rome Charter, which
will be shared with the European Commission departments dealing
with higher education and new technologies.
"Europe needs relaunching with respect to the
democratisation of knowledge access," Maria Amata Garito, rector
of the International telematics University Uninettuno, said.
Her higher education institute currently offers over 200
open-access courses in English, French, Italian, Greek and
Arabic on its website.
In Europe universities should develop on-line courses in
conjunction with leading higher education institutes in the Arab
world and in north African countries to create common content
and methodologies, Garito said.
With quality courses "all these countries will become
absolute protagonists at the frontier of new knowledge markets"
in competition with the current "cultural imperialism" of the
United States, she added.
photo: Education Minister Stefania Giannini
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