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MOOCS AS A TOOL FOR VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY ORIENTATION

The Covid-19 era, and its enforced transition of all teaching and learning activity to the online space, is potentially leading to reduced university enrolment rates. International student enrolments are predictably down due to travel restrictions and concerns about student safety, but even at home the same trends are being observed. One of the conversations around this issue is the value-for-money question in relation to a perceived reduction in the quality of the overall student experience when the networking opportunities of on-campus life and study are taken away. A further question is the level of digital readiness of staff and school-leaver students, and whether they are able to deal successfully with preparation for final-year school exams, university choice, and for university entrance tests in remote learning. Federica Web Learning, the University Centre for Research Innovation and Dissemination of multimedia and distance learning, has long been making the case for MOOCs as a valid tool for virtual orientation. In the current climate, MOOCs can provide chunks of ready-made quality learning content for use as the asynchronous component in today’s hybrid online courses, meaning that the time teacher and class spend in plenary, in video-conferencing, can be devoted to discussion and more in-depth analysis of the learning objectives. The MOOCs can be specially chosen from the growing range on offer from university providers around the world: some provide remedial content in problem subjects and topics; some offer specific exam preparation content and others offer university orientation, or study skills.