The EO College - Lessons learned from the first three years

Abstract:

Education and training (not only in Earth observation) have undergone a massive paradigm shift in recent years. Digital offerings, distributed via the Internet, increasingly complement traditional methods such as lectures and seminars.
In the EO sector, numerous offers for the free acquisition of open learning resources have been developed in recent years. Based on the availability of these resources and the increasing institutional willingness to finance digital learning offers, which are mainly distributed via the Internet, new online courses and learning portals for earth observation are constantly being created.

The EO College is a virtual learning platform, specifically designed for the needs of the Earth Observation community. The platform (www.eo-college.org) hosts open educational resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the basics and applications of remote sensing in Earth sciences. The first three years of operation enabled thousands of learners to access free (CC-BY-SA) materials and to receive certificates for the completion of an online course.

In this virtual contribution, we will present the lessons learnt from the operation of the platform, the production and hosting of the MOOC 'Echoes in Space', basic research on the future of eLearning as well as recent findings from the ad hoc adaption of digital and academic teaching in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.