{"id":4743,"date":"2015-05-12T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsletter.alt.ac.uk\/?p=4743"},"modified":"2015-09-03T22:08:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T21:08:12","slug":"emma-providing-multilingual-access-to-european-moocs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2015\/05\/emma-providing-multilingual-access-to-european-moocs\/","title":{"rendered":"EMMA – providing multilingual access to European MOOCs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Multiple MOOC Aggregator, EMMA<\/a> for short, is a 30-month project showcasing the diversity of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) in Europe and piloting an innovative approach to their use. There are 11 partners currently involved in EMMA and, as the project grows, the plan is to involve other universities, helping them to make their MOOCs available through the EMMA platform. The project is led by the Federica Web Learning team at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy.<\/p>\n

EMMA operates in two main modes: as an aggregator and hosting system of MOOCs 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 are taking a deliberate multi-lingual, multi-cultural approach to learning by offering inbuilt automatic translation and transcription services for MOOCs hosted on the platform.<\/p>\n

MOOCs<\/h2>\n

EMMA gives learners across Europe access to free massive open online courses from prestigious European universities. By making courses available in multiple languages, EMMA promotes real cross-cultural and multi-lingual learning, helping to preserve Europe\u2019s rich cultural, educational and linguistic heritage.<\/p>\n

The offer includes MOOCs on many different topics: from Business Intelligence to Climate Change; from Technology-Enhanced Learning to Wine; from Cultural Enterprises to Pedagogy. Enrolment is open for the current MOOC offer and for many of those which are starting in May.<\/p>\n

Multiple languages<\/h2>\n

\"Translate<\/a>One of the most appealing services of the EMMA platform is the possibility of having course materials automatically translated into other European languages opening up the student community. In the case of audiovisual materials such as videos, subtitles are automatically generated in multiple languages.<\/p>\n

The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology behind the EMMA transcription systems has been developed at the European project transLectures (translectures.eu) coordinated by the Universitat Polit\u00e8cnica de Val\u00e8ncia. This technology is based on state-of-the-art ASR techniques combining Deep Neural Network for acoustic modelling and n-gram models for language modelling.<\/p>\n

Analytics and tracking data<\/h2>\n

\"Analytics\"<\/a>In EMMA, data analysis is performed by a programme that combines various methodologies delivering useful insights as to how to make the most out of the platform. Current and potential EMMA partners can avail of a full set of tools including: a tracking tool; a learning analytics model customised to EMMA functions; a socio-demographic profiling possibility collected within the platform registration procedure and a full set of data on expectations and needs collected via a questionnaire.<\/p>\n

EMMA is funded in part under the CIP (Competitiveness and Innovation Programme) Framework Programme of the European Union with the rest of the funding necessary to make the platform operational coming from the partners themselves.<\/p>\n

Summer school<\/h2>\n

The project is also running a Summer School aimed at anyone interested in setting up and running a MOOC on EMMA. The Summer School will take place on 4-11 July 2015. Further\u00a0details including the programme and the registration link are accessible from our website<\/a>.
\nInterested teachers and content providers are also welcome to contact the management team<\/a> and read the instructions on the website<\/a>.<\/p>\n