Current members

Anadolu University (AU)

Turkey

Eskisehir Academy of Economic and Commercial Sciences, established in 1958, laid the foundation of Anadolu University. The Academy was replaced by Anadolu University in 1982, which has since gained a well-deserved place as a modern, dynamic and innovative institution among the largest universities not only in Turkey, but also in the world. Anadolu University delivers open education under the roof of three faculties: Open Education Faculty, Faculty of Business Administration, and Faculty of Economics. Anadolu University offers 19 undergraduate degree programs, 41 associate degree programs, 107 e-certificate programs, and 60 MOOCs (AKADEMA). Open education at Anadolu goes beyond national borders, offering degree and non-degree programs to Turkish citizens across the world, including those in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Western Europe, Balkans, Azerbaijan, and North America. 

Website

FernUniversität in Hagen (FernUni)

Germany

 FernUniversität in Hagen is the only state-maintained distance teaching university (single mode) in Germany with 13 regional centres and 19 study centres. With its tradition of supported distance learning, the FernUniversität has been offering an alternative to on-campus studies within the German university landscape for 40 years and is currently serving around 78.000 students. It offers a great variety of study programmes leading to Bachelor and Master degrees as well as further education programmes. The FernUniversität also encourages and supports focus- and profile oriented research. Years of experience in developing mature teaching materials has made the FernUniversität one of the national and international leaders in developing multimedia teaching materials and online courses.

Website

Hellenic Open University (HOU)

Greece

The HOU, established in 1992, is the sole Greek State University that provides distance education in both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The promotion of scientific research as well as the development of the relevant technology and methodology in the area of distance learning fall within the scope of the HOU's objectives. Meanwhile, the HOU consists of 4 Schools: Sciences & Technology, Humanities, Social Sciences and the School of Applied Arts and Sustainable Design. It currently offers 8 B.Sc. and 51 M.Sc. programmes and today the number of enrolled students exceeds 47.000.

Website

Open Universiteit

Netherlands

Open Universiteit, founded in 1984, is an independent, government-funded Dutch university, known for its state-of-the-art teaching methods. Within the various scientific areas, the university conducts societally relevant, impactful research, often in collaboration with businesses and other institutions. Students follow activating distance education, created in accordance with the latest insights, and supported by the newest available technologies. Students can select bachelor and master programs or courses from seven different disciplines. Characteristics of education at the Open Universiteit are openness, flexibility and quality. The university aims to provide cost-effective education and encourages innovation in Dutch higher education, in terms of both curriculum and teaching.

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Open University of Cyprus (OUC)

Cyprus

The Open University of Cyprus (OUC) was founded in 2002 as the second public University in Cyprus and the only University devoted entirely to open and distance education in the country. OUC offers affordable, multidisciplinary, career-oriented, high quality and national and foreign agency accredited bachelors, masters and PhD programmes in various scientific fields, in classical and cutting-edge subject areas, which meet the needs of the business world, and upskill graduates to fulfil their personal and professional aspirations. All academic programmes are organised in three faculties: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences and Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management. At OUC, there is no “one size fits all” approach. The distance teaching educational methodology and the innovative eLearning Platform utilized by the OUC enables its students to follow a broad intellectual path, irrespective of their age, time, location or life circumstances, and expand their horizons, while upholding high academic standards.. The OUC’s vision is to become a prestigious university of regional distinction and scale, i.e. the Edupreneurial University, which the 21st century requires.

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UniDistance Suisse

Switzerland

UniDistance Suisse is a university institute accredited according to Swiss law. It offers bachelor and master distance programmes. UniDistance Suisse has been offering distance learning university programmes since 1992. Today, it has more than 2,300 German-speaking, French-speaking and English-speaking students, who pursue their education in parallel with their professional, sporting or family life thanks to the flexibility of distance learning.

Website

The Open University (OUUK)

United Kingdom

The Open University was founded as a distance teaching university in 1969 and today the OU is the largest academic institution in the UK with around 200.000 students. Built on the belief that technology could make high quality degree-level learning accessible and affordable to people who did not choose, or perhaps did not have the opportunity, to attend traditional campus universities, The Open University is "open to people, places, methods and ideas" and promotes educational opportunity and social justice by providing high-quality university education to all who wish to realise their ambitions and fulfil their potential. The OU has (approximately): 6.400 tutors; 1.100 full-time academic staff, and more than 3.500 support and administrative staff.

Website

Universidade Aberta (UAb)

Portugal

Established in 1988, Universidade Aberta (UAb) is the only public higher education institution of distance learning in Portugal. Due to its purpose, UAb uses extensively the most advanced technologies and methods of Distance Learning, saving no geographical borders or physical barriers, and giving special emphasis to the expansion of Portuguese language and culture within the Lusophony space (migrant communities and Portuguese speaking countries). In this context, UAb offers higher education anywhere in the world (Undergraduate, Master and Doctorate degrees) and Lifelong Learning study programs. In 2008 UAb became a reference European institution in the area of advanced elearning and online learning through the recognition of its Virtual Pedagogical Model, which was developed around four cornerstones: student-centered learning, flexibility, interaction and digital inclusion.

Website

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

Spain

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) was founded in 1995 as the world's first online university with the mission of using technology to make quality university education available to everyone. It has a unique, fully online and student-focused model for lifelong learning.

UOC has been promoting talent, and generating and connecting knowledge for over 25 years. It is a global university with social impact, actively involved in meeting the challenges of the 2030 Agenda. 

UOC has around 80,000 students from 142 countries, and some 90,000 graduates have received their education in its virtual classrooms. UOC offers 27 bachelor's degrees, 53 university master's degrees, 77 UOC-certified master's degree and postgraduate diplomas, 200 specialization and postgraduate courses, 10 vocational training programmes, and 578 other courses.

UOC's research focuses on the interaction between technology and the human and social sciences. It has a learning innovation centre – the eLearn Center (eLC) – and two research centres – the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

Website

University of Jyväskylä (JYU)

Finland

The University of Jyväskylä (JYU) is a dynamic multidisciplinary research university. The University was established in 1863 when the first Finnish-language teacher training seminar started in Jyväskylä. Nowadays, JYU is an open and collaborative community of almost 2,600 experts and 14,000 students, including six faculties, five independent institutes and two subsidiaries. In Finland, JYU has been a forerunner in Open Access publishing. Of all universities in the world, the University of Jyväskylä is among the top three percent and represents the best of the world in several of its disciplines.  

The Open University of the University of Jyväskylä (JYUOpen) is the largest open university unit in Finland, serving 27 000 students annually. JYUOpen is an integral part of the University of Jyväskylä. We promote educational equality and lifelong learning. At the Open University, we are actively developing pedagogic solutions suitable for adults who study while they work. The potential of online learning is used and tested boldly, yet so that study-related activities would be clear and student-friendly. 

Website

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

Spain

UNED, the biggest campus in Europe, is a public university without cut-off marks whose mission is to universalize quality higher education and ensure equality of opportunities. Technological and innovative, it fulfills its public service vocation generating knowledge and leading prestigious studies in benefit of society. UNED offers a leading online and blended learning model in Spain which centralizes online teaching in the 11 Faculties and Schools located in Madrid and at the same time offers support and classroom learning in its extensive network of more than 60 national centers and 20 abroad. Thus, UNED students can study from anywhere in the world in a flexible and personalized way.

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Università Telematica Internazionale UNINETTUNO (UNINETTUNO)

Italy

Founded in 2005, the International Telematic University UNINETTUNO emerged from the NETTUNO Consortium, a non-profit association of 43 Italian and international public universities, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. UNINETTUNO delivers academic titles acknowledged in Europe and some Arabic countries. It offers undergraduate courses of six Subjects: International Law, Economics, Engineering, Media and Communication, Literature, Psychology in five different languages – Arabic, French, English, Italian and Spanish. Currently the educational offer (to students from more than 100 countries) contains, 9 Degree Courses, several Master Programs and Vocational Courses. UNINETTUNO cooperates with Universities, Governments and Institutions worldwide for the Developing of open, accessible and sustainable Education. 

Website

Fédération Interuniversitaire de l'Enseignement à Distance (FIED)

France

As its name explains, FIED (Fédération Interuniversitaire de l'Enseignement à Distance) is a (French) association of universities (37, among 33000 students, mostly licenses and masters) involved in distance teaching. It was created 25 years ago. Meanwhile the members of the FIED are experts in distance teaching in France. For its members the FIED manages information, formation (through workshops, days on ad hoc subjects) and participation in international organisations.

Website

Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza (AGH)

Poland

AGH-University of Science and Technology (AGH-UST) is one of the largest technical universities in Poland, with 15 faculties and over 30.000 students. In 1996 the Centre of e-Learning (CEL) was founded. CEL AGH is responsible for the maintenance of e-learning infrastructure for the University, the support for the teachers and students as well as for the e-learning initiatives involving AGH-UST.

Website

Consorzio NETTUNO

Italy

The NETTUNO Consortium, founded in 1990, is a non-profit association of 43 Italian and international universities, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. A new platform was created on the Internet for all the educational content produced in the last twenty years with the support of the best teachers of the university consortium. Integrated and realized by the Università Telematica Internazionale UNINETTUNO 45.000 hours of video lessons accompanied by handouts, and other teaching material was produced in various areas such as: arts, economics, law, communication science, psychology, information technology.

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Czech Association of the Distance Teaching Universities (CADUV)

Czech Republic

The Czech Association of Distance Teaching Universities (CADUV) was established in 1993 with the aim to support the development of distance education at the universities in the Czech Republic. The associates of the CADUV are the 17 public Universities from different regions of the Czech Republic. The main activity of the association is the dissemination of distance education and e-learning skills and knowledge across the country. CADUV organizes training activities at the individual universities, evaluates and certificates e-learning study programmes. It also has a pool of leading experts to support the development of distance education and e-learning courses at the individual universities.

Website

Aarhus University

Denmark

Aarhus University is a member of the Danish Association of Open Universities, which was formed in 1995 as a prolongation of Jutland Open University, established 1982. In 2011 Aarhus University was reorganized, going from 9 faculties to 4 faculties. The Faculty of Arts contains several institutes, one of them is the Center for Teaching Development and Digital Media. Aarhus University is a dual mode research university with both campus-based student and students in open learning degree programmes. Per year about 7.000 students participate in lifelong open and flexible learning courses. In Denmark open and distance learning is an integrated part of all Danish universities.

Website

Distance Education Centre of Latvia (DECL)

Latvia

The Distance Education Centre of Latvia (DECL) was founded in 1996 to support the development of distance education in Latvia. DECL is now association of 13 legal members including leading higher education institutions of Latvia, as well as professional and secondary education establishments offering distance education.

The aim of DECL is to use up-to-date distance education technologies to foster development of personality, provide opportunities to adapt to changing environment and to learn according to the needs and interests of individuals. DECL is organizing training events, promoting cooperation and exchange of experience among members. The Riga Technical University (RTU) in collaboration with the University of Liepaja (LiepU) is offering PhD study programme “E-learning Technologies and Management”.

Website

Lithuanian National Distance Education Association (NADE)

Lithuania

The National Association of Distance Education (NADE) was established in July 1998. It was established with the purpose to promote the creation of the Information Society of Lithuania by developing distance education (DE) and improving its quality. The major goal of NADE is to provide equal learning opportunities to all Lithuanian citizens, despite their place of living. Among its many activities are: organising distance education courses, preparing and adapting distance education programs, promotion of research in the field of distance education and organising workshops, seminars and conferences.

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National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL)

Ireland

The National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) at Dublin City University (DCU) aims to be a world leader at the forefront of new Blended, On-Line and Digital (BOLD) models of education. We have an ambitious mission of transforming lives and societies by exploring new BOLD and innovative approaches to teaching, learning and assessment for better and more imaginative futures - for all. DCU has a long history of distance education and the NIDL is committed to providing strategic leadership, leading-edge innovation, and enabling world-class transformative research. Our team is highly regarded globally for their research and online teaching expertise, and the NIDL supports a comprehensive suite of professional development opportunities from short courses, micro-credentials to degrees and advanced doctoral studies. 

Website

Centre for Distance Studies Austria

Austria

The "Centre for Distance Studies Austria" (CDSA) is part of the Johannes Kepler University Linz. It has study centres in a range of Austrian towns and cities: Bregenz, Linz, Saalfelden, Villach and Vienna.

For almost thirty years it works together with the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany's largest University. For this the Centre for Distance Studies provides services to FernUnis' wide range of internationally accredited Bachelor- and Master programs. At the moment about 2.500 students use the services of the Centre because of its high flexibililty, moderate costs and individual support.

In addition to that the CDSA provides and develops support to JKUs’ own flexible distance and online programs like “Multi-Media Studies in Law”, “Artificial Intelligence” and more to come.

Website

EduOpen

Italy

The creation of the consortium EduOpen stems from the need to create high quality MOOC courses through the joint effort of a consortium consisting of Italian Universities. The project was born from a strategic funding for special measures following the art. 11 D.M., 4 November 2014, n. 815. The project foresees the creation of a MOOCs platform, called EduOpen,  unites 20 Italian public Universities and 6 associate partners.

Website

KU Leuven

Belgium

KU Leuven is an international community where innovative research forms the basis of all our academic programmes. Across the university, driven researchers and curious students continually gain new insights and use their knowledge to tackle the foremost challenges of our time.

Website

Bifröst University (BU)

Iceland

Bifröst University (BU) is a vivid university, located in the heart of a rural area in the western part of Iceland surrounded by unique nature and lava field.  It was founded in Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1918 on the model of Ruskin College, Oxford, then moved to Borgarfjörður in 1955, situated 110km north of the capital. BU currently has around 900 students in blended and online learning programs and approximately 25 permanent academic staff, in addition to a number of experienced part-time adjuncts who bring in valuable insights and experience from both public and private sectors.

Website

Université TÉLUQ

Canada

Université TÉLUQ is a Canadian public university located in the province of Quebec. Headquartered in Quebec City, Quebec's capital, it also has offices in Montreal, the province's metropolis. The university was founded in 1972 with a mandate to increase access to higher education. It is the only French-language university in North America modelled exclusively on a distance education approach. The university welcomes around 20 000 students, who particularly appreciate the flexibility offered by its continuous admission system and asynchronous courses. With over a hundred professors and almost 300 tutors, the university has four departments (Business Administration; Humanities, Languages and Communication; Science and Technology; Education) and offers more than 430 courses and 125 programs. Université TÉLUQ is also a research university. Its main research areas include: Teaching and learning in the age of digital media; Intelligent systems and information science and technology; Social functioning, life courses, human thinking and interpersonal relations; Social, organizational and professional change in a context of internationalization, computerization and multiculturalism

Website

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK)

Finland

Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) is one of the largest universities of applied sciences in Finland, with ca. 10000 students, within seven different fields of education. Alongside the degree awarding bachelor and master level education, TAMK also has a School of Vocational Teacher Education. TAMK has a tailored quality framework and system in use, which is loosely based on the EFQM and CAF.

Website

Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL)

Ecuador

The Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL) has been founded in 1971. UTPL is an educational institution, recognised by the Ecuadorian government, offering a wide range of academic programmes and degrees. UTPL is a pioneer in the area of distance education in Ecuador and Latin America. At the moment more than 24.000 students follow graduate and undergraduate programmes in study centres as well as special virtual classes.

Website

Benefits of EADTU membership

EADTU has a European coverage and is regarded by the European Commission as a main interlocutor as far as lifelong open and flexible learning in distance higher education is concerned.

European positioning of your university

  • become EADTU General Assembly member
  • receive membership of EADTU’s Rectors' Conference or Associations' Conference;
  • join our yearly EADTU-EU Summit on innovating higher education
  • join and be represented at our yearly Innovating Higher Education Conference IHE
  • cooperate on faculty or expert level in EADTU's networks and activities;
  • get involved in EADTU’s task forces on cutting edge topics in HE;
  • participate in European projects of front running universities;
  • participate in strategy and innovation seminars;
  • let your interests be part of EADTU's consultations with other members and the EU.

Sharing expertise

  • become a partner with the most prestigious European open and distance teaching universities, consortia and research institutes and in European projects through a single access point;
  • receive latest information on related research and development;
  • get access and input to shared member portals in the field of e.g. open educational resources, micro-credentials, quality assurance, virtual mobility and university-business cooperation (full list)
  • become part of sharing good practices of fellow universities' strategies, policies and approaches;
  • become involved in discipline based academic networks for online, open and flexible learning;
  • become part of a platform for bilateral and multilateral cooperation with fellow universities;
  • become an associate in quality for e-learning (E-xcellence Label)
  • become an expert in EADTU's EMPOWER expert pools;
  • becoming partner of the OpenupEd initiative on MOOCs

Collaboration

  • collaborate with other members in education, research and innovation in open and flexible learning, technology enhanced learning, university-business cooperation, etc;
  • benefit from collaborative curricula and virtual mobility;
  • co-organise graduate school activities at master and PhD level;
  • become involved in collaborative European projects;
  • valorise your knowledge/research in expertise and service centres, supported by EADTU (quality assurance, virtual mobility, open educational resources, university-business cooperation,...),
  • join the yearly staff-support event to meet international colleagues and share opportunities, challenges and approaches in student and staff support

Be informed on latest developments

  • always get the latest info on new developments in European higher education;
  • be represented on the EADTU web of quality providers of open and distance education;
  • receive EADTU's bi-monthly Newsletter and use it as your platform to promote events, developments, research,..
  • join EADTU's annual conferences as a member and represent your university under the dedicated strands;
  • get assistance from the EADTU office on latest developments in innovating higher education to find expertise and fellow experts

*Benefits apply to all EADTU members, although membership of the Supervisory Board is restricted to full members
*Project participation is open for all members, but funding may be subject to EU restrictions

Additional benefits

EADTU members and the staff of member institutions benefit from a discount on the EADTU Conference fee, and fees for other EADTU events. EADTU also enters into (occasional) partnerships to bring discounts for members for third-party events and other services.
For example, StudyPortals will provide EADTU members with a discount for their advertisement services offered on DistanceLearningPortal.

Types of membership

Full member | non-profit open and distance teaching universities

Non-profit open and distance teaching universities and departments of universities/institutions for higher education that are responsible for online, open and flexible higher distance education and related research.

    1. fulfilling an exclusive mission of organising online, open and flexible higher education;
    2. integrated in the formal HE structure of the country of origin, fulfilling all national requirements of quality assurance and accreditation;
    3. originating from Europe or neighbouring countries that signed the Bologna Declaration;
    4. willing to participate and initiate programmes, projects and task forces on EADTU level.
Full member | Non-profit associations and consortia of conventional universities

Non-profit associations and consortia of conventional universities that act for institutions for online, open and flexible higher distance education:

  1. fulfilling a substantial mission of organising online, open and flexible higher education;
  2. integrated in the formal HE structure of the country of origin, fulfilling all national requirements of quality assurance and accreditation;
  3. originating from Europe or neighbouring countries that signed the Bologna Declaration;
  4. willing to participate and initiate programmes, projects and task forces on EADTU level.

Associations referred to are fulfilling a diversity of tasks:

  1. representing a (national) group of universities in the Board;
  2. are (national) platforms for the organisation of EADTU activities;
  3. are the intermediate between EADTU and the member universities behind them, i.e. arranging the participation in projects, the delivery of information, etc;
  4. supporting their members with regard to multiple aspects of the organization of distance education: the provision of information, consultancy, services (staff training, portals, national intercampus education, international contacts and networking);
  5. representing national distance higher education at the national, European and global level.
Single university members for associations in development

For those universities that want to become member of EADTU, but miss the structure of an Association we allow them as a starting point for new member associations. Single university membership is applicable for those universities that are performing on the range of the following criteria.

  1. fulfilling a mission of organising online, open and flexible higher education;
  2. integrated in the formal HE structure of the country of origin, fulfilling all national requirements of quality assurance and accreditation;
  3. originating from Europe or neighbouring countries that signed the Bologna Declaration;
  4. willing to participate and initiate programmes, projects and task forces on EADTU level;
  5. having a mission in establishing an association mentioned under II.

Associated members

Organisations that are fulfilling the criteria of full membership mentioned above but not originating from Europe or neighbouring countries that have signed the Bologna declaration.

Becoming a member

New applicants for EADTU membership will be asked to register according to the following procedure:

  • Request for registration by letter, addressed to the Managing Director of EADTU;

  • Production of a self review report, describing the institutional structure, student profile and course offers etc. For this purpose, a special format has been developed, to be used as a guideline, available upon request;

  • Via EADTU Secretariat, the nomination will be placed on the agenda of the next General Board and Executive Committee meeting. In some circumstances, a peer review will take place for new EADTU members;

  • The Board, which meets twice a year, will decide on the acceptance or non-acceptance of the application for participation in the Association.

  • On behalf of EADTU, the Managing Director, mandated by the Board, will inform the applicant about the (non-)acceptance of the application.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
 


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