Interview with Ben Janssen, Secretary to the Dutch National Initiative “Long Live Learning!”
Ben Janssen joined the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) in 2002. Currently he is senior advisor on lifelong learning to the Executive Board. Ben’s areas of expertise include strategy development, project development, management and evaluation, international projects and consultancy with regard to higher education as well as vocational and professional training. Ben Janssen is also Secretary to the National Initiative “Long Live Learning!”, in which the Open University of the Netherlands takes part together with, amongst others, the Surf Foundation.
OEB: Mr Janssen, your organisation – the Open University of the Netherlands – has devoted itself to helping lifelong learning become real. What are the main pillars that your commitment is based on?
Ben Janssen: In many respects the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) has been a lifelong learners’ university right from the start in 1984. We do have all the resources necessary to fulfil this role with passion: over 20 years of experience in open and flexible education that people can follow when and wherever they want. And from the start, we do so at the academic level, without setting any prerequisites regarding prior education of students. We offer people who hadn’t had the opportunity earlier in their life – for whatever reason – to attend higher education the chance to do so now.
In addition to providing distance education to adult learners, we have gained widespread recognition for our contribution to the innovation of Dutch higher education. Moreover, we want to address the shortage of teachers in the Netherlands. In the Ruud de Moor Centre for the professionalisation of teachers, we have brought together as many meaningful experience of the OUNL in distance education as possible in order to enable teachers to work more professionally.
OEB: Where do you see the main challenges?
Ben Janssen: The main challenge that I see ahead is to stay in the forefront of developing new methodologies, techniques and tools for lifelong learning, both in the Netherlands and Europe. What is needed is a new, European infrastructure where anyone can develop and refresh her or his competences at any time and at any place. The key element is lifelong, open and flexible learning available for everyone.
OEB: Could you give us any further details on the status quo of the OER – Open Educational Resources – movement in the Netherlands?
Ben Janssen: The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement provides free access to educational materials. Therefore, OER can play a vital role and potentially increase learning opportunities for those from non-traditional educational backgrounds, but also for those who want to engage in lifelong learning activities. In the Netherlands I know of at least two universities engaged in the Open Educational Resources movement: my own Open University of the Netherlands and the University of Technology of Delft. The project of the University of Technology resembles very much the project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – here all educational resources related to specific courses is freely available on the web.
© OU
The OER project of the Open University of the Netherlands is slightly different. Its aim is to increase participation in higher education through offering free learning materials on the web derived from existing learner-oriented academic course materials. We target primarily those people who did not successfully attend higher education. Currently we have around 425,000 unique visitors and 16 courses online.
Although it is yet too early to draw substantive conclusions, it appears that the project will be successful. Fifty per cent of the people who responded did not participate in any form of higher education before, and 26 per cent indicate having plans for starting a course on the higher education level. I consider the OER of OUNL as a logical and necessary step in the development towards the needed open and flexible lifelong learning infrastructure needed.
OEB: Adult and higher education as well as lifelong learning are highly diverse issues. How do you want to address all your “stakeholders”?
Ben Janssen: Indeed, adult and higher education as well as lifelong learning are diverse issues. As to lifelong learning, I prefer to adhere to the definition of the European Commission. It defines lifelong learning as all learning activity undertaken throughout life, with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competence, within a personal, civic, social and employment-related perspective.
At the Open University of the Netherlands, which is strongly devoted to adult education, we do not address ourselves directly to all our stakeholders. To adults, we provide academic programmes in different sciences leading to bachelor and master degrees. Adults who are unable to follow a complete programme can choose from nearly 300 courses, leading to formal academic certificates. And the latest offerings are the short OER courses that anyone can take via the Internet at no cost.
OEB: What – in terms of best practice – comes to your mind when you think of IT-driven adult education and lifelong learning?
Ben Janssen: It may not be surprising that I see Open Educational Resources (OER) as the most promising IT-driven development in adult education and lifelong learning. The freely available content on the Internet can empower learners to really study on their own in an open and flexible learning environment, with no avoidable references to a teacher, a classroom or an educational institution. It is quite true what Charles Vest, the MIT President at the time of the creation of the Open Course Ware initiative, stated: “We are seeing the early emergence of a meta-university – a transcendent, accessible, empowering, dynamic, communally constructed framework of open materials and platforms on which much of higher education worldwide can be constructed or enhanced.”
OEB: What should universities do to make this happen? In what respect do they need political support?
Ben Janssen: Europe wants to become a strong, competitive knowledge-based economy as well as a high-quality, cohesive and inclusive knowledge-based society. Lifelong Learning has been identified as a crucial condition for an appropriate implementation of the EU agenda. In order to considerably raise and widen participation in higher education throughout Europe, access to the educational system should be made easier and more attractive! The value as well as the pleasure of learning should be promoted! The agenda of the EU for higher education therefore requires a modernisation of European universities.
Recently the European Commission has expressed its concern regarding the progress that universities show in this respect. They generally seem to be failing to address the Lifelong Learning agenda. In this respect Europe may well be served by some more political support for opening higher education to forms of lifelong, open and flexible learning.
OEB: Mr Janssen, thank you very much for your time!
Ben Janssen will speak in the plenary D 
The Role of Technology in Supporting Cradle-to-Grave Learning on Friday, November 30th, 09:30 – 11:00.
November 20, 2007
The interview was conducted by Nina Wittrock.
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