A special edition of the eLearning Papers, dedicated to MOOCs, was published on the Open Education Europa portal at the end of March. “Experiences and best practices in and around MOOCs” is the 37th issue of the eLearning Papers and a collection of contributions for the EMOOCS 2014 conference held in Lausanne and jointly organised by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and P.A.U. Education. 

The papers deal with diverse elements of MOOCs, such as learners’ participation and engagement, collaboration on planning and implementing a MOOC, the defining characteristics of MOOCs, the influence of culture and many more that offer a comprehensive overview of relevant questions around MOOCs. 

What this edition offers is a set of recommendations on MOOCs management by Universidad Carlos III (Spain) aimed largely at less MOOC-experienced professors planning to design and run a MOOC. MIT contributes with a study on optimising video consumption across courses while a UNED study makes a proposal of a quality model based on course structure and certification process. Stanford professors offer a study on a dropout predictor that uses student activity features to predict which students have a high risk of dropout, and yet another research by Stanford shows how discussion forums contribute to greater engagement of learners in online courses. 

This as well as other issues of eLearning Papers aim to stimulate the exchange of information on open education, Open Education Resources (OER) and ICT in education, and to provide different perspectives on their use, current trends in different learning environments and the possibilities they offer. The eLearning Papers are published four-five times a year and each edition is preceded by an open call for papers on a given topic. The call for papers for the next issue has been extended to 11 May. The issue will look into Learning in cyber-physical worlds and a list of possible topics can be found here. 

eLearning Papers Special Edition