The evolution of society, increasingly digital, prompts us to modify the ways in which the university carries out its various missions.
- Regarding teaching, our students, digital natives, have now access to a huge amount of information. Education is becoming global. Teaching and learning practices are evolving.
- Regarding research, digital society extends the scope of scientific collaborations and launched new forms of collaborations that deserve to be better exploited.
- Regarding service to society, digital offers a greater opening of university to the non academic world; the digital university becomes much more accessible.
University of Louvain wants to be a digital university, where digital practices promote creation, dissemination and acquisition of knowledge.
In its strategic plan Louvain 20 20, this vision is divided into three axes:
- Open Education defines an approach of openness, collaboration and sharing of knowledge. University of Louvain wants to contribute by making available open educational resources (OER) but also courses open to all (MOOCs). This openness also contributes to the evolution of teaching and learning practices in classrooms, supported more and more by digital tools, for more flexibility and interactivity towards increased quality of learning. The learning environments themselves get changed into learning centers and interactive learning labs.
- In the field of research, Open Publication aims to provide free online access to the results of scientific research. It is now recognized that the traditional model of publication is to be transformed and University of Louvain wants to contribute to it.
- In the field of software, University of Louvain wants to join the Open Source movement by promoting, yet without dogmatism, an open and collaborative approach both when choosing a new software and when disseminating an internal achievement.