Open University of Cyprus (OUC) is a public University of Cyprus, established in 2002 for the promotion of open and distance education. Its educational methodology is blended learning combining face-to-face meetings with weekly online meetings and study of specially designed educational material, asynchronous and synchronous e-learning, in small groups with the tutoring of a faculty member. OUC offers ECTS-based courses to 3500 students: three (3) undergraduate degree programs of study, fourteen (14) Master’s & ten (10) PhD programs, employing nineteen (19) fulltime and more than two hundred (200) adjunct faculty.
Open University of Cyprus places great emphasis on research, aiming both towards the development of methodologies and corresponding high technologies for open and distance learning (e.g., ODL, educational methodology, modern OER technologies, instructional design and technology-enhanced learning), but also towards traditional research topics across the natural and social sciences, including basic theoretical research aiming at the production and advancement of scientific and technological knowledge, and applied research and consultation aiming at the resolution of major problems of the economy and society.
Despite its small fulltime faculty size, during the last years the University participated in more than 20 proposal in collaboration with European and International organizations, and attracted funding from the European Union (FP7, Life Long Learning Programme, and Health 2007-2013), and the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation, leading to an important number of publications being presented to the academic community via scientific journals, international conferences and workshops, reflecting the diversity and rigor of research activity and interests of OUC’s faculty.
Research lab:
Computational Cognition Lab (cognition.ouc.ac.cy)