The Open University of Catalonia (UOC): educational and technological innovation in high education

Abstract

The Open University of Catalonia (Universidad Oberta de Catalunya, UOC), created in 1995 by initiative of the Government of Catalonia, was born with the purpose to facilitate people’s long life formation. As an institution created in the Information and Communication Society, is endowed of a flexible structure and supports its educational model in the innovation and in the intensive use of the ICT. From the Virtual Campus of the UOC, pioneer in higher education, students and professors interact with the purpose to facilitate a process of teaching and learning that wants to reach the objectives proposed. The present article shows the evolution of the UOC in its eleven years of history and strikes the challenges of the institution at the present moment.