Brussels, 24/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - Partners from eleven countries have joined forces to launch the first Europe-wide Massive Open Online Courses - MOOC - supported by the European Commission. The MOOC are online university courses that allow learners access to quality distance learning at home. Around 40 courses, covering a wide range of subjects will be available free in 12 languages. The initiative is headed by the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities - EADTU and mainly brings together open universities. Initiative partners come from France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey and Israel. These courses are already popular, particularly in the US. Androulla Vassiliou, the commissioner for education, was delighted that this pan-European launch takes the scheme to a new level and “will open up education to tens of thousands of students and trigger our schools and universities to adopt more innovative and flexible teaching methods” because this “exciting development” is a key part of the Opening up Education strategy, which the Commission will launch this summer. Detailed information about the initiative and the proposed courses are available at the portal http://www.openuped.eu/ (IL/transl.fl)