Delft University of Technology started the Credit for MOOCs initiative to move the international recognizing of MOOCs forward. The alliance started with 7 universities: Rice University (US), University of British Columbia (Canada), EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland), Delft University of Technology (Netherlands), University of Queensland and Australia National University (Australia). The alliance will extended with 3 more universities in the next couple of months.
The alliance starts with a 3 year pilot project in which each university offers around 10 MOOC for credits. Students of their own university and of the partner university can receive credit for the MOOCs. This can be seen as a virtual exchange program where not the students, but the exams travel. The first students can participate in January 2017.
The alliance is based on trust. If a university gives credit for a mooc for their own students, other should also give credit for it. For most of the MOOCs additional proctored assessment is necessary. The course team of the MOOC decided what additional assessment is necessary to give credit.
Within the alliance there is only transfer of credit, no money transfer. To make the transfer easier the alliance is setting up a coding system for the MOOCs: level, workload, type of assessment, etc.