Norway Opening Universities (NOU) is not a university, but a national political initiative for opening Norwegian universities and colleges in various ways:
- Opening the access to higher education
- Opening institutions of higher education to a better understanding of the needs of society and working life
- Opening universities and colleges to more flexible modes of teaching and learning by stimulating the creative and competent use of ICT.
NOU is established and supported by the Norwegian government and the Ministry of Education and Research, who appoints the members of the NOU Board. The headquarters of NOU is at the University of Tromsø, the northernmost university in the world.
NOU main tasks:
- project funding
- generating and sharing knowledge in the field of lifelong, flexible and ICTsupported learning
- doing analysis, surveys, evaluations and publishing reports on important issues, for example the ICT Monitor
- passing on free of charge information about courses and lifelong learning opportunities on the web
- being a policy advisor for the Ministry
- arranging seminars and conferences
- cooperating with other important and similar organizations
