engagement with OER
Consultation on Opening Up Education Initiative Launched
The consultation on "Opening up Education - a proposal for a European Initiative to enhance education and skills development through new technologies", will explore the perceived need for EU action to promote the use of open educational resources (OER) in education.
From 13 August 2012 to 13 November 2012.
New technologies, in particular the internet, together with globalisation and the emergence of new education providers, are radically changing the way people learn and teach. Open access to education resources offers an unprecedented opportunity to enhance both excellence and equity in education. The EU aims to help both individual learners and education and training institutions in Member States to benefit from these opportunities and to increase their contribution to society.
In the last quarter of 2012, the Commission will present a Communication on Rethinking Skills aiming to increase the quantity, quality and relevance of skills supply for higher economic and social outcomes. This will, among other actions, announce a new EU Initiative on "Opening up Education": a proposal to exploit the potential contribution of ICTs and Open Educational Resources (OER) to education and skills development. This new EU initiative on "Opening up Education" will be the topic of a subsequent Communication in mid-2013.
View the consultation document 
[45 KB]
From the development of online resources to their local appropriation: a case study
This article was originally published by Rivens Mompean & Guichon on the Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, volume 9, issue 1.
Sharing resources questions the capacity of different institutions to collaborate in a meaningful way. Different steps in the sharing process are to be taken into account as we contend that teaching resources, despite
their intrinsic qualities, can remain unexploited otherwise. The present contribution proposes to study both the development of online resources, the challenges that are posed once the created resources are meant to be used by partner institutions, and the ways they can be integrated into the local contexts. It aims at understanding the process involved in an online learning environment designed for the learning of English, originally created for a specific local audience, and ultimately replicated in several universities. We
will distinguish phases to be respected for a successful sharing experience, during the development and appropriation phases, in order to favour the dissemination of innovation in a university context.
Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou calls for more ICT in education at Education Ministers' conference in Oslo
Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, outlined some of the ideas which will be explored as part of the Commission's new strategy on 'Opening up Education' when she addressed European Ministers and high-level policy-makers in Oslo.
The way in which education and training systems can fully reap the benefits of modern technologies is at the core of the meeting, organised by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and the Cyprus Presidency of the EU. The Commission intends to launch its new strategy, focused on the use of ICT and open educational resources (OER) to enhance education and skills development, by mid-2013.
"The digital revolution must not stop at the classroom. The web, social networks and online open educational resources offer huge possibilities to modernise teaching and learning. These are areas where EU cooperation adds value and delivers results," said Commissioner Vassiliou ahead of her visit.
Ministers of Education from EU Member States, candidate countries as well as EFTA states participated in the two-day event.
OER Sverige
OERSverige.se är hemsidan för ett samarbetsprojekt kring öppna digitala lärresurser (Open Educational Resources, OER) som arrangerar nio webbinarier i ämnet fram till maj 2013. Vem som helst kan delta kostnadsfritt.
Projektet drivs av ett antal högskolor i Sverige genom ITHU samt av nätverket Dela! och finansieras av .SE (Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur). Läs mer om projektet.
Öppna digitala lärresurser kallas på engelska Open Educational Resources (OER). Det är lärresurser som är tillgängliga på internet och fritt kan användas, kopieras och spridas och i många fall även bearbetas. En öppen digital lärresurs har en angivelse, eller upphovsrättslicens, som visar under vilka villkor den får användas, kopieras, spridas och bearbetas. Creative Commons är den vanligaste licenstypen. Internationellt är OER-rörelsen stark.
Exploring the business case for Open Educational Resources
The cost-effectiveness of OER is often noted as an advantage of adopting an open licensing model, although it has been separately argued that there is little substantiated evidence to support this notion. Many existing OER services were established with “one-off” initial funding and based on an altruistic notion of opening resources worldwide. The authors of this publication consider that an analysis of this area is thus particularly important if the OER movement wishes to have a lasting and sustainable effect on educational practices.
Creating high-quality learning resources ab initio is expensive, but Neil Butcher and Sarah Hoosen present compelling evidence that using OER can reduce this cost substantially. They also present some startling analyses of the economics of textbook production, which again show that systematic processes of investing in OER can create huge savings for governments and students. The commercial publishing industry can play a part in this process.
Open content licensing for educators
The Open Content Licensing for Educators (OCL4Ed) is a free online workshop (3-14 December) designed for educators, students and education policy makers who want to learn more about open education resources, copyright, and creative commons licenses.
This workshop is an initiative of the Open Education Resource Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit organisation that provides leadership, international networking and support for educators and educational institutions to achieve their objectives through Open Education.
This workshop will:
- Reflect on the practice of sharing knowledge in education and the permissions educators consider fair and reasonable;
- Define what constitutes an open education resource (OER);
- Explain how international copyright functions in a digital world;
- Introduce the Creative Commons suite of licenses and explain how they support open education approaches;
- Connect with educators around the world to share thoughts and experiences in relation to copyright, OER and Creative Commons.
The course materials were collaboratively developed by volunteers of OER Foundation, WikiEducator, the OpenCourseWare Consortium and Creative Commons with funding support from UNESCO. The course will provide prerequisite knowledge required by educators to legally remix open education materials and help institutions to take informed decisions about open content licenses.
The workshop will take place from 3 to 14 December. Find more information here.