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Korea National Open UniversityKNOU OER Seminar2012-09-24What you need to know about Open Educational ResourcesSir John Daniel & Stamenka Uvali?-Trumbi?IntroductionIt is good to have this chance to address an audience from across KNOU. I thank you all, and especially Professor Taerim Lee, for the warm welcome you have given me during my stay at KNOU as a Fellow. It is a special honour to be your visiting Fellow in this 40th anniversary year.My topic today is ‘What do you need to know about Open Educational Resources?’ This has been a very important year for OER because of the World OER Congress that was held at UNESCO, Paris in June. Some of you were there.My seminar is in three parts. First, I shall give a bit of the history of OER and how we have raised awareness of the concept in the last year.Second, I shall talk about the regional forums that were help all over the world in the first half of this year in order to find out the reality of OER in different regions.Third, I shall address some of the questions that you have given me about OERContext for the World OER CongressFirst let me provide some context to this World Congress on Open Educational Resources. This last year UNESCO and COL have been conducting a project entitled “Fostering Governmental Support for Open Educational Resources Internationally”. Let me first acknowledge gratefully the support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for this project and say what a successful partnership it has been. I also recognise the tremendous work of the members of the joint UNESCO-COL team and their supporting colleagues in Paris and Vancouver. A major purpose of the project was to prepare the ground for this Congress by raising awareness of Open Educational Resources among governments around the world. We built on an earlier joint project, conducted in 2010-2011, called Taking OER Beyond the OER Community: Policy and Capacity for Developing Countries.Under that initiative we held workshops for senior educational decision makers in Africa and Asia and produced two documents that are available for download. A Basic Guide to OER, and Guidelines for OER in Higher Education.That earlier work led directly into the current project with governments when the Hewlett Foundation offered to support it.This project had four elements:A survey of the world’s governments about their use of OER Holding Regional Policy Forums in six world regions,Developing a Declaration to be presented at this Congress.The World OER CongressI shall make some general comments about Open Educational Resources, report on the survey, and note some key issues. Then I will summarise what emerged from the Regional Policy Forums using material prepared by my colleague Stamenka Uvali?-Trumbi?. History of OEROpen Educational Resources are part of a wider trend towards greater openness and sharing that has been gathering momentum for over twenty years. It is helpful to divide its manifestations in education into three elements, all of which figure prominently in UNESCO’s work and are inter-related.Open source software has a long history. The term ‘open access’ is usually used to refer to open access to research results, especially where the research has been supported by public funds. The open access movement is thriving and controversies about access to research journals have been in the news recently, with major universities refusing to pay the high prices demanded for scientific journals.Open Educational Resources are defined as educational materials that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared. I make the point that this includes materials in all formats. While nearly all OER are generated through digital technology, they are often used in print format. This is the case, for example, in what is probably the largest international OER project, Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa, or TESSA, where OER are used by hundreds of thousands of teachers annually in at least 12 African countries.The term Open Educational Resources, or OER, was coined at a forum held at UNESCO exactly a decade ago. The topic was the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries and reflected the growing movement to make educational materials freely available for adaptation and reuse. Participants at that 2002 Forum declared “their wish to develop together a universal educational resource for the whole of humanity, to be referred to henceforth as Open Educational Resources”.The Open Educational Resources movement has gathered accelerating momentum since that 2002 Forum thanks to the commitment of educational institutions, NGOs and some governments to making educational material freely available for reuse, notably where that material was created with public funds. This World OER Congress was partly a celebration of the tenth anniversary of that important UNESCO event, which created a global movement for the open licensing of educational and creative works. Since that first event UNESCO has continued to promote the OER movement globally.In 2009 the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education brought together close to 2,000 participants representing higher education worldwide. In its Communiqué the Conference urged governments to give more attention to the roles of ICT and OER.Fostering Government Support for OER As a result, later that year a resolution was presented at UNESCO’s General Conference, requesting UNESCO to promote OER further, and arguing that the time was now ripe to bring OER to the attention of governments.That was the incentive for UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning to work together in awareness raising and advocacy, starting with the project that I noted earlier, and continuing into this work.With awareness of the importance of OER steadily increasing, a first step was to discover more about the expectations of governments for OER and whether they were developing policies for their use.SurveySo we conducted a questionnaire survey of all governments. We received responses from nearly 100 countries and questionnaires. We were most grateful to the countries that responded and I will give a regional breakdown in a minute.The 82 responses received before the cut-off date of 16 April were analysed by consultant Sarah Hoosen in South Africa and her report is available for download. I shall comment on two general issues raised by the survey.To quote from Sarah Hoosen’s report:There appears to be great interest in OER across all regions of the world, with several countries embarking on notable OER initiatives. Indeed, the survey itself raised interest and awareness of OER in countries that may not have had much prior exposure to the concept. Why should governments and institutions have this great interest in OER?When the OER movement began it was motivated by the ideal that knowledge is the common wealth of humankind and should be freely shared. Most institutions that decided to implement the ideal by creating OER relied on donor funding, notably from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.But as the OER movement developed, questions about its sustainability became increasingly pressing. It could not rely indefinitely on donor funding. Institutions and governments began to review the economics of OER in order to determine whether there was a business case for investing in them.This project commissioned a report by Neil Butcher and Sarah Hoosen on The Business Case for Open Educational Resources. Copies are available for download. The authors situate the contribution of OER in the wider context of the challenges facing education at all levels in this era of economic stringency. They argue that greater reliance on resource-based learning, rather than large-group teaching, will be essential for wider access to quality education. The authors give compelling evidence that using OER can reduce the cost of creating learning resources substantially. They also present some revealing analyses of the economics of textbook production, which again show that systematic processes of investing in OER can create considerable savings for governments and students. The commercial publishing industry can play a part in this process.My second quotation from the report raises other important issues.…there appears to be some confusion regarding understanding of the concept and potential of OER. Many projects are geared to allowing online access to digitized educational content, but the materials themselves do not appear to be explicitly stated as OER. Where licences are open, the Creative Commons framework appears to be the most widely used licensing framework, but licensing options varies between countries.It was not the purpose of this project to propose particular approaches to open licensing but governments and institutions should give attention to this issue. It is not enough to place materials on a website and say that anyone can use them. Producers should understand that open licensing takes place within the framework of copyright legislation, not outside it. Users need the assurance they can use the material and be aware of any restrictions that apply.Regional Policy Forums In our regional policy forums we found no consensus on the restrictions that should be applied to open licensing. A majority of countries seem to be relaxed about the commercial use of OER but a minority is opposed. That is why you will find the phrase ‘with such restrictions as they judge necessary’ in the recommendation on open licensing in the Paris Declaration. Let me recall that the aim of this project was to encourage governments to promote OER and the use of open licences. The world tour that we conducted convinced us that the time is ripe for this. The OER movement is developing fast but it needs government involvement to bring it fully into the mainstream of education. Moreover governments will be major beneficiaries thanks to the potential of OER to improve the cost-effectiveness of their large investments in education.Let me now talk about the regional meetingsAn important element of the preparation for this Congress was the holding of six regional Policy Forums in all parts of the world as part of our UNESCO-COL project Fostering Governmental Support for OER Internationally.Although the questionnaire survey was very useful, we also wanted to promote dialogue between government policy makers and OER practitioners around the world.These forums provided a complement to the information obtained through the survey, allowed us to learn about the state of play with regard to OER in different parts of the world and to refine the draft Declaration that is before this Congress in a highly iterative way.Before and after the regional forums there were meetings of the International Advisory and Liaison Group created for the project. The Group consists of representatives from each of UNESCO’s regional electoral groups as well as of a number NGOs and IGOs. A first draft of the Declaration was produced after the first meeting of the IALG, following three general principles.First, the Declaration is at the level of principles and aims rather than the detail of their implementation, which will vary widely by country.Second, it is focussed tightly on OER rather than including the other aspects of openness, notably open source software and open access to research literature.Third, the Declaration avoids technical language. I shall now try to give you the flavour of the discussions at the Regional Forums. We held regional forums in Barbados for the Anglophone Caribbean, Pretoria for Africa, Rio de Janeiro for Latin America, Cambridge, U.K. for Europe and North America, Bangkok for Asia-Pacific and finally Muscat for the Arab States.We are grateful to the governments, institutions and organisations in Barbados, South Africa, Brazil, the UK, Thailand and Oman, which hosted these events and helped us with the arrangements. We judge them all to have been extremely successful.For researchers who are interested, this project is extremely well documented thanks to the careful work of Stamenka Uvali?-Trumbi?. You can find reports of all six regional forums at oercongress and at . The successive drafts of the Paris Declaration are also at and webworld/en/oer. The speeches and slides summarising the progress of the project and the responses from countries in each region are at speeches.Let us now comment on the Regional Policy Forums one by one.CaribbeanWe begin with the first Regional Forum, which was held in January for the Anglophone Caribbean in conjunction with an ICT in Education Leadership Forum based on UNESCO’s Competency Framework for ICT for Teachers. 10 Caribbean jurisdictions reported on the status of OER. Most Caribbean countries are introducing computers into their schools and the lack of good learning materials for this purpose made them very receptive to the notion of Open Educational Resources.It was interesting to learn that the Cyril Potter Teachers Training College in Guyana had developed materials on ICTs for teachers by using existing OER from around the world. The faculty members involved had found this a rewarding experience.There was a brief discussion of the Declaration but no substantial changes were proposed.AfricaOur next Forum, for Africa, took place in February in Pretoria at the University of South Africa. 17 African countries reported on the status of OER in their countries. Although none, with the exception of South Africa, have a distinct governmental policy on OER, the majority is active in the OER movement, mainly through institutions and individuals. In the minds of most respondents OER are closely associated with the introduction of ICT in education or with the development of open and distance learning, or both. These results from Africa showed the progress that has been made since the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education at which there was a vigorous debate between two South Africans.Professor Brenda Gourley, then Vice-Chancellor of the UK Open University, explained how the UKOU was making much of its course material available as OER on its OpenLearn website. However, Professor Barney Pityana, then Principal of UNISA, the University of South Africa, asked if OER were not potentially a form of neo-colonialism, with the north pushing its intellectual products at the south. It now seems that this was one occasion when flagging a potential problem early helped the world to avoid it. At the Policy Forum on OER in Africa in February we found a vibrant culture of creation, re-use and re-purposing of OER. UNISA, our host for the African Regional Policy Forum, now has a proactive institutional strategy in favour of OER.The flow of OER is now becoming truly multi-directional and global. For example, OER created at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana are used at the University of Michigan. Similarly medical OER from Malawi have found their way into teaching in a number of other countries. From Africa the major changes to the Declaration were strengthening references to issues of connectivity and electricity, the sharing of OER across languages, stressing research on OER and developing a business model to include a wide range of stakeholders, including industry.Latin AmericaFor the Forum for Latin America we went to Rio de Janeiro, where 10 countries reported on the status of OERs. The majority said that they have some governmental strategy or policy related to OER or intend to develop one.Many of the countries have educational portals and also a range of policy documents that cover ICTs and Open and Distance Learning, some of which include OER. The Latin American meeting was particularly helpful in refining the draft Paris Declaration on OER. It refined the text to refer to internationally agreed statements in the Preamble, clarify terms, refer to strategic alliances and qualify open licences “with such restrictions as judged necessary”. Countries in the region had differing views on what restrictions should be used. EuropeThe Forum for the Europe region was held at the University of Cambridge.18 countries in the Europe region responded to our survey. Of these Austria, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia are the most active in taking advantage of OER. Some, such as Austria and the Netherlands, would like to see an EU directive on OER to encourage a pan-European approach. These governments have invested significant funds in the development of OER, often through higher education institutions, which then have an obligation to share their OER products.Europe added an action item about encouraging private and non-governmental organizations to contribute to OER.Asia-Pacific As you know the Asia-Pacific region is large and diverse, which was reflected in the responses to our survey from 19 countries.Five of these countries report that they have government policies on OER in place.Most of these refer explicitly to the open licensing of educational materials. Australia, for example, places OER in the wider context of its policy of opening up public data and resources through the Government’s Open Access and Licensing Framework. In this context a number of Australian states reported on their different approaches to OER.In China, the Ministry of Education has an OER policy, within which it has developed several OER action plans. Examples involving Chinese universities are the Video Open Courseware project and Open Digital Learning Resources for Continuing Education.Korea replied that it has a governmental policy called the Korean Open Courseware Information Strategy Plan and an ISP for a National OER repository.The discussion in Bangkok added CONFINTEA in the Preamble as well as a phrase that open licensing does not affect authorship. It strengthened the references to capacity-building and incentives for teachers and institutions as well as respect for indigenous knowledge. Action verbs replaced statements in each item.Arab StatesFinally, in May, the Government of Oman hosted our Regional Policy Forum for the Arab states in Muscat.By then 11 countries had reported on the status of OER. Although none said they had explicit governmental policies on OER, five have a strategy related to eEducation or eLearning that includes or could include OER.Examples are Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco.Morocco is particularly active. It has agreements with UNESCO and Korea to support this work.In Oman a reference to the Millennium Declaration was added to the Preamble, and a new item on the need for governments to develop OER policies and strategies was added. That is a very brief summary of the tremendously rich and interesting presentations made at these six regional forums. It became abundantly clear through these Forums that it is very important for governments to take an active role in promoting OER. The conclusions from the Arab States forum are typical. First, education systems and institutions in most countries rely on government leadership. Second, governments can be prime beneficiaries of OER since by using OER they will gain much greater benefits from their large investment in educational materials. Paris DeclarationThe final step in bringing a draft Declaration to this Congress was a meeting of the International Advisory and Liaison Group, which reviewed and refined the draft that had resulted from the six policy forumsThe most important revision introduced by the IALG concerned the status of this Congress. In UNESCO terms, this was a Category IV meeting, at expert level. Such meetings usually include both experts and government representatives but are not governmental meetings. The participants at Category IV meetings are considered to be there in a personal capacity. The practical consequence is that the Declaration is a call for action made by the Congress to governments. It has no legal force for governments, which are free to follow it up in whatever way they judge appropriate through the formal processes of UNESCO and elsewhere.Although Declarations from Category IV meetings are not legally binding, experience with similar declarations in the past shows that governments often use them as guidance for their policy making at country level. The International Advisory and Liaison Group is also acted as the Drafting Group at the Congress. It met to review all the suggestions were given in writing during the Congress and produced a draft for adoption by participants at the closing plenary session.This was, as you can see, an extremely thorough consultative process. We were delighted that the Paris Declaration was adopted by acclamation, with no debate at the final session of the Congress.There are some copies of the Declaration available here in Korean so let me end by highlighting its key points. We are also proud that the Declaration is coherent and conceptually clear. Its ten clauses list the steps that need to be taken to bring OER fully into the mainstream of education for the benefit of students, institutions and governments. We will not take you through the Declaration but simply note its ten headings:Foster awareness and use of OER.Facilitate enabling environments for the use of ICT.Reinforce the development of policies and strategies on OER.Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks.Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials.Foster strategic alliances for OER.Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts.Encourage research on OER.Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER.Encourage open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds.Declarations from UNESCO meetings like the OER Congress are not legally binding. Governments are free to follow up on them in whatever way they choose, either nationally or internationally. Nevertheless, experience with similar declarations in the past shows that governments often use them as guidance for their policy making at country level. We sense that this is already happening.We end by recalling that the aim of this project was to encourage governments to promote OER and the use of open licences. We were pleased to find that Korea is a leader in this movement. The OER movement is developing fast but it needs government and institutional involvement to bring it fully into the mainstream of education. Moreover governments will be major beneficiaries of a stronger OER movement thanks to the potential of OER to improve the cost-effectiveness of their large investments in education. We believe that ten years after the term Open Educational Resources was first used, OER will now make a major difference to the effectiveness of the use of ICT in education.Your questionsLet me now turn to the questions you asked me to address at this seminar1. Global trends and quality of OER- OER characteristics in different countries or continents- Level of OER awareness, use and application- Is there a difference in OER among regions and countries? What is the biggest difference? 2. Examples of OER use in educational institutes- Is it being used in various educational fields such as primary, secondary, post-secondary, higher education or lifelong education?- Specific case studies and their implications- If there is none, how should it be used? 3. OER contents and quality management- What are the strategies to maintain high-quality contents (incentives for content authors)?- Content quality management measures (screening standards and process)- What are the things that need to be considered for the content quality management? 4. OER content copyright policies- Are there guidelines, inspection and verification of copyrights?- What are the standard copyright guidelines that countries and institutes follow?- How is copyright infringement dealt?5. OER standardization for OER collaborative service systems - Is metadata being considered for collaborative use?- Level of diversification in content types and categories by country- What direction should we take for the OER standardization?6. Improving OER content reliability- In the case of wrong contents, what are the solutions?- What are the measures to improve the reliability?Thank you ................
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