OpenScout

On May 16th 2012, UNESCO and OpenScout organized a workshop on "Internationalization of OER" at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva. The WSIS Forum 2012 is co-organized by ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP and was the world's largest annual gathering of the 'ICT for development' community. The workshop came up with a vision statement and 10 recomendations for the OER community.

“Open Education is an important driver for reforming education locally and globally; a reform that is more urgently needed than ever.  Open Educational Resources enable Open Education and promote inclusive learning, global collaboration and improved human conditions for all. It is vital to speed up the adoption of Open Educational Resources and Open Education worldwide. This will challenge some of the established systems and practices, calling for global and local leadership.”

Policy Recommendations

1. Intensify global collaborations on OEP and OER (e.g. through UNESCO, Commonwealth of Learning, WSIS, etc.), maintaining a sensitivity of diversity in culture, educational systems and governance. Stimulate institutional and national partnerships for open collaboration.
2. The existing Intellectual Property Right and Copyright schemes represent an important barrier to OEP and should therefore be reconsidered in the educational context. Whenever learning material is produced with public funding open licences should be used.
3. Promote Open Education in legislation and government policies as a powerful alternative to current educational approaches.
4. National governments should take up international recommendations (e.g. from UNESCO, EU, a.o) to improve OER adoption and education reforms.
5. Create an open, flexible, inclusive educational environment including support mechanisms.

Specific recommendations

1. Utilize open approaches not isolated but in an integrated way (open source, open education, open access, open linked data).
2. Create resources which can be embedded in different contexts without license restrictions .
3. Take part in educational collaborations, promote shared, collaborative teaching and provide reward systems for open education
4. Design resources to be accessible, inclusive and flexible
5. Use open formats and open standards as enablers not as means to impose restrictions to creativity and openness – the quality of OERs will be improved by sharing and reuse.

The detailed document of the OER Policy Recommendations can be found here.