Author Archives: carolrossini

Result of a community effort, but mostly developed by Philipp Schmidt, UNESCO has launched, on  the 15 October 2009he UNESCO OER Toolkit (with support from the UNESCO Communications and Information Sector). This toolkit has special focus on academics and institutions from  developing countries — who are interested in participating in open education projects.

OVERVIEW — Most of the Toolkit is designed for academics who are interested in finding and using OER in the courses they teach, or who wish to publish OER that they have developed. Some sections are aimed at institutional decision-makers and academics that interested in setting up a more formal OER project. These projects may start with just a few interested academics but, as they grow, institutional policies, funding and legal constraints become more relevant.

Individuals who are not aiming to set up a institutional project may nonetheless be interested to read the whole document. Likewise, institutional planners, IT staff or librarians who are interested in setting up an OER project would benefit from understanding the academic’s perspective.

As part of the OAPEN project Prof.dr. Paul Rutten and Drs. Janneke Adema (Leiden University, The Netherlands) have carried out a study on user needs in relation to open access book publishing within the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).

The study will be made available through OAPEN’s website, www.oapen.org, by the end of October. Below are some of the main findings of the report.

Main Findings

.       Print remains important in HSS although a trend has been established to more digital consumption (more screen reading and E-Book use), more informal online communication (blogs and wiki’s) and a small rise of scholarly writing specifically adapted to the digital environment. It is felt print and E-Books will coexist and will be used side-by-side for the time being.

.       Accessibility and dissemination of scholarly content are key. It is felt Open Access promotes both and does not necessarily harm the quality of publications. Accessibility also opens research up further, enabling content enhancement and connections (links) between publications. A good and easy way to use search function remains indispensable.

.       In the online environment filter and selection mechanisms such as peer review remain of the utmost importance to establish quality, as are (publishers) brands and (scholarly) reputations. It is felt Open Access monographs should pay extra attention to quality control to ensure their legitimacy.

.       Experiments with new forms of collaboration and new (Open Access) business models in book publishing are necessary. The research shows users are still skeptical about the sustainability of these kinds of models but feel experiments are essential to save the monograph from the traditional (print) publishing model that is no longer sustainable.

The research is based on a state of the art literature study, round table discussions, one-on-one interviews across Europe, and an online survey.

Organized by the OER Brazilian Project: Challenges and Perspectives and the Fundacao Getulio Vargas School of Law in Sao Paulo, and funded by the Open Society Institute, this conference aim to foster the debate on public policies for development and adoption of OERs. Check the complete agenda in English and register here.

As countries worldwide move to implement open education projects, and developing nations in particular look to use the Internet to replace outdated and insufficient educational systems, an examination of existing work is in order. It is important to provide a map of lessons learned, and to understand how existing projects can be connected to one another to create the largest possible impact for both educators and learners.

Our goal is to examine these broad issues within the lens of a detailed examination of the Brazilian experience applying ICTs to education in policy, technology, pedagogy, and the impact of the emerging concept of “open educational resources” in both theory and practice.

This conference will present results and discuss recommendations from the OER Brazil Project, including a green-paper, funded by the Open Society Institute. The conference aims to open the door for a richer discussion focused on OER through sharing information on international and national OER projects. The idea is to transform the conference into a working group and draft recommendations for future public policy for OER in Brazil, in preparation for the 2010 National Conference on Education.

The call for nominations for the 2009 International MAN@eLA is now open! The MERLOT Africa Network (MAN) and its network of partners present its 2009 International MAN@eLA Awards for Exemplary Open Education Resources (OER)Practices for Development.

These prestigious awards are presented annually to organizations, individuals, online educational resources and authoring software tools dedicated to advancing development in Africa, and recognize three categories of excellence: (1) Leadership Award to an individual or group that has made significant advances in the understanding of the issues or innovations surrounding OER and the OER Movement applied to development issues, (2) Virtual Laboratory Award to exemplary teaching and learning resources that promote inquiry-based/discovery learning, internationalization (such as multi-lingual accessibility) and usability, (3) Software for OER Content Authoring Award (This may be a free or lower cost/affordable proprietary software.

Do you need motivation or guidance? Check the 2008 winners of the MAN@eLA Award!

You already can check what happened in the MERLOT International Conference, from August 13 to 16, 2009.  The 624 tweets were gathered through Twapper Keeper and give us a taste on how dynamic the conference was.

The conference program also brings some of the presentations, icluding the keynote by John Wilbanks, VP for Science at Creative Commons and many more!