UNESCO OER Platform

ICT in Education, Science and Culture Section

Information Society Division

Communication and Information (CI) Sector

www.unesco.org/webworld/en/oer

www.unesco.org/webworld/fr/oer

What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?

UNESCO defines Open Educational Resources (OERs) as:

Learning especially eLearning resources and tools in open document format and released under an intellectual property licence, or in the

public domain allowing free use and re-use

2002 UNESCO OpenCourseware Forum

What is the UNESCO OER Platform?

The UNESCO OER Platform seeks to: radically “enhance” UNESCO’s Clearing House

function by offering “certain” UNESCO publications as OER

products and allowing “stakeholders” to freely copy, adapt,

and share their resources.

Who are the UNESCO Stakeholders?

Decision-makers and Policy-makers at Ministry or institutional-level looking for model policies, guides, or best-practices;

Teachers looking for courses, syllabi, and teaching materials and

Learners also looking for additional courses to study

Functionalities of the OER Platform

Find and compare: stakeholders can freely use the UNESCO base product to find and compare content

Build and share: stakeholders can freely copy, build and share their unique adaptations

Translations: significantly higher than the 6 languages from UNESCO

Localization: incorporating the more relevant and superior quality and quantity of the national or regional literature base on the subject area;

Innovation: the creation of new, customized versions, e.g. Guide on Internet Access for Disabled Journalists based on the original UNESCO “The Net for Journalists”

Offline editing: critically important for countries with poor internet Mobile phone access: taking advantage of 5 billion access points

An ideal CI OER Product “UNESCO Model Curricula for Journalism Education” Generic, adaptable, fully-prescriptive Curricula:

– Course descriptions– Pedagogical approaches– Mode, weekly class agenda, number of teaching hours– Recommended text– Grading and assessment protocols

Available in 6 official languages Adapted by 50+ institutions in 45 countries with backlog

The OER Platform allows a new journalism school to:– easily find courses, – compare how other schools have adapted them, and – freely copy and adapt the most suitable courses

Who will pilot the project?

Piloted by: Polytechnic of Namibia School of Communication University of Namibia Department of Media Studies(Coordinated by UNESCO Windhoek)

Development will commence very shortlyLaunch by November, 2011

We would like at least 1 OER Product from each Sector: SC: Marovo Lagoon Encyclopedia IOC: Ocean Teacher Academy SHS: Bioethics Curriculum CLT: Cultural Diversity Programming Lens ED: Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (LIFE)

Preview

OER Community on the WSIS Platform

Open community – www.wsis-community.org 1,400+ members 4 langauges: Eng, Fr, Sp, Pt Call for language versions

• UNESCO-maintained Global List of OER Initiatives• 250+ global list• Is your initiative on the list??

Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL)

EC-funded 2010 – 2011 Project: www.oer-quality.org 7 partners: UNESCO, ICDE, EFQUEL, Aalto, OU UK,

UCP, UDE Objective: create an advanced OER Practices

Framework Building OPAL Register and OPAL Clearing House

2012 World OER Forum

10th Anniversary of the 2002 Forum June, 2012 Showcase world’s best OER policies, practices, tools,

resources, and experts Present the 2012 Paris OER Declaration

Start planning that trip to Paris

Contact

Abel Caine

OER Programme SpecialistICT in Education, Science and Culture SectionInformation Society DivisionCommunication and Information (CI) SectorUNESCO

1, rue MiollisParis75015FranceE-mail: a.caine@unesco.orgPhone: +33 (0)1 45 68 42 37