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Interim Report
ICDE Task Force on OER
Composed by Fred Mulder (TF Chair)
June 4, 2007
Mandate OER Task Force
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to develop a report on Open Educational
Resources,
 aiming to contributing to the global movement of
OER,
 adding specific ‘ICDE’ flavour and value
 by adopting the self-and-distance-learning
perspective rather than the current mainstream
content-in-classroom perspective
Members OER Task Force
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Fred Mulder (Chair), OUNL (also chair of EADTU OER TF)
Nick Allen, University of Maryland University College
Susan D'Antoni, IIEP / UNESCO
Stuart Hamilton, Open Universities Australia
Helmut Hoyer, FernUni in Hagen / Acting ICDE President
Sally Johnstone, Winona State University
Fredric M. Litto, President of ABED, Brazil
Bernard Loing, ICDE Permanent Delegate to UNESCO
Frits Pannekoek, Athabasca University
Paulina Pannen, SEAMEO SEAMOLEC, Indonesia
Barney Pityana, University of South Africa
Reidar Roll, Secretary General ICDE
Tarek Shawki, Section IS and ICT in Education / UNESCO
Atwi Suparman, Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia
David Vincent, The Open University
Activities OER Task Force
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Inquiry among the ICDE membership
(preparatory activity)
Kick-off meeting at UNESCO’s Headquarters in
Paris (Nov 12-13, 2006)
Reviewing by TF members of the OECD OER
Report in its final draft version
Wrap-up meeting directly after the SCOP
Meeting
OER Inquiry ICDE members (1)
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Response: 17%
 68% definitely acquainted with the movement,
 60% involved in OER project (or planning to …)
 92% interested in participating in ICDE activities
OER Inquiry ICDE members (2)
Opportunities
 Easy access to quality content, reaching a wider
audience
 Cost effectiveness in developing learning
materials and support
 Greater volume of learning resources available to
all
 Quality learning materials can be improved
 Greater variety of learning resources will create
more flexible learning opportunities
 Sharing of available resources, more chance on
partnerships
OER Inquiry ICDE members (3)
Threats
 Copyright, IPR issues
 Quality: OER without appropriate review can lead
to low quality materials
 Cultural domination / Globalization
 Lack of a viable new business model
 Well-known “brand” institutions may attract even
more students
 “Not invented here” syndrome
 Lack of initiative: less incentive to produce
knowledge (research, innovation)
 Content is not the same as learning materials
Kick-off meeting TF in Paris (1)
Summary conclusions (1)
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We should not address all kinds of general OER issues
(that is being done by many others already), but rather
concentrate on the self-study and learner-centred
approach in OER materials, in other words the ICDE
flavour in OER
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We can lend from a variety of rich sources: UNESCO,
Hewlett Foundation, OECD, Open Courseware
Consortium, EADTU, …
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There is a need for a fundamental reflection of the OER
definition within the context of the open and flexible
learning model as applied - although in some variety throughout the ICDE membership
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An extremely important issue is the business model, as
is the cultural, linguistic, political and economic diversity
Kick-off meeting TF in Paris (2)
Summary conclusions (2)
 We underline the primary question: “How can
OER contribute to respond to the ‘Education for
all’ UNESCO policy, capacity building, widening
participation and access?” (emphasizing the
developing countries context)
 And the secondary question: “What role can
be attributed to OER in developing or
strengthening a knowledge-based society?”
(emphasizing the developed countries context).
Review OECD OER Report (1)
OECD OER Report shows excellence:
 It is a very relevant and readable report
 It has the characteristics of an overviewing report
 But it is also giving direction on how to tackle some of the
major OER issues in an appropriate pragmatic way
Review input has come from the TF members:
 Susan D’Antoni
 Stuart Hamilton
 Helmut Hoyer
 Sally Johnstone
 Frits Pannekoek
 Paulina Pannen
 Tian Belawati (on behalf of Atwi Suparman).
Review OECD OER Report (2)
(B) LifeLong Learning is mentioned in chapter 1 and is being
referred to in the recommendations in the final chapter, but
elsewhere does not receive much attention. The natural
bridging between informal, non-formal and formal
learning by OER and the paramount opportunities this
offers to widening and increasing participation in HE,
however, make OER probably a most powerful
instrument in the area of LifeLong Learning (LLL). Even
more relevant, it seems, than in the regular educational
university environment where young students take their
initial university degree directly after secondary school.
Review OECD OER Report (3)
(C) Public funding is being referred to in chapter 1, as in the
final chapter. Thinking of knowledge as a public good,
indeed giving it for free, and the supposed responsibility of
governments for access, quality and efficiency of HE
(and education in general), would justify a ‘good’ debate on
the funding role of governments. Probably funding
schemes require some amendments in order to be able to
accommodate for the notion that OER should be a public
affair.
Review OECD OER Report (4)
(D) In the LLL perspective the freely available content on the
Internet should empower learners to really study on their
own in an open and flexible learning environment, with
no (avoidable) references to a teacher, a classroom or an
educational institution. This does not happen by accident or
through the deployment of ad hoc initiatives, but rather
requires structural and explicit learner-centred content
design instead of the conventional teacher-centred content
approach.
Review OECD OER Report (5)
(E) One might question whether for Openness the 'no cost'
attribute is most fundamental, or that it actually is a
complex of mechanisms that take away all kinds of
traditional existing barriers: institutional registration,
required diplomas / certificates, on-campus classes and
face-to-face meetings, fixed schedules, rigid pacing, overspecified programmes, too big programme components,
etcetera. Here actually the characteristic Openness of the
Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Universities is at stake:
in its broadest interpretation open as to access, places,
scheduling, pacing, and combining courses, as well as
open to people, methods and ideas.
Review OECD OER Report (6)
(E)+
Figure 2.2 distinguishes three aspects of Openness:
1. in the social domain
2. in the technical domain
3. as a characteristic of the resource.
Clearly there are good arguments to add a fourth one:
4. of the educational system.
By the latter, Openness is situated in the much older movement
initiated by the ODL Universities. Combining this with the
three new aspects of Openness linked to OER, could make
ODL Universities important players in the OER movement.
Review OECD OER Report (7)
(F) The users of OER appear to come from all over the world.
Many seem to be well-educated self-learners, but
educators are probably also prominent users.”
Although we might judge this result to be disappointing, it
is not surprising since the OER materials generally are not
designed for self-study and that‘s why a high level of
education is required in order to be able to learn without
additional guidance or support. This means that the
potential of OER is heavily underexploited. The report
refers to three OER initiatives from ODL Universities in
Europe. More about this in the following session here at
SCOP2007. These OER activities can be considered as a
new generation ('second wave') in the OER
development, since their learning materials are explicitly
designed for self-study or - in other words - independent
learning.
Review OECD OER Report (8)
(M) The report fails to provide concrete sound economic
models in an open access environment. In this respect it is
worthwile to refer to Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
who in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes
Everything (2007) do offer a number of insights how to
make revenue by, for example, involving wider
communities. HE institutions will find considerable
revenues, not from their courseware, but rather from
credentialing, from examination processes, and from
personal support to learners.
Review OECD OER Report (9)
(N) In regions and areas where ICT possibilities are scarce
there is a danger that ‘the (prospective) users are left
behind’. So, a prerequisite for a successful OER
movement is easier and better access to ICT facilities,
which implies that this should have a high priority in any
OER action plan.
Review OECD OER Report (10)
(P) Indeed, a major impediment to OER access is language.
OER materials are being created in different languages
and as yet, we do not have automated translation
systems available. To lower this barrier, educators in
different countries will have to get more engaged in
translating and creating their own OER materials.
(Q) Generally translating is not enough since the conversion of
the learning materials should also include adaptation to a
different social-cultural context. For this so-called
‘localization’ process automation is no option, which
implies ‘hard labour’. Translation + localization is one of
the assets of the European MORIL project.
Review OECD OER Report (11)
(S) OER is warmly welcomed by the developing countries,
because this will provide access for students and
institutions to learning resources, which previously were
restricted to specific institutional use only.
There also exist, however, serious barriers for the use of
OER in developing countries:
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the low degree of access to ICT facilities and the
corresponding high costs
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the social and cultural context for the learners and the
society in which they live, which may be very different from
the environment where the materials have been developed.
For institutions in developing countries this would imply the
need to select, contextualize and adapt the content for their
students (localization).
Review OECD OER Report (12)
(V) The Quality Assurance (QA) issue is addressed in
chapter 7 but its extreme importance cannot be
overestimated. It is something that the ODL Universities
through their strong reputations regarding high quality
learning materials could contribute to easily, that is by
labelling their OER materials with their brand names (as
is suggested in this chapter). In Europe the EADTU has
run a QA project, called E-xcellence, addressing the
quality of e-learning along various aspects. The outcomes
have been generally applauded, are very practical for
direct operational use, and might be valuable for the QA
of OER.
Further work for the Task Force
We prefer the ICDE SCOP 2007 Meeting to set the agenda
for the further TF work. The SCOP Meeting acting
temporarily as an extension of the TF, developing
feedback, critically reflecting, generating ideas, setting
priorities, and giving direction to the OER future for ICDE
and its membership …