OpenMed

OER Regional Agenda for South-Mediterranean Universities

by OpenMed partners
This is the draft 1.0 of the OER Regional Agenda for South-Mediterranean Universities.

The aim of this OER Regional Agenda is to become the starting point for the development of both policies and roadmaps at institutional level, and it will inform the training of trainers component of the OpenMed project.
More background information and key definitions of terms used in this document are available.

This is a working document: we invite all those with an interest in higher education in South-Mediterranean higher education to comment and contribute to this document. Comments are welcome in both English and French, until the 10th of March 2017.

Results of this consultation and next steps
1) Your comments and inputs will be integrated into the consolidated version of the OER Regional Agenda.
2) The OER Regional Agenda is being debated in four OER National Strategy Forums organised in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine, taking into account the specific needs and insights of the academic communities of these countries.
3) The consolidated version will be presented during the Open Education Week 2017 and it will be available on the OpenMed website.
4) In August 2018, a new validated version of the OER Regional Agenda will be available, based on the training experience and lesson learnt from the roadmapping exercise.

Vision

The overarching vision behind the OER Regional Agenda, is that “Opening up education and sharing academic content may lead to improved networking, collaboration and integration of HEI systems, through comprehensive development and creation of a relevant interrelated platforms of content within and outside HEIs.sentence permalink

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The adoption of OER and OEP aims to guarantee a higher accessibility to HE and to diversify the channels and means to learn and update the knowledge of learners. In briefs, Open Education can truly change higher education and make it better, more accessible and relevant, all features befitting a global knowledge-sharing society.sentence permalink

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Strategic Recommendations

Open Content & Licenses (C)

C1. Encourage the use of open licenses for all educational materials produced by public institutions, recognising that governments, institutions and education authorities can generate substantial benefits by ensuring that the educational materials developed with public funds are made available under open licenses.sentence permalink

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C2. Encourage the development, adaptation, and localisation of OER in Arabic language (modern standard Arabic) and in diverse cultural contexts. Localising OER, not simply translating contents, ensures relevance and accessibility of open educational resources.sentence permalink

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C3. Promote the adoption open standards (open source), address accessibility principles and standards during the design (W3C), and the use bibliometric criteria (Metadata) when publishing OER.sentence permalink

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Open Pedagogy & Practice (P)

P1. Promote open approaches to knowledge production within education, which include the use, reuse and remix of Open Educational Resources.sentence permalink

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P2. Raise awareness - also through practical experimentation - of the role of OER supporting educational transformative practices and learning innovation, to enhance the creation and conveyance of knowledge through OEP. Strategic actions on pedagogical approaches to OER should take into consideration affordances of new ICTs in relation to teaching and learning.sentence permalink

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P3. Recognise and accredit knowledge acquired through OER and OEP by creating adequate indicators and metrics to assess competences, pursuing academic quality assurance and rigour in the process of OER production and adoption.sentence permalink

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P4. Further develop empirical investigation of the pedagogical value of OER, including their impacts on formal and informal education environments.sentence permalink

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Technology (T)

T1. Ensure equitable access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), as a crucial requirement in the adoption and production of OER, bridging the digital divide by developing adequate infrastructure, including affordable broadband connectivity and widespread mobile technology.sentence permalink

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T2. Incorporate openness in teachers training programmes, building capacity on the use and value of open standards to develop technical skills and competences to find, use, remix, and contribute with OER as well as to engage with and to promote OEP.sentence permalink

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T3. Support the adoption of appropriate open formats and standard to enable interoperability and compatibility between existing and new systems or solutions, and transferability of data and information between old and new systems; as open formats and standards ensure that OER can be easily created, revised, repurposed and remixed.sentence permalink

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T4. Pursue decentralised or federated solutions to knowledge management, which facilitate the creation of inter-institutional and regional OER initiatives that leverage the findability, exchange, reuse and repurpose of resources within an expanded community of users and beyond the educational institutions. OER repositories should be structured in machine-readable format as to enable proper indexing and Search Engine Optimisation of resources.sentence permalink

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Governance & business models (G)

G1. Implement consistent and inclusive OER institutional policies outlining the ways in which the organisation aims to engage with OER and OEP, and develop properly-funded strategic action-plans on use, production and diffusion of OER, involving departments and people, drawing on how such involvement relates to its overarching mission and values.sentence permalink

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G2. Empower OER champions, innovators and early adopters to widespread the word to faculty and non-faculty members about the value premises and benefits of OER, through institutional and/or financial incentives and professional recognition.sentence permalink

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G3. Foster an OER culture through knowledge management practices that enable an educational paradigm by shifting towards openness and collaboration, disseminating OER and OEP within the institution and beyond and promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks, while respecting authors’ rights.sentence permalink

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G4. Develop institutional and cross-institutional flexible certification models to assess, qualify and recognise the learning outcomes of those who have learned through the use of OER and OEP, supported by a clear set of quality criteria for both content and learning processes.sentence permalink

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Collaborative models between institutions (I)

I1. Recognise local innovators and networking them, pursue inter-institutional collaboration fostering the emergence of networked communities of practice around open education themes, in order to facilitate the exchange of experience, peer-collaboration, knowledge transfer, and skills development regarding the importance of OER initiatives.sentence permalink

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I2. Liaise with regional and international initiatives (i.e. consortiums, worldwide federations, open education alliances, initiatives promoted by UNESCO, etc.) that may enhance the visibility of the region in worldwide Open Education initiatives and respond to international quality assurance standards to assess and evaluate educational resources.sentence permalink

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I3. Collaborate beyond the university boundaries, recognising that Open Education is an opportunity to expand learning beyond the boundaries of traditional education, reaching wider communities, thus strengthening institutional presence and new forms of academic collaboration and recognition.sentence permalink

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I4. Encourage and promote academic research networks into open education in the Arab countries, and on the various organisational opportunities and challenges associated with the implementation and use of OER, and its impact on teaching and learning.sentence permalink

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Endorsement

To endorse these recommendations, please comment here.sentence permalink

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