OER Regional Agenda for South-Mediterranean Universities

What does relevant mean ?

Perhaps "diverse" would be a better word than relevant?

I would say "The adoption of OER and OEP aims to widen participation in HE, diversifying the range of learning experiences provided by universities to society, so citizens can have access to more opportunities for continuous education and life-long learning."

It might be useful to cite directly Creative Commons

I think I prefer how it is, because we cannot forget that not every country legally recognises Creative Commons as an alternative to all rights reserved, however, most of the countries that have agreed to the Buenos Aires Convention do accept public domain in their legislations and allow people to publish under this condition as an alternative to all rights reserved

I see. Creative Commons in any case is a flexible license, very well customizable.

Agree with Javiera. Better to leave this this as "open licences" as this includes public domain.

No need to cite CC

The issue of free educational resources seems to be increasingly the quality of resources. OERs are not only images but can also be courses, textbooks, educational software, etc.

Beyond the adoption of Open Licences, I think it would be important to encourage universities and educators play an active role in advocating for intelectual propery legislation reform in their countries, where needed, to make sure that suitable copyright exceptions (e.g. fair use) are in place, so educators have the freedom to use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes without restrictions that unfortunately are applied in so many countries. An example of activism to reform copyright directive in EU is this campaign by Communia https://rightcopyright.eu/

What does "not simply translating contents" mean? What else should be done beyond translation ? What is relevance ?

Maybe, it is referred to contextualise the object rather than just translate it, because sometimes is better to replace a foreign example by a national one to situate the students in a particular scenario

Agree that local contextualisation of content is critical if OER are to meet the requirements of a diverse range os users.

No need to add "and in diverse cultural contexts"

open source is not a standard. Th use (of) bibliometric criteria (metadata): metadata are a different thing from bibliometric: did you mean "bibliographic" ? If yes, maybe just bibliographic metadata is sufficient.

Need to be more explicit about what is meant by open standards here. Don't confuse open standards with open source. Also while metadata is important for resource discovery, *requiring* the creation of metadata can be a barrier to the release of OER. Ideally you want a mix of automatically captured metadata and user generated metadata that can grow dynamically as the resource is used.

Missing two "of" in this sentence.

I feel this should emphasise the importance of co-creation of such OER with students

Agreed. Co-creation is important.

I think this is key, the cultural change is the heart of OE

The notion of "affordances" is rather problematic for different reasons; I would suggest not using it. Alternatively, something like this could be included: "Strategic actions on pedagogical approaches to OER should take into consideration practices emerging in the context of networked teaching and learning and, more broadly, digital cultures."

I, personally, do not believe indicators and metrics are useful for such goal.

I understand it in the way that these indicators and metrics aim at competences acquired and developed by the use and creation of OER rather than at this use, under a competencies framework such as the francophone one https://ifadem.org/sites/defau... - https://ifadem.org/sites/defau...

Assessing competence as a result of use of OER is very different from assessing quality in the production of OER. I think that the importance of quality assuring OER is often overstated. Similarly, quality concerns are often used as an excuse not to engage with OER. When it comes to OER it is the context of use that is critical. E.g. A good quality OER can be used in an inappropriate context producing poor results.

Governments must find ways to foster diversity and local choices while establishing and guaranteeing the use of open and interoperable standards on media, software and content (open source - open source or open source, Open access - free access to knowledge, open knowledge - free sharing of knowledge and knowledge ...). Effective access to the multitude of resources available to users and the affirmation of the pedagogical freedom of the teacher, who can construct his own learning scenarios on the basis of curation solutions rather than to undergo a tool, a support, imposed and not relevant co

In terms of quality assurance we could encourage the development of peer-review mechanisms. I agree with Lorna that context is essential and will determine the usefulness of resources.

Probably better to be more clear is stating how it will be done?

The point here is to encourage the development of empirical research so a cumulative body of knowledge on OER/OEP can inform future practice and, ideally, help theorise openess in education.

digital skills and digital culture

Also to make sure we do not miss out the student voice; inclusivity and collaboration. We are likely to find students have lots to teach staff about access to technology and running with it

Perhaps there needs to be something in here about digital and information literacy?

I think this is also core, but maybe it need to comprehend the possibilities of certification in the future

Building awareness of the value of openness into teacher training programmes is critical.

Would substitute "the value of open standards" with Open Educational Practices instead. I would take out the phrase "technical skills" too. When thinking of capacity building I believe it is important not to donwplay the importance of values and pedagogical principles.

We haven't had a great deal of success with open content standards for OER tbh. In reality, it's the use of common document formats and web standards that tends to facilitate the resuse of OER and open content.

This is good. It's also very useful to share OER through common media sharing platforms and applications. E.g. As well as sharing content through institutional repositories, share it through social media platforms too.

The lack of autonomy in HE system in most of the Southern Mediterranean Countries don't help to achieve this goal. It could be necessary to add in this perspective the role on Ministry of HE to open a National Strategy. On the other hand the role of OER Champions (see my comment on G2) could help a bottom up approach probably more efficient, seeing at the situation of HE in the region

Probably the involvement of the ministries of HE will help if we are looking for National policies. The Universities in Morocco are almost autonomous. I do not know about the other countries, they may comment on this.

As indicated by the recommendations included in the compendium: "Clarity about the justi cation for the provision of high-quality OEP and OER in HEIs is required". Therefore, I would suggest starting this section with the suggestion that HEI interested in adopting OEP make explicit what they want to achieve by doing so and how it fits within their overall institutional mission.

Thanks

I think that this is a crucial point in particular in Southern Mediterranean Countries. It could be necessary to identify other formula to give a recognition to OER Champions. It could be useful an international recognition from networks or Universities.

Yes, this is a really good idea.

To achieve this result I suggest that UNIMED will establish a sub-network on OER to foster the adoption of OER in Southern Mediterranean Countries.

Yes, understanding copyright and licensing is critical here.

I think this addresses my comment for T4

This point could be addressed by UNIMED sub-network on OER. See my comment to G3

See comment on P3 above.

This could be facilitate by UNIMED sub-netowrk on OER. See my comment on G3

I see the neither benefits nor motivations for evaluating the quality of the material (what is quality of an educational material?). This should be left internally to the institutions, if they wish to do so.

I assume this related to ensuring that the OER produced are inclusive and consider accessibility principles so students that may have physical or health related disadvantages are not left behind because they cannot interact with the resources in an effective way

Agree with both these comments. Quality is important when it relates to diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility, less so when it relates to an abstract notion of academic quality.

Agree with the importance of this, and how universities can better support lifelong learning for all in the community, including ways in which universities can do more to make communications better with local communities

This is all about widening participation, fostering social inclusion, and extending the benefits of education.

Probably get in touch with ALECSO may help in promoting OER in the Arab Countries.

My comments are in response to the vision of OpenMed and that the recommendations improve practices within all our own university systems, including how openness has to go far beyond offering contents publically available.

I do endorse and support these recommendations

Comment 1: You can consider to explore mechanisms to speed up and promote those communities who are already promoting the adoption of OER. This is helpful and a great way to find sustainability (particularly after the funding is gone). Also I encourage you to adopt strategies and mechanisms to ensure the quality of the OER. (...)

Comment 2: Additional tools, services to foster curation or crowdsourced improvements are always positive forms to multiply and enlarge the OER movement. Open resources doesn’t mean good resources, being open is a good way to go if you want to learn from others! congrats for the work done! @cristobalcobo

OER is a train going forward and all the Universities and Educational Institutions are going to take soon or later. OpenMed Project is helping to take this train in our region.