The UNESCO OER Recommendation: Some Observations From the ICDE OER Advocacy Committee

Abstract

In this article, ambassadors of the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) Open Educational Resources (OER) Advocacy Committee (OERAC) provide a snapshot of regional and global Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives. This committee has been active since 2017 with membership renewed biannually. The ambassadors work to further OER awareness and understanding, to increase global recognition of OER, and provide policy support for the acceptance and application of OER. This overview highlights national and regional initiatives associated with the UNESCO OER recommendation and the five action areas that include: building capacity and leveraging OER; developing supporting policies; ensuring equity and effectiveness; encouraging sustainable OER model development; and, promoting and facilitating international collaboration. In addition, monitoring and evaluation of the action areas are suggested to be prioritized. This overview is not exhaustive, and much work remains to implement the OER Recommendation at scale, maximize its implementation, connect these recommendations to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), along with the futures of education with a new social contract for education, individuals, and the planet.

The Evolution of Quality Education: Impacts and Challenges of Using Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) in the Conceive - Design - Implement - Operate (CDIO) Framework

“…OER has gained many advantages, such as facilitating knowledge sharing, reducing learning costs, and ensuring inclusive learning [29], [30]. Universities around the world are beginning to adopt OER in their educational practices.…”

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) and Governmental Open Educational Resources (OER) Policies: Instruments of International Policy Influence

“…This paper explores what policy instruments the selected IGOs have been using to influence the development of governmental OER policies. The majority of previous research activities carried out in the period 2011-2020 primarily focused on documenting the adoption and growth of public OER policies worldwide and did not investigate the role of IGOs OER policy instruments on the development of the reported governmental OER policies (Hylén et al, 2012;Hoosen, 2012;Orr, Rimini & van Damme, 2015;COL, 2017;Inamorato dos Santos et al, 2017;Ossiannilsson, Hakan & Wetzler, 2020). The published information on this topic is limited to several studies or reports examining the effect of some OER policy instruments, such as technical assistance or discursive dissemination, of IGOs such as UNESCO, COL or EC, on the development of governmental OER or Open Education policies in a specific country or a group of countries in a particular geographical region (Inamorato dos ORS Impact, 2015;Abeywardena, et al, 2018;Abeywardena, et al, 2019).…”