Posts Tagged ‘UNESCO’

Consultative Group meeting held for Pacific region

Tuesday, 14 June 2011 10:42 Written by nick 0 Comments

A repeat session of the first Consultative Group online meeting was held on Tuesday, 7 June for participants from Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America.

The programme was similar in outline to the previous meeting held for Africa, the Arab States and Europe, but with contributions from:

  • Zeynep Varogolu, Programme Specialist, Section for Reform, Innovation and Quality Assurance, Division of Higher Education, UNESCO
  • Wayne Mackintosh, Director of the OER Foundation and Founder of WikiEducator
  • Carl Holmberg, Secretary General, International Council for Open and Distance Education – ICDE

 

The total participation in the OPAL Consultative Group stands at approx. 50 representatives of institutions and high level organizations working with quality, OER and educational policy.

The meetings were convened by UNESCO and the European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning (EFQUEL), in order to raise awareness of and exchange and define good practices.

UNESCO/ OER Foundation debate

Tuesday, 03 May 2011 10:32 Written by nick 0 Comments

An Oxford-style debate on whether OER should favour commercial use is currently underway online. Hosted by UNESCO and the OER Foundation, interested parties are invited to join the discussion and contribute their ideas and relevant experiences for fostering a sustainable OER future.

A key issue in the open education arena is whether OER should favour commercial use. It is a complex topic which incorporates multiple perspectives and questions in relation to commercial use of OER, for example:

  • Should OER protect the future freedoms of users and creators or the resources themselves?
  • What are the implications of licence choice and the sustainability of OER?
  • How does licence choice impact on the pragmatic considerations of reuse and re-purposing learning materials?
  • What are the moral considerations associated with sharing OER?

This debate aims to tap in to the experience of OER thought leaders and practitioners, investigating the key issues to support informed decision-making on intellectual property rights for OER. Running until 6 May, interested parties are encouraged take part in the debate underway on the WSIS OER community platform.

Registration

To take part in the debate you should register an account on the WSIS OER community platform.

WSIS OER community platform

Invitation to join OPAL Consultative Group meeting

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 16:49 Written by nick 0 Comments

UNESCO and the European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning (EFQUEL) invite representatives of organizations working with quality, OER and educational policy to attend the first 2011 meeting of the Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) Consultative Group. The meeting will be held online on Wednesday 25 May at 13.00 Central European Time, and repeated at 13.00 Pacific Time on Monday 30 May.

OPAL is a flagship initiative being implemented by a group of organizations including UNESCO, EFQUEL and ICDE and includes representatives of leading institutions from within higher education and adult education.

The initiative believes that although OER are high on the agenda of social and inclusion policies, their use in higher education and adult education has not reached a critical threshold. The focus has been placed on building access to digital content, while the challenge now is to support educational practices and to promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning.

The aim of the OPAL Consultative Group -  a multi-stakeholder network of high level organizations working with quality, OER and educational policy – is to:

  • raise awareness,
  • exchange and define good practices,
  • take stock of the latest activities in the field, and
  • suggest ways forward to enhance and increase the adoption of open practices

The Consultative Group will initially meet twice per year for 2-3 hours through a webinar.

Please register using the online registration form, noting which session you will attend.

OPAL is part funded by the European Commission Education and Training Lifelong Learning Programme.

Last ned filInvitation and agenda

Photo credit: United Nations University – Vice Rectorate in Europe from OPAL workshop at Online Educa Berlin 2010

OER University

Thursday, 10 February 2011 12:03 Written by Anthony F. Camilleri 0 Comments

The UNESCO OER Programme through the Apia Office is supporting a meeting being organized by the OER Foundation (based in Dunedin, NZ) to essentially start the process of creating an OER University.

The basic idea is that a student can learn using OER materials and subject their learning to an official accreditation agency for valedation.

The meeting will be held on Feb 23 (NZ time). It is open to anybody to attend physically or virtually (UNESCO is supporting the live streaming with integrated web-conference and twitter support).

More information can be found at:

UNESCO press release:

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31227&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

OER Foundation:

http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home

The London Times Newspaper has featured the meeting at:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=415127&c=1

This meeting is directly linked to an Oxford-style debate on March 7th and several OER and OPAL activities during the year leading to the launch of the OER Platform at the General Conference.

We hope you will join the meeting and contribute your European/global perspective

Regards,

Abel

Research Workshop at UNESCO, Paris, 8-9 November 2010

Sunday, 12 December 2010 12:16 Written by Anthony F. Camilleri 0 Comments

A full report – including video clips and PowerPoint presentations – on this key activity in the OPAL project. The aim of the Workshop was to provide input to the creation of guidelines for open educational practices.

The report is available on The Open University, UK, Cloudworks site.