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Dialogue and engagement for Open Educational Resources
The workshop also provided inputs to the development of two Guidelines, on policy and capacity building respectively, being developed to support the implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation.
This event is particularly timely as globally digital content has become essential for learning, and the importance of OER for knowledge sharing has been increased. It is important for the global community to anticipate future crises, and to lay the foundation for the systematic integration of good practices for learning support.
This was a second in a series of workshops to be held at the regional and sub-regional level in support of the OER Recommendation in all regions.
The UNESCO OER Recommendation was the starting point for a common commitment and political will of Member States towards knowledge sharing through OER. This is the first international normative instrument to embrace the field of openly licensed educational materials and technologies in the UN System.
The Recommendation provides a clear definition of Open Educational Resources, namely that OER are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, which allow no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.
The Recommendation also underscored that an open license is one that respected the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner, while granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.
The workshop was attended by 139 government representatives, educators and advocates of open licensing for educational resources.
The meeting highlighted the depth of regional initiatives at the national and institutional level.
This meeting was organized by UNESCO to support Member States as they will be requested to report on the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on OER in the 2019-2022 period, as part of the regular monitoring exercise for UNESCO standard-setting instruments.
