Towards National Strategies for OER? Fred Mulder UNESCO Chair in OER at OUNL former Rector OUNL (2000 – 2010) EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop ‘OER in European HE’ 4 March 2011 / KU Leuven

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 2 Appetizer … “As institutions and as individuals, we seem to have forgotten the core values of education: sharing, giving, and generosity.” David Wiley (2010) ‘The Open Future: Openness as Catalyst for an Educational Reformation’ EDUCAUSE Review, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 3 Institutional and National Strategies Many promising institutional OER initiatives around the globe Few adequate national OER strategies Problematic OER proposition for Open Universities OER Sustainability Struggle

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 4 More than a Struggle: it’s a Deadlock Two ways forward: 1 National OER strategies are conditional for mainstreaming OER in the institutions 2For OUs a ‘minor’ rethinking of the course model is required to get them in a better position

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 5 The fundamental OU model: 6-fold classical Openness Open Access Freedom of Time Freedom of Pace Freedom of Place Open Programming Open to People (LLL) Openness not as a doctrine or dogma but as a carrying concept

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 6 OU Brand Lifelong Open and Flexible (LOF) learning (since EADTU Conference 2004), instead of: Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Supported Open Learning Tutored Self-Study Carried by high-quality learning materials developed for independent learning integrated with didactics and tutoring elements

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 7 Flanking OUs with 4-fold Digital Openness Family regarding free online availability: Open Source (software) Open Access (scientific output) Open Content (creative output) Open Educational Resources (OER) (learning materials)

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 8 Need for a 5 th Digital Openness Open Learning Services (OLS), complementary to OER, free or to be paid, and including a variety of online and virtual facilities for: tutoring, advice, meetings, communities, teamwork, presentations, testing, examination, consulting sources, internet navigation, etcetera !!! OER + OLS = Open Education !!!

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 9 OUs problematic OER proposition … currently OER / Content, knowledge (bare) OER / Exercises, practice, self-tests in learning materials OER / Didactics & Guidance, tutoring in learning materials OLS / Examination, assignments & Certificate OLS / Additional services (tutoring, meetings, communities,...) All-inclusive course model

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 10 OUs problematic OER proposition … ‘minor’ change OER / Content, knowledge (bare) OLS / Exercises, practice, self-tests in separate component OLS / Didactics & Guidance, tutoring in separate component OLS / Examination, assignments & Certificate OLS / Additional services (tutoring, meetings, communities,...) Split-component course model

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 11 Sustainability Message #1 … Taking a down-to-earth view on OUs educational model as compared to the model of the conventional universities brings OER sustainability much better within reach for the OUs … … indeed they are put in a more equal position to their conventional colleagues if they undertake a non-fundamental and feasible change of the course model from ‘all-inclusive’ to ‘split-component’

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 12 Emerging National Strategies 2007–..... / India (total budget???) NKC / Report to the Nation 2007: Embracing OER Launch of a ‘National E-content and Curriculum Initiative’ Major effort with a large variety of follow-up activities and projects 2009–2013 / The Netherlands (€ 8,0 million) National Wikiwijs Program (OUNL & Kennisnet leading) Mainstreaming OER in all educational sectors 2011–2014 / USA ($ 2,0 billion) US Dept. of Labor and Dept. of Education will run a 4-year program to create OER for community colleges and career training. CC BY licence required for grant outputs

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 13 Knowledge is a public good! ICDE OER Task Force (2008), conclusion nr. 6 in Report: ‘A Golden Combi?! – OER and Open, Flexible and Distance Learning’ Cape Town Declaration (2007) “Governments, school boards, colleges and universities should make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded educational resources should be OER. (…) These strategies (…) constitute a wise investment in teaching and learning for the 21 st century.” Hal Plotkin (2010), in ‘Free to Learn (…)’: “OER offer higher education governance leaders a cost-efficient method of improving the quality of teaching and learning while at the same time reducing costs imposed on students related to the purchase of expensive commercial textbooks and learning materials.”

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 14 John Daniel’s Iron Triangle The three sides of his Iron Triangle are: Access / Quality / Cost of Higher Education ICT can transform the Iron Triangle into a Flexible Triangle: wider access / higher quality / lower cost of Higher Education, all at the same time! Adaptation of this elegant model to a variation which is 3-dimensional rather than planar and applies to OER specifically

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 15 HE performance in 3 Dimensions (unaltered circumstances / conditions) ‘starting ‘increased ‘higher situation’ efficiency’ quality’

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 16 Hypothesis Performance improvement along one dimension inevitably deteriorates the performance along one of both or both other dimensions, at least at unaltered circumstances and conditions

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 17 HE performance in 3 Dimensions (after an OER system intervention) ‘starting ‘OER situation’ situation’

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 18 The OER System Intervention … … facilitates performance improvement along all three dimensions simultaneously: 1 Quality by involvement of many experts and users in various roles 2Accessibility by free online availability of learning materials 3Efficiency by not replicating other’s efforts … and adds an extra dimension: 4 Innovation

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 19 Sustainability Message #2 … Mainstreaming OER through a national strategy does not increase the macro budget, only requires a limited budget reallocation … … by which Governments are in a better position to fulfil their overall threefold responsibility for the quality, accessibility and efficiency of education … and can embrace their responsibility for a sustainable system working with OER

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 20 Thanks for your attention! Contact

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 21 UNESCO OER Chair at OUNL Overall Development Goal …... to underpin and give guidance to the exploration, introduction, implementation and exploitation of OER,... in the full spectrum of education (from primary to higher education; from formal to informal learning),... in a variety of societies (developed, emerging, and developing economies; with the cultural diversity manifest around the globe),... at the national (or regional) level

EADTU OER-HE Stakeholder Workshop / 4 March 2011 Pagina 22 UNESCO OER Chair at OUNL Focus on Research and Explorative Studies in OER strategies, implementation and impact Network of 11 OU’s: China/Shanghai, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ecuador, Canada/Athabasca, UK, Spain/Barcelona, Portugal Network with international organizations: OCW Consortium, COL, EADTU, ACDE, AAOU, ICDE, UNESCO