Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional Agenda

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Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional AgendaA bottom up approach in Latin America and Europe to develop a common area of Higher Education

OportUnidad is an action-research project with the aim of promoting the adoption of Open Educational Practices (OEP) in Latin America.Partners and Support: OportUnidad is led by a group of universities from both Latin America and Europe: Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil), the Universidad Estatal a Distancia (Costa Rica), the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (Ecuador), the Fundación Uvirtual (Bolivia), the Universidad Virtual del Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico), the Universidad de la Empresa (Uruguay) and the Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (Peru), the EAFIT University (Colombia). The European partners are the Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi (Italy) (Project Coordinator), the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain), the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal) and the University of Oxford (UK). OportUnidad is supported by the European Commission under the EuropeAid ALFA III programme.

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of its authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional AgendaA bottom up approach in Latin America and Europe to develop a common area of Higher Education

Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional Agendawww.oportunidadproject.eu2

Context

The Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional Agenda has been developed through consultations with over 50 partner universities in Latin America. It presents strategic guidelines for openness in Higher Education, outlining policies and actions aiming at maximising the benefits of the use, reuse and remix of Open Educational Resources (OER) for university course development as a mean to opening up access to knowledge.

The Agenda includes these recommended dimensions:

Pedagogical Approaches to OER (P), including teaching and learning aspects and links to social learning, constructive learning with peers;

Technological Solutions for OER (T), including key technologies, standards, specifications (i.e. metadata, publishing, querying) and infrastructure;

Organisational Frameworks and Procedures (OF), roles of different actors in institutions to build, reuse and remix OER, and cost-effective procedures for OER;

New institutional funding models and sustainability (FMS), how do OEP contribute to generate new funding and institutional business models in order to assure the long term sustainability of the initiatives;

Collaborative Models for OER Between Institutions (CM) and communities of interest.

Based on this OEP Regional Agenda, each university (i.e. partner and fellow universities involved in the OportUnidad project) will define an institutional roadmap, i.e. a contextualisation of the Agenda to the local, cultural and institutional framework. It is a mid-term strategic plan for the implementation of one or more items of included in the enclosed Agenda that must be considered as a locally-contextualised plan within a global strategic plan.

The dimensions included in this Agenda must be addressed prioritising the following stakeholders communities (as defined at the Glossary):

At a Regional, National or Local Level: inter-governmental entities, governments, national accreditation agencies, and civil organizations.

At an Institutional Level: Student Bodies, Managerial level, Educator community, Librarians, Technical (IT) staff.

At a Users Level: Students, educators, vulnerable communities.

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Pedagogical Approaches to OER

Recommendations on pedagogical approaches to OER take into consideration affordances of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in relation to teaching and learning processes. They focus on opportunities for social learning, namely constructive and collaborative learning with peers. Moreover, although OER are commonly produced to support teaching and learning, they may also be created by students as part of learning activities; authorship and licensing issues are therefore addressed herein.

This Agenda recommends that Higher Education organisations, within their capacities:

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Incorporate an open approach to knowledge production within education, promoting use, reuse and remix of educational resources.

Foster awareness of OER through practical experimentation.

Pursue inter-institutional collaboration, fostering the emergence of communities of practice around educational themes and areas of interest.

Recognise and give credit to knowledge acquired through OEP by means of creating adequate indicators and metrics to assess competences.

Pursue academic quality assurance and rigour in the process of OER production.

Raise awareness of the role of OER supporting educational transformative practices and learning innovation in order to motivate the distribution of knowledge generation and transference through OEP.

Further develop empirical investigation of the pedagogical value of OER, including their impacts on formal and informal education environments.

Stimulate the creation of institutional but also regional communities of educators in order to facilitate the exchange of experience, knowledge transfer and skills development regarding the importance of OER initiative.

To address accessibility principles during the design, implementation and use of OER learning based practices.


Technological Solutions for OER

There are numerous technological solutions for production and publication of OER, the choice of which depends upon a range of factors, such as scale, audience, and resources available to the initiative. Nevertheless, this Agenda focuses on key technologies, standards, specifications (e.g. metadata, publishing, querying) and infrastructure, and recommends that Higher Education organisations, within their capacities:

Ensure access to reliable Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), a crucial requirement in the adoption and production of OER.

Promote an open, inclusive and democratic access to digital technologies (hardware and software) in order to enhance the use, adaptation and appropriation of ICTs in order to contribute to enhance and consolidate OER initiatives.

Implement an adequate technological infrastructure and technical support that facilitate the development of OER initiatives.

Incorporate in teachers’ training programmes the use and value of open standards.Promote the incorporation of open-source systems in the practice of education developing technical skills and competence to find, use, remix, and contribute with OER as well as to engage with and to promote OEP.

Pursue decentralised or federated solutions to knowledge management which facilitate the creation of inter-institutional and regional OER initiatives that leverage the findability, exchange, reuse and repurpose of resources within an expanded community of users within and beyond the educational institutions.

Adopt open standards, accessibility principles, and bibliometric criteria when publishing OER.

Structure OER repositories in machine-readable format as to enable proper indexing and Search Engine Optimisation of resources.

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Organisational Frameworks and Procedures

Higher Education organisations willing to take part in OER provision are faced with the need to lead profound changes in organisational frameworks and procedures. Most of these changes take place over time and are embedded at different levels of the institution: managerial, educational and, cross-cutting these two, at the cultural level. It is likely that when changes transform the culture of the organisation, longstanding effects are also perceived by staff members, students and the wider community.


Ensure equal and democratic open access to knowledge.

Implement consistent and inclusive OER institutional policies outlining the ways in which the organisation aims to engage with OER and OEP to foster accessibility best practices, in what context, involving what departments/people, and how such involvement relates to its overarching mission and values.

Develop a strategic plan of use, production and diffusion of OER in both a systematic and an integrated way within the organisation.

Stimulate the adoption of OEP through institutional and/or financial incentives to staff members and professional recognition.

Foster an OER culture through knowledge management practices that enable an educational paradigm shift toward openness and collaboration.

Diffuse and disseminate OER and OEP within the institution and beyond.

Foster and advance academic research on the various organisational challenges associated with the implementation and use of OER.

Develop and disseminate a methodology for production and adoption of OER internally, both in pedagogical and institutional terms.

Respect authors’ rights, and disseminate information about the various licensing alternatives available.

Empower ‘champions’ (innovators and early adopted communities or individuals) to spread the word to faculty and non-faculty members about the value proposition and benefits of OER.

Develop and disseminate institutional guidelines and a clear set of quality criteria for evaluating OER and the effectiveness of existing OEP.

Implement permanent training on collaborative practices of knowledge creation and remix for both faculty and non-faculty members.

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New institutional funding models and sustainability

The diffusion of OER and OEP poses challenges to institutional business models. There are relevant economic dimensions to pursue for the creation, management, and publication of OERs, many of which are being currently adopted by different Higher Education organisations worldwide. Although many existing OER initiatives were built with one-off funding, either due to its marketing value or altruistic notion of widening access to education, sustainability of these initiatives has become a critical notion which still remains underdeveloped.


Actively pursue and manage change in the organisational culture toward an open and collaborative approach to the educational environment.

Explore new approaches, which without affecting the open access of the educational resources could provide new revenue sources for the funding institutions and or content providers (i.e. quality assurance certification; training programmes; customization of open source software or new accreditations schemes).

Direct economic resources towards OER initiatives.

Pursue new business models that do not rely on restrictive and exclusive access to knowledge, but rather on potential added value beyond access.

Participate in externally-funded projects aiming at the development of OER and OEP, as well as seek internal support to related initiatives.

Identify and share those OER initiatives that contribute to ensure the sustainability of institutional and inter-institutional OER initiatives.

Disseminate the existence of business models that support and promote the consistent development of OEP.

Develop institutional and inter-institutional flexible certification models that assess, qualify and recognize the learning outcomes of those who learned through the use of OER and OEP.

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Collaborative Models for OER Between Institutions

One of the outcomes of OER initiatives is that it allows for local and global collaboration via the Internet, both between staff and across institutions. Through the offer of OER, universities have started to have clearer policy statements about the use of content of their websites. The adoption of institutional endorsement of common licensing can activate and facilitate a more dynamic and better-coordinated participation of the content producers.

OER provision and use is also perceived as an opportunity to expand learning beyond the boundaries of traditional education. The increasing availability of OER allows these initiatives to reach wider online communities, thus strengthening institutional presence and new forms of academic recognition and authority. Nevertheless, the OER discussion is not without its challenges. A broader appropriation of OER by the academic community is still undergoing a process of consolidation, and will require organisations to face and cooperate in overcoming inter-institutional and multi-cultural boundaries.


Further cooperation with other institutions pursuing OER initiatives, fostering community building and peer-based collaboration.

Adopt open licences that enable cooperation between institutions and individuals through reuse and remix of educational resources, with clarity in terms of author rights and conditions of use.

Participate in initiatives aiming at developing flexible quality assurance mechanisms to assess and evaluate educational resources.

Ensure that open standards are used in all online repositories, ensuring not only accessibility, but also interoperability with existing platforms.

Stimulate the consolidation of active, national and/or regional communities (i.e. educators, decision makers, senior educational manager and/or technology administrators) who are interested in the development and sustainability of OER and OEP.

Promote the collaboration with other national and international initiatives (i.e. consortiums, world wide federations, initiatives promoted by UNESCO, etc.) that enhance external liaison and the participation in worldwide OEP initiatives.

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Glossary

Governments. They can usually play an important role in setting policies for higher education systems. They have an interest in ensuring that public investments in higher education make a useful and cost-effective contribution to socio-economic development. Most governments also support some universities financially.

Higher education institutions. They can play a critical role in supporting their teaching staff in the creation of effective teaching and learning environments for students and providing ongoing opportunities for professional development.

Academic staff. Are vital agents in ensuring the quality of teaching and learning delivered to students; they are central to the teaching and learning experience of students.

Student bodies. They promote the emerging changing student roles and they have to play a role in shaping the quality of their educational experience.

Quality assurance/accreditation bodies and academic recognition bodies. The quality assurance bodies play an essential role in fostering a quality culture through the assessment of programmes and reviews of institutional quality assurance mechanisms. Recognition bodies should also have an understanding of the role of OER in higher education to ensure the fair recognition of qualifications.

Vulnerable group. People who are long-term unemployed, and also others who are inactive but not registered as unemployed. It should include workers who are in some form of employment but are at a high risk of losing their jobs.

Students. The “on-campus” students that will benefit from the open educational practices that brings learning processes and their outcomes closer to what they need to participate successfully in a dynamic knowledge-based society and to enter the job market.

Open Educational Resources (OER).“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge”

Atkins, D.E., Brown, J.S. & Hammond, A.L., 2007.A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities, Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Available at:www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/Hewlett_OER_report.pdf

Copyrights licenses. During the actions in the project we will consider as “open” license those from Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/licenses), Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org/licenses) and also Customized Licenses. Customized licenses refers to institutional and individuals licenses that have chosen to craft their own license - and that frequently use borrowing terms from the standardized licenses, allowing free use or re-purposing of educational resources.

Bissell, A., and Park, J. (2008). What Status for Open? An Examination of the Licensing Policies of Open Educational Organizations and Projects, a report from ccLearn (Creative Commons) to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11700

Open Educational Practices (OEP). “OEP are defined as practices which support the (re)use and production of OER through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path. OEP address the whole OER governance community: policy makers, managers/ administrators of organisations, educational professionals and learners” (OPAL, 2012, p. 6).

OPAL (2012).Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) a project funded with support from the European Commission. Progress Report (Public Part); Report version: Final; Date of preparation: 10.1.2012. Available in http://www.oer-quality.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/D1.4_Project_Report_pub_PrintFinal_Public.pdf

Participant Institutions

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1 CETYS Universidad 2 Conectando Pasos 3 Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina 4 Fundación Uvirtual (Bolivia) 5 Pontificia Universidade Católica do Paraná 6 Universidade Estácio de Sá – UNESA (Brazil) 7 Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina - Campus UnisulVirtual 8 Universidad Autónoma de Manizales 9 Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos10 Universidad Católica de Santa Fe11 Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil12 Universidad Católica del Uruguay13 Universidad Católica Redemptoris Mater14 Universidad Central de Venezuela15 Universidad Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario16 Universidad de Colima17 Universidad de La Empresa18 Universidad de la República de Uruguay19 Universidad de La Sabana20 Universidad de Los Lagos21 Universidad de Montemorelos22 Universidad del Norte23 Universidad del Quindío24 Universidad del Salvador25 Universidad EAFIT26 Universidad Estatal a Distancia (UNED) de Costa Rica27 Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (Peru)28 Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de laEducación29 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México30 Universidad Pedagógica Nacional31 Universidad Señor de Sipán32 Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador33 Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras34 Universidad TECVirtual del Sistema Tecnológico de Monterrey35 Universidad Técnica de Ambato UTA36 Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL)37 Universidad Veracruzana38 Universidad Virtual del Estado de Guanajuato39 Universidade Estadual de Maringá40 Universidade Federal de Itajubá (UNIFEI)41 Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora42 Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF)43 Universitat Oberta de Catalunya44 University of Lisbon45 University of Oxford46 Università degli Studi Guglielmo Marconi47 Universidad Tecnológica de Honduras


This publication is also available in Portuguese and Spanish.

Open Educational Practices (OEP) Regional Agenda

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