OCW Consortium Newsletter_June 2012 by OpenCourseWare Consortium

OpenCourseWare Consortium

June Newsletter 2012

2012 Paris OER Declaration Focus on Open Policies! The past year or so has been marked with important milestones for Open Education. This past week saw another: during the World OER Congress (June 20-22) in Paris, France, the 2012 Paris OER Declaration was approved by the Congress’ delegates. The Congress was aimed at fostering governmental support for OER around the world (the full text of the 2012 Paris OER Declaration is available on pages 9-10 of this newsletter). Congratulations to all of those who worked so hard to make the Congress a success. In celebration of this important achievement, we have devoted this newsletter to

examples of open policy from around the world. You’ll find insights into local, regional, national and international policies that are setting the stage for the increased impact of open educational practice. You’ll also find additional resources to help you learn more about open policies and where to find examples of policy text upon which new policies can be built. Feel free to explore these resources and use relevant information to help you meet your goals. If you are aware of open policies, please check the OER Policy Registry (http://wiki.creativecommons.o rg/OER_Policy_Registry), and

add policies that are not listed so we can continue to advance this very useful resource. You can view an online version of the newsletter on ISSUU (OCWConsortium) and you can like us on Facebook (OCWConsortium) or follow us on Twitter (OCW News) to be updated in real time. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions. Send an email to newsletter@ocwconsortium.org or feedback@ocwconsortium.org and let us know what you’d like to see in future newsletters. Mary Lou Forward

Inside this Issue: 2 The Obviousness of Open Policy (by Cable Green) 3 A Blueprint for Successful Open Policies (by Tom Caswell) 4 OER Policies Promise Progress for Community Colleges (by Andrea Henne) 5 Poland’s OER Policies and the “Digital School” Program (by Alek Tarkowski) 7 Multiple Facets of Open Policy in South Korea (by Meena Hwang) 7 Open Policy @ Open Universiteit, Netherlands (by Fred Mulder and Robert Schuwer) 9 2012 Paris OER Declaration (full text) 11 Useful Resources related to Open Policy

The Obviousness of Open Policy Cable Green, Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons For over 10-years, the global Open Educational Resources movement has worked on leveraging opportunities to ensure students and teachers have no-cost, legal access to courses, textbooks and research. We need to help our policy makers understand how the Internet, increasingly inexpensive computing, the affordances of digital content, and open licensing have made it possible, for the first time in human history, to share the world’s knowledge at tremendous scale (with everyone!) for a marginal cost of 0.

Understanding the opportunity afforded by wielding these tools is key to even understanding that the dream is possible. Without this understanding, policy makers can only make decisions within existing frameworks, within existing business models. So … why focus on Open Policy? The short answer is because THAT is where the money is. This is why Open Policies are important. If we get this simple idea right, open education sustainability will cease to be an issue because: (a) there will be plenty of public funding to build and maintain all of the teaching, learning and research resources the world needs, and,

If we get our policies right, everyone in the world can attain all the education they desire. It will require we share the educational resources we produce and that we spend our limited public resources wisely. Most policy makers don’t understand 21st century technical and legal tools and how they collectively enable this global learning opportunity.

(b) “open” becomes the default and “closed” becomes the exception. … and the bar for receiving an exception should be high. What is Possible with Open Policies? Large amounts of publicly funded educational and scientific resources could be made available under an

open license or placed directly into the public domain. This would give everyone the right to read, use and modify these resources to suit their educational purposes. Policy makers want the greatest return on their investment, particularly when it comes to public funds in education. They have to answer the question how can we bring the highest quality resources to the most people? Open Policies makes sense to policy makers when viewed from this perspective. Open Policies enable efficient use of public funds to increase student success and access to quality educational materials. We need to promote a simple public policy: “Publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources”. For more information, contact Cable Green cable@creativecommons.org

A Blueprint for Successful Open Policies Tom Caswell, Open Education Policy Associate, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) In 2008, SBCTC released its Strategic Technology Plan (http://www.sbctc.edu/docs/str ategicplan/strategic_technolog y_plan.pdf) to provide clear policy direction around a single goal: mobilizing technology to increase student success. One of the guiding principles of the plan is to “cultivate the culture and practice of using and contributing to open educational resources” (p. 17).

With a clear plan in place the next step was to provide opportunities, incentives, and policies to promote OER in our system. On June 17, 2010 the nine-member State Board for Community and Technical Colleges unanimously approved the first state-level open licensing policy (http://www.sbctc.edu/general/ admin/Tab_9_Open_Licensing _Policy.pdf).

It requires that all digital works created from competitive grants administered through SBCTC carry a Creative Commons Attribution-only (CC-BY) license. This license allows educational materials created by one college to be used or updated by another college in our system as well as by other education partners globally.

Allowing the free flow of all educational content produced by State Board competitive grant funds is an efficient way to engage in the OER movement while maintaining a focus on the specific needs of Washington’s community and technical college students. SBCTC’s Open Policy can serve as a blueprint for others seeking to implement similar OERfriendly policies. Here are three key ideas to consider: 1. Build on existing goals. • Example: o Original goal: Increase access and completion o Updated goal: Increase access and completion by providing high quality, affordable, openly licensed educational resources. 2. Build on existing successes. • Washington’s community and technical colleges have a history of sharing through system courses and pooled enrollments over the past decade. • OER allows for faculty to adapt and share learning materials more easily. 3. Look for policy opportunities to pave the way. • Recent state legislation and system policies have laid the foundation for open textbooks and other OER in Washington. o Example 1: SSHB1946 – (http://xr.com/up98) “(v) Methods and open licensing options for effectively sharing digital content including but not limited to: Open courseware, open textbooks, open journals, and open learning objects…” o Example 2: SSHB1025 – (http://xr.com/fds5) “Faculty consider the least costly practices in assigning course materials, such as adopting the least expensive edition available, adopting free, open textbooks when available…” o Example 3: SBCTC Strategic Technology Plan (http://techplan.sbctc.edu) o Example 4: SBCTC Open Policy (http://xr.com/y6h3) For more information, contact Tom Caswell - tcaswell@sbctc.edu.

OER Policies Promise Progress for Community Colleges Andrea Henne, Dean of Online and Distributed Learning at the San Diego Community College District For those of us on the front lines of the effort to bring affordability and openness to traditional instructional materials and textbooks used in community college courses, change is slow but steady. You may have heard the expression, "People don't like CHANGE, but they do like PROGRESS." OER efforts in the California Community Colleges are progressing as a result of bold policy action in the California State Legislature. Keep watching the progress of these two sponsored bills that address the issue of textbook affordability. The California State Legislature has proclaimed: “The Cost of attending California's public colleges and universities has skyrocketed in recent years. While fees often tend to be the most visible cost, other nontuition-related costs, like the cost of textbooks, significantly burden both students and their families." (SB-1052 postsecondary education: California Open Education Resources Council http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/ May 2012). SB 1052 (Steinberg) Establishes the California Open Education Resources Council through a $25 million

state-led strategic investment in OER which would determine a list of the 50 most widely taken lower division courses in the public postsecondary segments to develop into open source materials. The OER Council would be composed of three faculty senate members from each of the three segments of California Higher Education—the California Community Colleges, the California State Universities, and the University of California System. The council would establish a competitive request-for-proposal process in which faculty members, publishers, and other interested parties may apply for funds to produce the 50 high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials in 2013. The nine Council members would also review and approve open source materials and promote strategies for production, access, and use of open source textbooks and related materials for free online or for about $20 per hardcopy. "This move will bring California’s college and university experience into the 21st century while providing students and their families sorely needed financial relief, and while providing faculty more flexible and dynamic tools to enhance student success” (SB-1052).

SB 1053 (Steinberg): Establishes the California Digital Open Source Library under the administration of the California State University, in coordination with the California Community Colleges (and the University of California if the UC Regents authorize the participation) to serve as a statewide repository for highquality digital open source textbooks and related materials and provide free- or low-cost online access to these materials for students, faculty and staff. The textbooks and other materials would be placed under a creative commons attribution license that allows others to use, distribute, and create derivative works based upon the digital material while still allowing the authors or creators to receive credit for their efforts. Supporters include the California Community Colleges Board of Governors, the Campaign for College Opportunity, and the Student Senate for California Community Colleges. Since these bills will require funding, it is encouraging news that the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees have passed both bills despite California's budget woes. For more information, contact Andrea Henne ahenne@sdccd.edu.

Poland’s OER Policies and the “Digital School” Program Alek Tarkowski, Public Lead of Creative Commons Poland, Director of Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska Poland has been among countries in which the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement started relatively early. A Polish representative was among those drafting the Cape Town Open Education Declaration of 2007. In 2008, four organizations – Modern Poland Foundation, Association of Polish Librarians, Wikimedia Poland Association and Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the University of Warsaw - formed the Coalition For Open Education (http://koed.org.pl/).

The Coalition, together with its 17 organizational members, has been the leading actor promoting OER in Poland. Concurrently, in recent years several Polish public institutions became increasingly interested in open licensing of educational content. Additionally, elements of OER policy became included in strategic documents, including the “Poland 2030” strategic report and the currently drafted

long-term growth strategy for Poland. The first major success of this policy approach is the governmental program “Digital School”. This newest governmental program that addresses the use of ICT in Polish schools and raising ICT competences includes a major OER component. It is worth noting that OER provisions have been included in this specific program as part of a larger initiative to provide for openness of publicly generated and funded resources in Poland, with a focus on the spheres of education, science and culture. The Polish government is currently working on a Bill on Openness of Public Resources, which is to provide a unified policy in this manner, which is to match open provisions which currently apply to access and re-use of public sector information. In the meantime, several smaller public initiatives with an OER component took place. In 2010, the Ministry of Education started the program „Polska szkoła” (Polish School), aimed for Polish teachers working with Polish people abroad.

As part of the program, textbook resources were licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike license. Similarly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been using the CC Attribution license for educational and training content created as part of its „Polska pomoc rozwojowa” developmental aid grant program for several years.

The „Digital School” program (http://www.cyfrowaszkola.me n.gov.pl/) is the first such major initiative in which significant funding is provided for open e-textbooks, which in Poland are a specific, certified type of educational resource. The program is divided into four segments: e-school (infrastructure and equipment for schools), e-teacher (teacher trainings), e-student (ICT equipment for students) and e-resources (creating open textbooks, the redesign of Scholaris, the national platform for educational resources, and production of ICT tools for school management). The program was formally adopted on the 4th of April 2012 through

a resolution of the Council of Ministers of Poland. The program is officially called ‘The governmental program for the development of pupils’ and teachers’ competences with regard to the use of information-communication technologies – „Digital School”‘. The program is overseen by the Ministry of Education. The Center for Development of Education (Ośrodek Rozwoju Edukacji – ORE) will be responsible for the e-teacher and e-resources components and the Institute of Education Research will provide evaluation of program. The „e-resources” segment of the program includes the creation of three types of resources: 1, e-textbooks (which in Poland are a specific type of content that requires certification by the Ministry of Education to receive this designation) 2, other educational resources made available on Scholaris, a national „knowledge base for teachers” (http://www.scholaris.pl/) 3, educational TV programs for schools, prepared by the public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) and made available on its educational platform. Over a third of the program’s budget – 56 million Polish Złoty (approximately 13 million US Dollars)- is assigned to the creation of new educational materials.

Of these, 45 million (approximately 10.8 million USD) will be allocated to a separate e-textbook program, which is considered the key element of this OER initiative. All content funded by the program which is subject to copyright or database protection law will be: - made available under the Creative Commons Attribution license or another free license – one that allows use of resources and their derivatives without payment and in an unlimited, nonexclusive manner; - made available in at least one open format (with full specification available without technical and legal limitations); - in the case of Web access, made available in accordance with the current W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The Center for Development of Education (ORE) is responsible for the creation of the e-textbooks. The Ministry envisions e-textbooks as a basic set of electronic textbooks easily available to use on any computer or tablet device, fitted into the core curriculum. ORE will work with four institutional partners responsible for the creation of resources (each one for a group of related subjects) and one technical partner, responsible for creating an etextbooks platform.

The Ministry of Education assumes that the first etextbook should be available in September 2013 and all etextbooks should be ready for September 2015. The creation of additional resources is also coordinated by ORE, as they will be published on the redesigned Scholaris platform (http://www.scholaris.pl/), which ORE has been managing. Thanks to the cooperation of public administration with civic experts from our organization and the Coalition for Open Education, the “Digital School” program includes strong OER provisions. We are in particular happy that the content will be made available under a fully free license, giving full access and the right to reuse. We believe that in this manner, this publicly funded content can generate greatest social and economic value. We hope that this new program will further strengthen the quickly growing OER movement in Poland. For more information, contact Alek Tarkowski alek@creativecommons.pl.

Multiple Facets of Open Policy in South Korea Meena Hwang, Director of Community Outreach, OCW Consortium, South Korea Policies for OER in South Korea developed from various angles. Because of the government’s emphasis on education and IT, focus on elearning was a natural development, and interest from the government in promoting OER came about relatively early on. The focus of government support and policy come from two angles: content supported by public money should be made publicly accessible, and OER is a key component of improving the quality of teaching and learning. K-OCW (www.kocw.net) is an open contents repository operated by the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS). KERIS takes on the role of implementing the policies set forth by the Ministry of

Education and Technology. Contents for K-OCW are collected from universities whose e-learning contents are made with public funds. Another policy to promote creation of open contents approaches this from a different perspective: that openness and transparency leads to better quality in teaching and learning practices. For decades, most of the government funding to higher education institutions had been concentrated on research in Korea. In 2008, the Korean government allocated 1 trillion Korean Won for undergraduate education to foster ‘universities that teach well’. In 2010, eleven universities were selected for the ACE Initiative which awards grants for activities that improve teaching and learning

at universities. One of the criteria for selection was transparency, and all the applicants had to show commitment to openness and sharing. At the end of this fouryear grant, these institutions are to showcase their efforts with an OpenCourseWare project. Each year, more universities are joining the ACE Initiative, and the idea of openness and transparency are gaining more support in the education sector. One must also acknowledge the fact that these policies for openness did not happen in just one area. Policies in open access, open source and open data developed simultaneously, creating a confluence of open policy. For more information, contact Meena Hwang meena@ocwconsortium.org.

Open Policy @ Open Universiteit (Netherlands) Fred Mulder (OUNL and UNESCO Chair in OER) and Robert Schuwer (OUNL) The Open Universiteit in the Netherlands (OUNL) was founded by the Dutch Government in the early eighties. OUNL is a member of the Association of 14 research universities in the Netherlands and offers fully accredited bachelor, master and PhD programmes.

Its profile differs from the 13 colleague universities, however, in that OUNL provides open and flexible higher education targeted at lifelong learners. It does so with self-study (digital) learning materials, online learning services, and virtual learning activities,

complemented with face-toface contacts and meetings. The term “Open” in its name refers to openness with respect to entry (no formal proof of prior education required), to programming (facilitated by a flexible and modular system), and to

people (factoring in circumstances and wishes related to having a job or other duties). And it includes the three freedoms to learn at any time, in any pace, and at any place. Thus OUNL has an open policy in place since its start in 1984, which we will refer to as its classical openness. OUNL is in a process of stepwise including in its open policy the new digital openness, in terms of open source (preferred, unless …), open access (in full support), and open educational resources (OER). OUNL was the first university in the Netherlands to start with an OER project, called OpenER (Dutch for “more open”) which ran from 2006 until 2008. OpenER offered 25 highquality courses for self-study, most of them with a study load of only 25 hours. Its goal was to lower the threshold to higher education and to stimulate informal learning in the Netherlands. It received much attention, both in the media and from visitors of the site (almost a million), and made OUNL decide to continue on its OER track cautiously (step-bystep, in control) but determined. This has led to a new initiative in the domain of the universities of applied sciences (the Networked Open Polytechnic), a leading (tandem) role in the national Wikiwijs Programme (20092013) aiming at mainstreaming OER in all educational sectors

(targeting

teachers at primary up to university level), and the establishment of a strategic chair in OER (a UNESCO chair) which is held by the former OUNL rector as of the beginning of 2011. This chair generates new activities, such as the operation of a Global OER Graduate Network, and is engaged in the OER process within the OECD and the European Union. Meanwhile OUNL focuses on studying various OER scenarios (in the OERNED project) and exploring a sustainable OER business model.

The latter caused the start of a big experiment called OpenU (still running) in which 2 departments offer 10% of all their courses as OER, as well as other OER modalities such as open lectures, master classes and webinars. Currently OUNL is considering a further extension of its open policy regarding OER, building on its activities, experiments and studies as mentioned above. For more information, contact Robert Schuwer Robert.Schuwer@ou.nl.

For examples of institutional open policies look at policies approved by the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Kumasi, Ghana or the African Virtual University, Nairobi, Kenya below: 1. A Free Content and Free and Open Courseware implementation strategy for the University of the Western Cape (http://ics.uwc.ac.za//usrfiles//users/8990060109/Strategies/freec ourse-0.4.pdf). 2. Policy for Development and Use of Open Educational Resources (OER) (http://web.knust.edu.gh/oer/pages/index.php?siteid=knustoer&p age=publications&id=9). 3. The African Virtual University’s Open Education Resources (OER) Policy (http://www.oerafrica.org/Portals/32/AVU_OER_Policy.pdf).

2012 WORLD OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) CONGRESS UNESCO, PARIS, JUNE 20-22, 2012 2012 PARIS OER DECLARATION Preamble The World OER Congress held at UNESCO, Paris on 20-22 June 2012, Mindful of relevant international statements including: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 26.1), which states that: “Everyone has the right to education”; The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 13.1), which recognizes “the right of everyone to education”; The 1971 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty; The Millennium Declaration and the 2000 Dakar Framework for Action, which made global commitments to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults; The 2003 World Summit on the Information Society, Declaration of Principles, committing “to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge”; The 2003 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace; The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expression, which states that: “Equitable access to a rich and diversified range of cultural expressions from all over the world and access of cultures to the means of expressions and dissemination constitute important elements for enhancing cultural diversity and encouraging mutual understanding”; The 2006 Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (Article 24), which recognises the rights of persons with disabilities to education; The declarations of the six International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA) Conferences emphasising the fundamental role of Adult Learning and Education.

Emphasizing that the term Open Educational Resources (OER) was coined at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on Open Courseware and designates “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits nocost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Open licensing is built within the existing framework of intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and respects the authorship of the work”; Recalling existing Declarations and Guidelines on Open Educational Resources such as the 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration, the 2009 Dakar Declaration on Open Educational Resources and the 2011 Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO Guidelines on Open Educational Resources in Higher Education; Noting that Open Educational Resources (OER) promote the aims of the international statements quoted above; Recommends that States, within their capacities and authority:

a. Foster awareness and use of OER. Promote and use OER to widen access to education at all levels, both formal and non-formal, in a perspective of lifelong learning, thus contributing to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education. Improve both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes through greater use of OER. b. Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Bridge the digital divide by developing adequate infrastructure, in particular, affordable broadband connectivity, widespread mobile technology and reliable electrical power supply. Improve media and information literacy and encourage the development and use of OER in open standard digital formats. c. Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER. Promote the development of specific policies for the production and use of OER within wider strategies for advancing education. d. Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks. Facilitate the re-use, revision, remixing and redistribution of educational materials across the world through open licensing, which refers to a range of frameworks that allow different kinds of uses, while respecting the rights of any copyright holder. e. Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials. Support institutions, train and motivate teachers and other personnel to produce and share high-quality, accessible educational resources, taking into account local needs and the full diversity of learners. Promote quality assurance and peer review of OER. Encourage the development of mechanisms for the assessment and certification of learning outcomes achieved through OER. f. Foster strategic alliances for OER. Take advantage of evolving technology to create opportunities for sharing materials which have been released under an open license in diverse media and ensure sustainability through new strategic partnerships within and among the education, industry, library, media and telecommunications sectors. g. Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts. Favour the production and use of OER in local languages and diverse cultural contexts to ensure their relevance and accessibility. Intergovernmental organisations should encourage the sharing of OER across languages and cultures, respecting indigenous knowledge and rights. h. Encourage research on OER. Foster research on the development, use, evaluation and recontextualisation of OER as well as on the opportunities and challenges they present, and their impact on the quality and cost-efficiency of teaching and learning in order to strengthen the evidence base for public investment in OER. i. Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER. Encourage the development of user-friendly tools to locate and retrieve OER that are specific and relevant to particular needs. Adopt appropriate open standards to ensure interoperability and to facilitate the use of OER in diverse media. j. Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds. Governments/competent authorities can create substantial benefits for their citizens by ensuring that educational materials developed with public funds be made available under open licenses (with any restrictions they deem necessary) in order to maximize the impact of the investment. 2012-06-22 Source: (http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/Paris%20OER%20Declaration_0 1.pdf).

Useful Resources related to Open Policy 1. Analysis of Responses to the OECD Country Questionnaire – published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in May 2012. The report analyzes responses to questionnaire sent to OECD member countries regarding the policy context related to OER. Download here: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/open-educationalresources_5k990rjhvtlv-en. 2. Survey on Governments’ Open Educational Resources (OER) Policies – published by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO in June 2012. This report provides an overview of the findings of the COL/UNESCO survey on OER policies and activity across all countries of the world, and puts forward some suggestions for promoting the use and development of OER and overcoming current obstacles to its implementation. The report can be downloaded here: http://www.col.org/resources/publications/Pages/detail.aspx?PID=408. 3. OER Policy Registry - a database of existing open education policies from around the world that can be used as examples, references, case studies, etc. Anyone can easily share, update, and browse open education policies and legislation. For more information or to share an example of open policy that you know of, click here: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/OER_Policy_Registry. 4. OER Policy Review and Development Toolkit - A guide for higher education institutions interested in creating and using Open Educational Resources - published by South African Institute for Distance Education in February 2012. Aimed at higher education stakeholders working with OER it will help you to review your own institutional policy environment and where necessary institute policy changes that will facilitate collaboration and the development and sharing of OER. http://www.oerafrica.org/understandingoer/ResourcesonOER/ResourceDetails/tabid/1424/mctl/Det ails/id/39083/Default.aspx. OpenCourseWare Consortium PO Box 251, Newton, MA 02464, USA www.ocwconsortium.org feedback@ocwconsortium.org