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Discussion topics
From OER_Wiki
The UNESCO Community of Interest on Open Educational Resources was formed in 2005 at the end of a formal Internet discussion forum. The forum was the third of a series organised by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) to examine key issues related to the use of Information and Communication Technologies in higher education. At the end of the forum, participants were asked to identify the three most important issues to address in order to enable and promote OER. Their responses informed planning for the ongoing community discussions in 2006 and 2007.
<font color="red">NEW!</font> Open Educational Resources: Conversations in Cyberspace is UNESCO's first openly licensed publication. It brings together the background papers and reports from the first three years of community activities - including those from the 2005 OER forum.
[edit] March/April 2006: OER research agenda
The first topic was to determine the priorities for a research agenda for OER. The group generated 110 questions, which they categorised and then refined to 25 priority research questions. The report of the discussions is now available for download from the main OER research agenda page.
[edit] May/June 2006: "Do-It-Yourself" (DIY) OER development portal
The group explored the idea of a DIY OER development portal/resource. The idea of a resource to help people become providers and users of OER came out of the research agenda discussion. The discussion was centered around four questions:
- Who is the resource for?
- What should be in it?
- How should the content be organized?
- What infrastructure should support it?
A background document and brief report are available on the discussion page.
[edit] October 2006: FOSS solutions for Open Educational Resources
In September and early October 2006 IIEP's Community of Interest on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Education lauched a discussion to identify FOSS solutions for Open Educational Resources for OER creation, management and location.
In late October the OER and FOSS communities were linked together, so that the FOSS community could communicate its deliberations and advice to the OER community. Reports of both the FOSS and joint FOSS-OER discussions are available in the FOSS for OER section of the wiki, as are discussion logs and a listing of FOSS resources for OER.
For more information about FOSS and the IIEP FOSS community, see the FOSS pages of the original project website. To join the FOSS community, please contact Jean-Claude Dauphin at mailto:jc.dauphin@unesco.org.
[edit] November 2006: OER: Findings from an OECD study
A three-week discusion forum, hosted by the IIEP OER Community and organised in cooperation with the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, to explore the findings and conclusions of an OECD study on OER. Background documents, discussion logs and the final report are all available for download on the discussion page.
For more information about the OECD study, see the OECD's page on OER.
[edit] June 2008: The UNESCO OER Toolkit
A two-week discussion session to discuss and provide input to the finalization of an OER Toolkit created to support the development and use of OER. The session, which was open to all, took place from 16 to 27 June 2008.
An initiative of the Information Society Division of UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector, the draft UNESCO OER Toolkit has been prepared by Philipp Schmidt of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The work was inspired by, and builds on the 2006 community discussion to outline a 'Do-It-Yourself/Do-It-Together' resource to build capacity for local OER development and use.
[edit] February/March 2009: Access to OER
A month-long discussion on the subject of access issues, which took place from 9 February to 11 March 2009. The discussion was facilitated by Bjoern Hassler.
During the first week the community focused on identifying - and attempting to classify - the main problems in accessing OER. The theme of the second and third weeks was "tried and tested solutions", as community members were invited to share their experiences in working around such problems. The discussion ended with some concrete ideas for proposals, responding to the problems identified earlier.
To take these proposals further, a second mailing list has been set up a where a smaller, more focused discussion will continue.
[edit] May/June 2009: OER for teacher education
A two-week discussion session to provide input on the outline of a short module introducing OER to teacher educators took place from May 26 to June 5, 2009. The discussion was facilitated by Corinne Bossé.
Throughout the two weeks, the community commented on design issues related to the context and the format of the module. They also suggested OER resources. Finally, the group shared experiences and references related to OER projects in a teaching context such as the report from a recent Global Teacher Network OER workshop.
The input from the community will inform the design of the resource. The aim is to raise awareness of the concept of OER with teacher educators. The Open Educational Resources project is working with the UNESCO Section for Teacher Education. The output of the work will eventually be shared on the OER wiki.
