Welcome to the Virtual Education Wiki ~ Open Education Wiki
D4.1 Overview of European and International policies relevant for the uptake of OER
Specification
Type of outcome/product/results: Report (public) Delivery date: September 2013
Nature: Report
Language versions:English
Target languages: Executive Summary in English, Italian, Hungarian, French, and Dutch ((Italian now not relevant because of the Amendment))
Based on the input of the inventory and the country reports (including mini-reports), and taking account of the (few) national policy-oriented papers already produced on OER, SCIENTER ((now Sero)) will create an overview of all existing relevant policies (with specific focus on partner institutions' countries) that aim (directly or indirectly) to foster (or at least not inhibit) the update of OER. This will include copyright law, quality standards in education, funding models, etc.
Countries' current policies will be categorised, compared and contrasted with others in EU and beyond. The analytic framework proposed by KERIS is likely to be a good starting point for our framework - see http://www.slideshare.net/OCWConsortium/analysis-of-the-contextual-factors-for-developing-national-oer-policy
Outcome
Executive Summary
This report (Deliverable 4.1) is developed as part of Work Package 4 of POERUP. It reviews current (April 2014) policies around Europe and in other parts of the world which are directly or indirectly related to the fostering of OER uptake. The research is drawn from POERUP country reports, IAC workshops and expert external sources.
In reviewing policies, distinctions need to be drawn between active, operational policies, declarations of policy intentions - often reflecting aspirations rather than reality - strategies promoted by governments and educational organisations, OER initiatives and programmes.
Only a minority of EU countries have any national OER policies and where these exist they are often limited to about open access to publicly funded research.
This is largely true of countries outside Europe: the USA is an exception, with many national policies, but these tend to be limited in scope because of the organisation and control of state education systems, particularly schools.
There are substantial numbers of policies about 'open' education at institutional level, especially in higher education. However, there are relatively few policies in the schools sector and almost none in the VET sector.
Few policies refer directly to OER, both at national and institutional level, but there is an increasing number of national declarations on open access and OER. However, most of these have yet to be translated into policies.
The UNESCO Paris declaration of 2012 is often taken as a starting point for national declarations: this has both the virtue and drawback of being very generalised in its approach.
The EU's 2013 Opening Up Education initiative, whilst broader than simply focusing on OER, provides a framework for policy development and implementation. At the same time, the EU has returned to addressing copyright legislation, which is a key part of facilitating the uptake of OER.
The application of national OER policy is likely to depend on context: the key contexts are related to IT infrastructure and sectoral priorities.
Whilst direct action by practitioners at the grassroots is key to changing practice in all sectors, the development and implementation of policies at national level is important in both legitimising grassroots movements and providing leverage - potentially through funding - for longer term change.
Report
There are also Executive Summaries in:
- French: see File:POERUP D4.1b Executive summary (French).pdf
- Dutch: see File:POERUP D4.1d Overview of European and international policies relevant for the uptake of OER Executive summary Dutch.pdf
- Hungarian: see File:POERUP D4.1c Overview of European and international policies relevant for the uptake of OER Executive summary Hungarian.pdf
> POERUP