File:Wikiwijs lessons learned.pdf

The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has funded a five-year programme to encourage the use, creation and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER) by teachers from various types of education. This programme is known as Wikiwijs. At the end of 2013, the program came to an end. As some of the assumptions at the start of Wikiwijs proved to work out in unexpected ways the lessons learned could fuel the next steps in developing Wikiwijs. Besides, other national initiatives on "opening up education" may also benefit from the lessons learned reported here.

The main conclusion from five years Wikiwijs was that to accomplish mainstreaming OER, the Wikiwijs programme should go along with other interventions that are more oriented toward prescriptive policies and regulations.

In particular: the Dutch government should be more directive in persuading executive boards and teachers inschools to adopt OER as an important part of educational reform and the acquisition of 21st century skills.