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The future OER Ecosystem - On building a community for OER in Europe

24^th May, 2022

Dr. Robert Farrow, The Open University (UK)

Anaïs Malbrand, ICDE (Norway)�Fiona Schmidbauer, Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg (Germany)

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license except where otherwise noted.

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Welcome and Housekeeping

Purpose of this workshop

Inclusion in ENCORE+ research

Code of Conduct https://connect.oeglobal.org/uploads/short-url/flBxQH52D8vb9Xs9O3vD2ie4DGp.pdf

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Introduction to ENCORE+

European Network for Catalysing �Open Resources in Education

https://encoreproject.eu/

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ENCORE+

ENCORE+ is a Knowledge Alliance project funded by the European Commission under Erasmus+

Supporting the uptake of open education resources (OER)

Catalysing and sharing innovative practice across education and business

Developing stakeholder communities for knowledge exchange

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Partners

International Council for Distance Education (Norway)
Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (Germany)
The Open University (UK)
Universidad Internacional De La Rioja (Spain)
Knowledge 4 All Foundation (UK)
Joubel (Norway)
Fondazione Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
Instructure Global (UK)
Dublin City University (Ireland)

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OER in Europe

http://oerworldmap.org

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OER in Europe

OER World Map includes details of 1400+ organisations, 900+ services, 500+ projects and 300+ policies in support of OER

However, activity is typically uncoordinated, and happens in clusters (national/regional, disciplinary, technological, etc.)

Limited interactions between academia, public and private sectors �
Covid-19 has forced greater use of online learning and need for resources which can be met by OER �

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ENCORE+ Background and Rationale

The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) responds to the priorities of opening up and modernising the European education and training sector through a coordinated European OER ecosystem

ENCORE+ brings together meaningful and focused human networks; technological solutions for sharing and discovering OER; policy reviews; quality criteria; and will generate business models which draw on the affordances of OER to support innovation

ENCORE+ supports uptake of OER through business and academia by formulating value propositions for using OER in education, training and business

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

ENCORE+ will function as a network catalyst for a socio-technical ecosystem. That means that ENCORE+’s main mission will be to amplify existing OER initiatives, projects, platforms and networks by integrating them across the four thematic Circle strands and three crosscutting integration events.

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Theme: Innovation and Business Models

What are the main enablers/barriers for innovation with OER?

Should we focus on core provision or radically rethinking markets?

What does an innovation focused OER culture look like?

What do future business models look like? What do we need to consider?

Externally funded (philanthropy, sponsorship, governmental)
Internally funded (institutional programes, redirection of funding)
Community funded (services, membership model, platformisation)
Service models (data exploitation, dual-mode HEIs, freemium, segmentation)

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Theme: Technology

How can we establish the right kind of interfacing and protocols?

What can artificial intelligence approaches do for OER / OEP?

How can technology support co-creation and sharing of content?

Facilitating the sharing of content across platforms

Open-source API infrastructures for sharing content, metadata, multimedia, learning pathways, etc.

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Theme: Policies and Practices

How is your organisation engaging with open educational practices?
Why is your organisation engaging with open educational practices?
Does your organisation have OER/Open Education policy? If yes give some details, if no why do you think this is?
What are the main barriers to large scale adoption of open educational practices?
What are the key enablers to large scale adoption of open educational practices?
What business models for open educational practices do you think will evolve in the future?

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Theme: Quality

How should we define OER quality? (content, ‘openness’, user-friendliness, &c.)

Harmonization / Developing a common European framework

Establishing reliable and realistic systems of peer review / quality assurance

Better user engagement by OER repositories

Achieving an interoperable European metadata and search engine strategy

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Theme: Stakeholders & their needs

Education HEI leaders, decision makers Learners (formal/informal) Educators Libraries/Collections/Repositories Instructional Designers / Technologists Copyright/Data Officers	Business Course providers Ed Tech companies Service providers Workers Infrastructure providers Publishers	Policymakers Educational authorities Ministries Public bodies Quality assurance agencies Charities / NGOs (macro/micro) Funders/Philanthropy

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

Coordination

Coordination of efforts in producing, sharing, using & reusing OER
Improved collaboration, connection and user-friendliness among repositories
Interconnected OER repositories, user communities, institutions, companies
Sharing and development of quality OER across borders, languages and cultures
Exchanging perspectives and information about effective innovation in practice
Connecting and fostering knowledge exchange across HE and business

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

Provision

Enhanced training opportunities in formal and informal learning settings
Generalised access to quality OERs and better support for language and culture adaptation
Local companies (especially SMEs) access to high quality free training resources

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

Culture

Promotion of open educational practices (using OER and participatory technologies to facilitate collaboration, innovation and flexible learning)
Promoting a culture of self-empowerment, innovation and entrepreneurship
Increasing inclusiveness of higher education institutions through effective strategies for open education
Trust for OER in teacher and learner communities & institutional leaders

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ENCORE+ Ecosystem

Catalysation

Increased availability of quality OER
Strengthened innovation around OER both in universities and enterprises
Implementation of existing technical and quality standards for OER at scale
Opportunities for local entrepreneurs, companies and Ed Tech companies to innovate through OER
Demonstrating the innovation potential of OER for HR development in companies
Stimulating innovation in learning and teaching through the uptake of quality OER

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https://encoreproject.eu/event_listing_category/circles-events/

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Thank You!

Project partners:

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Supporting ENCORE+

Invite 5 personal contacts to join ENCORE+ Circles

Subscribe to project channels (newsletter, blog)�
Share your experiences and inspiration!

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Contacts

Robert Farrow, The Open University (UK)

rob.farrow@open.ac.uk / @philosopher1978

�

Website

For further and updated information

about this project please see:

www.encoreproject.eu

info@encoreproject.eu

Project partners:

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