1. Accra, Ghana
12-13 September 2013
A world map of institutional OER Initiatives:
Can the global OER community design and build it together?
Susan D’Antoni

2. Outline of presentation
1 Personal background and interest in libraries and
openness in education
2 OER Community at IIEP and network of UNESCO
Chairs in OER
3 An OER world map
4 An international conversation on mapping institutional
OER initiatives
5 Next steps
6 Questions for reflection and discussion
7 Contact
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3. 1 Personal background
• An early love of libraries and an appreciation of the role
of librarians
• Experience with correspondence education and
importance of information
• Exploration of new technologies for distance education
and the concept of the virtual university
• Interest in the growing open movement – and supporting
international online communities on FOSS and OER
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4. 2 OER Community at IIEP and a
Network of UNESCO Chairs in OER
International OER Community
• Community initially convened in 2005 by IIEP and
supported until 2009 by the Hewlett Foundation
• Started with 500+ members – and grew to almost 1,000
by 2009
• Series of virtual seminars with background documents
and reports
• Intended to promote capacity building and collaboration
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5. Network of UNESCO and *UNESCO/COL Chairs in
OER
• Network of Chairs to extend the work of the original OER
Community
– *Athabasca University, Canada (Dr. Rory McGreal)
– Open University: Netherlands (Dr. Fred Mulder)
– UNICAMP: Brasil (Dr. Tel Amiel)
– *OER Foundation: New Zealand (Dr. Wayne
MacIntosh)
• Main activities
– Global OER Graduate Network
– OER Knowledge Cloud
– OER mapping
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6. 3 An OER world map
• In 2005 OECD set out to map the scale and scope of
OER and reported in 2007 with the publication, Giving
Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open
Educational Resources
• More than a decade of growth in the OER movement but still hard to have an overview …
• However, increasing interest in using maps to
communicate information visually …
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7. Open CourseWare Consortium
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8. UK Open University Olnet Project
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9. Rational for mapping the OER world
• No comprehensive mapping of the significant growth in
institutional initiatives worldwide
• Difficult to know all the OER projects or initiatives and
those involved in our own country or region
• Also difficult to know where there are OER initiatives in
our own language or languages
• No list of experts
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10. Potential value of an OER World Map
• Make visible the geographic spread of OER initiatives,
including those less well-known
• Trace life cycles of initiatives over time
• Identify a global roster of OER experts
• Enable partnerships and collaboration among OER
people and projects
• A map could serve as a tool and resource for
– Awareness raising beyond the OER community
– Communication and advocacy with policy and
decision makers
– Inclusive community-building
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11. 4 An international conversation on
mapping institutional OER initiatives
• The first step was to engage with a number of
organisations, including IAU
• Next a prototype map was developed – but intended only
as an example for discussion
• Then members of the original IIEP OER Community and
others were invited to have a conversation on the topic
• With the engagement and energy of the OER community
in a collaborative exercise, an OER world map of
institutional initiatives might be feasible
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12. The organisation of the discussion :
12-30 November 2012
Week 1
What could an OER world map look like?
Why map the OER landscape
Essential information and visual presentation
Week 2
Could a world map be built collaboratively?
Organizational approach for collaboration
Ensuring the quality of the information
Week 3 …
Reflection and next steps
Design of a map and collaboration
Resources available/needed
Next steps
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13. The conversation
• About 900 people joined the session and the discussion
was lively – if not always on topic
• Positive reaction to creating a geographic map of the
OER landscape
• Various comments about its potential use
• Consideration of what information would be essential and
how to present it
• Proposed organisation with centralised and local
functions
• An abiding concern about different licenses and their
implications
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14. Prototype map for discussion
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15. • The advice of the OER Community
– Keep it simple = feasible and sustainable
– Use Free and Open Source Software and
international standards
– Build the map collaboratively with light central
promotion and coordination – with local data
collection and quality checking
– Avoid duplication of information and link in existing
data
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16. • The proposed use of the map
– A map of the OER world – a resource/tool to
illuminate visually the OER world and communicate
its scope
– A roster of OER experts – a resource to support
networking, sharing and collaboration
– Stronger connection with the sister Open Access
movement
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17. OER Community consensus
1. Use Free and Open Source Software
2. Define data collection clearly, use a form and draw
from existing sources
3. Collect a limited amount of data e.g.
OER initiative name
OER initiative web site
OER initiative working language(s)
Contact person name
Contact person email
Latitude and Longitude
4. Organise with central coordination and local data
collection, quality control and updating. Engage
other
communities such as librarians.
5. Link and include other efforts to avoid duplication of
effort.
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18. 5.
Next steps
• A Request for Proposals – currently under consideration
by the Hewlett Foundation – would be an appropriate
way to support follow up to the discussion
• This fits with the open philosophy and allows OER
Community members to self organise for collaboration
– Idea is to start with a small focussed project to launch
a mapping of the global OER landscape of
institutional initiatives
– Then build upon this infrastructure and database
through a global collaborative effort aiming to make it
comprehensive
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19. 6 Questions for reflection and
discussion
Some questions for reflection
1. How would you use an OER world map?
2. What information do you feel is essential to make a map
most useful to you?
3. What should the role of the library and librarians be in
creating and using an OER world map and in supporting
OER?
Your own questions for Discussion
1.
2.
3.
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20. 7 Contact
 Web site for OER community
discussion report and updates:
https://unescochair.athabascau.ca/oer-mapping-exercise
 To receive information about next steps:
Subscribe to the OER community
Oer-community-request@athabascau.ca
(type subscribe in the subject line)
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