PPT of paper accepted at EDULEARN 2014 Conference

2. THE OPEN EDUCATION (R)EVOLUTION
Research is telling that Open Education is here to stay
(http://www.oerknowledgecloud.org).
Open Education solutions (OER, MOOCs, Virtual Mobility) are more
and more considered as mainstream practices by universities
around the globe.
“The key question is no longer about the “how” of OER
development. (…) It is more about realising the value to be
derived from OER”.
A. Kanwar in McGreal 2013

3. NEW CHALLENGES OF OPEN EDUCATION
The attention of the OE debate is moving from:
•technological challenges, where the objective now is to be able
to work and learn across platforms
•legal challenges, where instruments are there to be implemented
and used at different levels,
•content challenge, where OER are being increasingly created,
shared and repurposed,
to three kinds of challenges, corresponding to three stakeholders
groups:
Pedagogical, Sustainability and Organisational challenges

4. PEDAGOGICAL CHALLENGES
Have to do with the way teaching and learning have to change
in an Open Education setting and that are the main concern of
teachers.
Approaches such as self-directed learning, cooperative learning,
problem-based and project-based learning, project and inquiry
based learning, together with issues like assignments approaches,
motivation and assessment are all being transformed by the Open
Education (r)evolution.

5. SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES
Are mainly the concern of policy makers, funding agencies and
companies, who realised that Open Education needs long-term
investments, in a sector where well-established business principles
and concepts are still under development.
At the same time, Open Education policies still are often
conceived as experimental attempts, showing that more needs to
be done to convince decision makers of the payoff of Open
Education.

6. ORGANISATIONAL CHALLENGES
Mainly concerning leaders within education institutions, who are
faced with the increased complexity brought by open
approaches, looking for the balance between traditional and
new educational practices, struggling with how to implement and
recognise Virtual Mobility schemes, testing new Open Assessment
schemes, and putting in place some sore of Recognition of Prior
Learning.
And realizing that adopting Open Education practices means
working with an extended group of stakeholders, including
practitioners, researchers, peers, etc.

7. POLICY IS (EVENTUALLY) TAKING OPEN
EDUCATION SERIOUSLY
“Technology offers unprecedented opportunities to improve quality,
access and equity in education and training” and “action should be
taken for scaling up the use of ICT-supported learning and access to high
quality OER”.
European Commission, Opening Up Education Communication, 2013
The policy push is reaching the country level: Opening up Slovenia.
The very ambitious objective of the initiative is to “create an open
educational system”, making of Slovenia a testbed for a number of
dimensions of Open Education: open learning environments, open
education theories, new business models, open education computational
tools, and new and emerging technologies.

8. OPEN EDUCATION IS CHANGING INTERNATIONAL
COLLABORATION AMONG UNIVERSITIES
The eMundus project (Erasmus Mundus) is exploring how
international cooperation is changing with the introduction of
Open Education practices, by mapping initiatives, providing tools,
analysing new ways of international cooperation.
www.emundus-project.eu

9. NEW WAYS OF INT. COOP. ENHANCED BY OE
• Agreements around open intellectual property licences that allow for free use,
adaptation and distribution of resources (ex. OERuniversity)
• Multi-actors platforms to share expertise around the development and use of
OER through training and knowledge transfer, with a focus on languages other
than English (ex. REA Brasil)
• Sustainable Virtual Mobility schemes among universities (ex. Being Mobile report)
• Sustainable Virtual Mobility schemes between universities and companies,
enhancing students employability potential (ex. Leuven University College)
• Platforms for jointly promoting MOOCs from one country or one region (ex.
OpenUpEdu or Futurelearn)
• International research projects working on fostering Open Education (ex. OPAL,
VM-Pass projects)

10. OPEN EDUCATION IN BRAZIL
• In the 60s, Brazil decided to improve the educational level of its population and
implemented free self-instruction radio and television programs, with certification
via public exams
• In the 90s Escola do Futuro of the Universidade de São Paulo, a research centre
on new Technologies in education, started the Brazilian Student Virtual Library
(BibVirt), which collected educational materials of public domain
• Shortly afterwards, the Ministry of Education creates RIVED which collects freely
usable learning objects produced in a collaborative manner by several
institutions
• Presently, open education has already reached higher education, through
government initiatives called UAB (Open Brazilian University)
• MOOC portals, like Veduca, expanded the possibilities of open education
• Some important initiatives: Open Education, Society and Technology Seminar,
held in May 2014 in the University of Sao Paulo; REA Brasil Project; MIRA

11. CONCLUSIONS
• The analysis of Open Education in Brazil shows a rich ad lively
community struggling with the challenges that are appearing globally
• The problems seem to be the same 8Pegagogy, Organisation,
Sustainability), but the solutions must be localised
• It is time to start thinking of a global Open Education ecosystem, where
national actors are collaborating through ICT and learning from each
other
• Fruitful and global/local “coopetition” might be the next future of Open
Education.