This document discusses open educational resources (OER) advocacy in different regions. It provides information on: 1) The current status of OER in China, including how OER was initiated in 2012 by the Ministry of Education to improve access and equity in education across regions. 2) The current status of OER in Europe, noting a lack of strategic policy support and awareness/concerns around copyright and quality. It then discusses specific initiatives and policies regarding OER in Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK. 3) The current status of OER in the United States, highlighting increased access through open textbooks and degree pathways without commercial content, as well as initiatives to increase inclusion and success through

1. Opening Pathways for
access, inclusion,
flexibility and quality
Dublin Ireland
4 November 2019
#wcol2019
Proferssor Dr., Ebba Ossiannilsson, Sweden
ICDE OER Advocacy Committee , Chair
Dr. James Glapa-Grossklag, US
ICDE Ambassador for the global advocacy of OER
Xiangyang Zhang, Open University of Jiangsu, China
ICDE Ambassador for the global advocacy of OER

2. ICDE OER Advocacy
Committee
ICDE Ambassador for
the global advocacy
of OER
• Ebba Ossiannilsson,
Consultant and VP,
Swedish Association of
Distance Education (SADE),
Sweden
• Mark Brown, Office of the
Vice President, Dublin City
University, Ireland
• Cable Green, Lead OER,
Creative Commons, USA,
co-opted 8 October 2019
to replace Cable is Jennryn
Wetzler, Assistant Director
of Open Edu, Creative
Commons, USA
• Cengiz Hakan Aydin,
Professor, Anadolu
University, Turkey
• Paul Bacsich, Professor of
Practice, University of
West Indies Open Campus,
Barbados
• Chandra Shekhar Dubey,
Director, Campus of Open
Learning, Delhi University,
• James Glapa-Glossklag,
Dean and Treasurer of the
Board, College of the
Canyons and Open
Education Consortium,
USA
• Dhaneswar Harichandan,
Director, Institute of
Distance and Open
Learning, University of
Mumbai, India
• Gary Matkin, Dean of
Continuing Education, UC-
Irvine California, USA
• Jean-Marc Meunier,
President and VP, FIED and
University of Paris VIII
Vincennes – St-Denis,
France
• Valerie Peachey, Professor
in Open Education, Charles
Stuart University, Australia
• Xiangyang Zhang, Open
University of Jiangsu,
China

3. GUIDELINES FOR MEMBERS OF THE ICDE OER
ADVOCACY COMMITTEE, ICDE OERAC
• Advocacy is on OER.
• Applications for a membership in the ICDE OER
Advocacy Committee can be made by an expert
ICDE member that has a record and capacity to
contribute to significant advocacy for OER.
• Members are appointed as ICDE OER Ambassadors
by the ICDE Executive Committee.
• When appropriate, members of the committee
should seek collaboration with OER Chairs and
relevant stakeholders to achieve synergy in OER
advocacy.
• The ICDE OER Ambassador is not a funded
position, but awarding it provides extra profile to
the holder, expressing ICDE’s interest in his/her
voice on OER, underlining his/her reputation.
• ICDE OER Ambassadors are bound to establish a
network among themselves in which they and
their teams collaborate, and to which experts in
the subject area from other institutions may be
admitted.
• ICDE OER Ambassadors are expected to jointly and
individually plan OER advocacy actions.
• When invited and if possible, Ambassadors should
be prepared to play a role at e.g. ICDE World
Conferences, Leadership Summits, Regional
Conferences, Expert Seminars or other events
relevant for the purpose.
• The Chair for the ICDE OAC suggests its activities
and progress in collaboration with the ICDE
Secretariat. The ICDE OER Ambassadors have an
independent position and will inform ICDE of their
activities through a light-version annual report.

4. UNESCO OER
Recommendation and align
with the UNESCO Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), in
particular SDG4 on education
(UNESCO 2015). Overall, SDG4
aims for social justice

6. Commonwealth of Learning:
Materials that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared to support teaching and learning at all
levels of education (2017a, p.1).
Ljubljana Action Plan:
Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium - digital or otherwise - that reside in the public
domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and
redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Open licensing is built within the framework of
intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions to respect the authorship of work.
OER are a strategic opportunity to improve knowledge sharing, capacity building and universal access to
quality learning and teaching resources. (UNESCO, 2017, p. 1).
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation:
Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public
domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and
redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions (2019).
UNESCO definition, updated 27th May 2019:
Learning, teaching and research material in any format and medium that resides in the Public Domain
or are under the copyright that has been released under an open license that permits no-cost access,
reuse, repurpose, adaptation and redistribution by others (UNESCO, 2019b).

7. In addition, the UNESCO definition of an open license was
updated at the Special Intergovernmental Committee
meeting in relation to a draft UNESCO recommendation
concluded in Paris, May 2019. This updated definition is:
Open license refers to a license that respects the
intellectual property rights
of the copyright owner and provides permissions
granting the public the
rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt, and
redistribute educational
materials.

9. Current Status
of OER in China
• Xiangyang Zhang
• ICDE OER Advocacy Committee
• Professor, Sias Univerisity
Jiangsu Open University
China

10. • OER is initiated by the Ministry of Education of China in 2012 in the
format of MOOCs in China to satisfy the learning needs in different
regions of the country for the purposes of access, equity, flexibility,
inclusion, quality and sustainability of education. OER serves for
campus students and lifelong learners to narrow the gap between the
East and West regions in terms of economic development.
• Education for All (Confucian)

11. Current Status
of OER in the
Europe
Proferssor Dr., Ebba Ossiannilsson,
Sweden
ICDE OER Advocacy Committee , Chair
ICDE Ambassador for the global advocacy of OER
ICDE EC
ICDE Quality Network

12. UNESCO Institute for Information Technology in
Education (IITE) and OER Africa
(Housan & Butcher, 2019).
• lack of strategic/policy support: Few organizations have adopted OER as part of
their institutional strategy. Even though this support is a clear requirement for
successful adoption, organizations are yet to change their policies. Educational
institutions have not yet found a way (or developed strategies) to incorporate
OER on a broad base (e.g. incentives for OER creation/usage). For example, in
higher education, there is no rewarding system for professors and lecturers
sharing their learning materials
• lack of awareness and insecurities on copyright/IPR, quality issues. These issues
of have been discussed intensively in different educational sectors. The
discussion, for example, in higher education shows that expertise on IPR and
licensing is low amongst educators
• there is also resistance from publishers, focusing on the “lack of quality
mechanisms” when using OER.

13. Germany
• There is much informal exchange in schools, but they
do not use specific open licenses. Teachers'
willingness to participate in education is higher than
in other educational sectors, but there is a low level of
OER expertise. There is enormous potential for
introduction OER in schools, but a broad approach is
needed to educate about OER open licensing in
particular.

14. Slovenia
• The country’s biggest initiative in open education,
OpeningUpSlovenia, was conceptualized in 2013 and officially
launched in 2015. It focuses on a digital transformation of society. In
this broad sense it encompasses various open practices (OER, open
pedagogies, open technologies, collaboration, etc.). In addition, the
Ministry of Education has published as OER a series of open textbooks
and courses for teacher training. Policy commitments are
accompanied by adequate funding. The government seldom directly
funds the creation of OER, but requires each recipient of national
public funding (between 2015 and 2020) to publish their works with
open licenses.

15. Sweden
• In Sweden the K-12 sector is far ahead in respect of the use, and reuse of
OER. There are several initiatives on open lessons. In addition, we should
consider the new Digitala plan for schools by the Swedish Association of
Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR), which is an employers' organization
and an organization that represents and advocates for local government in
Sweden. All of Sweden's municipalities and regions are members of SALAR.
In higher education, several both national and institutional initiatives are
ongoing. Two national OER projects were conducted with funding from the
Swedish Royal Library and the Internet Foundation. In museums there are
large initiatives. Finally, we should also highlight Wikimedia Sweden, which
helps teachers and librarians to use Wikipedia, archives and museums to
reach out with their material

16. UK
• In the UK, Higher Education has a long and strong support for
initiatives, including funding for the Higher Education, Joint
Information System Committee (JISC), and the Higher Education
Worth mentioning are the UK Open University, and OpenLearn,
OpenLearnCreate, and FutureLab. Of course, JISC JORUM, the UK OER
repository has played an important role for the OER development in
the country. UK OER conferences have been held annually for at least
15 years. Today, the conferences attract a large global audience
exploring research, initiatives and good practice. In addition, there
are requirements with a shift in finance from purchasing copyrighted
materials to creating openly licensed material. Finally, the issues of
recognition and reward for producing and using OER were argued.

17. Drawing on the country survey by Housen &
Butcher (2019), we suggest topics for further
consideration:
• Use and adoption
• Awareness
• Effectiveness
• Funding
• Business models
• Quality
• Policy development and implementation
• Improving diversity

18. Current Status
of OER in the
United States
• James Glapa-Grossklag
• ICDE OER Advisory Committee
• Dean, College of the Canyons
• USA
• @JGlapaGrossklag

19. Increase Access by Removing Cost
• Open textbooks are used in introductory
courses by 22% of all academics.
• Textbooks by the OER publisher OpenStax
were used in 50% of all colleges and
universities last year.
• At least 7 US states require that university
websites disclose what classes use OER.
• 10% of community colleges - which serve
nearly 50% of all students - are
developing entire degree pathways that
students can complete without ever using
commercial publisher content.
• More than 50% of US states fund some
component of OER development in higher
education.

20. Is That All?
• “there is a reduction, where OER comes to mean ‘North American
Open Textbooks’.”
• Martin Weller, The Open Ed identity crisis, 16.10.19

21. Increase Success By Increasing Inclusion
"Attributes of Open Pedagogy" by Helen Graves for Online Network of Educators (Links to an external site.) is licensed under CC BY 4.0
• Open Pedagogy
Notebook
• The Open Faculty
Patchbook

22. Increase Success with Learning Science

23. Ongoing initiatives
in your region?