Dr. Alek Tarkowski's presentation on the International Conference e-Society.mk 2012, held annually in Skopje, Macedonia, entitled "Open Education for an Open Society – Let’s Share the Knowledge!"

1. Building a national open
educational resources policy.
Examples from Poland and other
countries.
Dr Alek Tarkowski
Centrum Cyfrowe / Creative Commons PL
With support from
Open Society Foundations

2. American debate on MOOCs ...
… vs. regional experience

3. ●
Open e-textbooks project in the „Digital
School” program
●
Open Educational Resources Policy and its
context

4. ●
Open e-textbooks project in the
„Digital School” program
●
Open Educational Resources Policy and its
context

5. ●
Open e-textbooks project in the
„Digital School” program
●
Context: OER developments in Poland in the last
5 years
●
Coalition for Open Education (KOED):16
members
●
Public OERs:
●
„Polish Aid” program
●
„Włącz Polskę” program for Polish schools
abroad
●
Grassroots activities
●
Wolne lektury: open books portal for schools
●
Active Wikipedia community
●
Khan Academy localization

6. The „Digital School” program (2011).
●
●
A history of school IT programs in Poland
since 2000.
●
A dominant equipment-based approach
(or equipment and infrastructure) since
2011.
●
„Digital school” as a balanced project:
equipment, teacher skills, content.

7. The „Digital School” program (2011).
●
●
2012-2013: pilot in 380 schools, 4th
grades
●
12,8m EUR for equipment, 4.7m EUR for
teacher training, 13m EUR for educational
resources + supplementary research
study in 24 schools (1,2m EUR)

8. How much textbook(s) cost?
Approximately whole textbooks
market is 1 billion PLN big;
About 15% of textbooks cost are
coverd by government in support
program for families with
financial difficulties;
Publishers also used European
Union R&D grants, were
contractors for many ICT
programs where resources were
also created beside of textbook
Source: Dziennik Gazeta Prawna
market.

9. ●
What model for educational resources
does Polish education need?
●
Need for personalized education
●
From textbooks to „content clouds” as
optimal proposed model
●
Reality: minimal willingness of teachers to
adapt / personalize resources and
teachings
●
Teachers dependent on commercial
teaching materials

10. ●
Open Educational Resources in the
„Digital School” program.
●
Open model offers best means for fulfilling
program's goals
●
Both textbooks and other (non-certified
content)
●
Crucial questions:
●
How to ensure high quality content will be
produced (open is not enough)
●
How to coexist with the market model
and commercial actors?

11. ●
Open Educational Resources in the
„Digital School” program.
●
Approximately 56m PLN, of which 45m
PLN (12m EUR) assigned for e-textbooks
●
18 textbooks covering K12 core courses
until 2015
Leading institution: Center for Education
Development (ORE)
●
Partnership model: 1 technological and 4
content partners (instead of a grant
model)

12. ●
What Open Educational Resources
Model?
●
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or
equivalent
●
Strong open licensing due to specificity of
educational needs
●
In line with Capetown (and currently also
Paris Declaration)
●
Non/commercial as key controversy
●
Also accessibility and open software
standards

13. ●
Expected results of chosen Open
Educational Resources model.
●
CC BY ensures greatest potential impact
through ease and scale of use, by
decreasing legal uncertainty
●
CC BY allows for commercial reuse of
textbooks (new business models)
●
Print?
●
Premium versions?
●
„Remixes”?
●
Free core content can enhance new
educational service development - like a free
API for new educational projects

14. ●
Why did we succeed with introducing
OER policy?
●
Coalition for Open Education, active since
2008
●
A dialogue process between government
and civil society
●
Open public resources initiative within the
government

15. ●
Key elements for successful open e-
textbooks project
●
Teacher training, including open models
(→ training component)
●
Leading institution: innovation and support
●
Clear concept for e-textbook and their use
●
IT equipment and connectivity as
necessary elements
●
Fostering use and re-use of OERs, by
teachers and publishers

16. Future is uncertain: challenges ahead
●
●
Lack of a clear concept for an e-textbook
●
How it will be used in class?
●
Electronic or paper?
●
What equipment? (Both technological
change and availability of IT in the school
system).

17. ●
Challenge no. 1: opposition of
publishers
●
Critique at planning: only non-textbooks
resources are acceptable
●
Publicly funded content as unfair competition,
fear of market destruction and public monopoly
●
Low quality of open public resources
●
Low Research and Development capacity in
comparison to professional publishers
●
Boycott / attack on the public tender process
●
Negative PR
●
Letter to the European Commission
●
Letter to public universities

18. ●
Challenge no.2: indifference of school
system
●
Low digital skills and competences of teachers –
hey role of the training component
●
Low awareness of legal issues, teachers
functioning within loosely defined fair use zone
●
Low capacity for reuse / remix of content

19. ●
Public response to the challenge
●
Public funding accepted and co-exists along the
market in many sectors; a model for public
funding of textbooks is acceptable – not unfair
competition
●
Many arguments prove that OERs are an
effective public investment in a digital educational
environment (but argument still needs to be
tested)
●
Support for OER emerging at EC level
●
Quality to be tested; quality and R&D of
commercial offer also uneven;

20. ●
Public response to the challenge
●
Open public content can have a positive,
although disruptive role on a market that is not
adapting fast enough on its own
●
Not just open content, also open standards
(WCAG, HTML5, open formats)
●
Generative character of open content (same
argument as with reuse of public information)

21. ●
Mythbusting of allegations
●
Not a monopoly, but cost effective support for
equal opportunities to learn. (Public mission vs.
Business logic)
●
Quality management and review process will be
same – same chances and risks
●
Money for commercial R&D comes mostly from
public grants and has not been well invested.
Startups and NGOs have better track record
●
Quality of textbook does not depend on if it's
reuseable or not, but when it is reusable, quality
can constantly be improved.

22. ●
Open e-textbooks project in the „Digital
School” program
●
Open Educational Resources Policy
and its context

23. ●
Open Public Resources policy as a
basic framework for public content
●
Inspiration from rules for access to public
information
●
Public data as a same type of content that
generates value through reuse when openly
available – cultural content is similar (Hargreaves
Report in the UK)
●
Main types of applicable content: education,
science, culture

24. ●
Open Educational Resources policy as
open content policy, globally
●
Policy for public resources just one „path” for
OER – alongside a) OER grassroots initiatives
and b) OER business models
●
Capetown Declaration (2007): „governments, school
boards, colleges and universities should make open
education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded
educational resources should be open educational
resources”.

25. Open Educational Resources policy:
●
UNESCO Paris Declaration (2011)
●
Reinforce the development of strategies
and policies on OER.
●
Promote the development of specific policies for the
production and use of OER within wider strategies for
advancing education.
●
Encourage the open licensing of
educational materials produced with
public funds
●
Governments/competent authorities can create
substantial benefits for their citizens by ensuring that
educational materials developed with public funds be
made available under open licenses (with any
restrictions they deem necessary) in order to
maximize the impact of the investment.

26. ●
Open Public Resources policy as a
basic framework for public content
●
Elements for European Open Public Resources
policy
●
Re-use directive extended to cultural
institutions
●
Open Access Pilot, plans for its extension
●
Consultations on Open Educational Resources

27. ●
Open Public Resources Bill in Poland
●
Unified framework for education, science culture
– single rule, but with exceptions for each sphere
●
General rule: all content produced or financed
publicly should be made publicly available
●
Clear ownership of rights to content + open
licensing (CC BY as standard)
●
Concurrent declarations on OA by the Ministry of
Science – possibly applying also to higher
education OER

28. ●
Open Public Resources policy globally
●
Open Society Foundations – fostering OER
policy development in several key countries:
Brasil, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland
●
Brasil: policy work to supplement work by OER
community:
●
Sao Paolo city policy (CC BY-NC-SA)
●
national policy in the Parliament
●
1) public educational resources to be made openly
available
●
2) resources produced by public servants should be
OER
●
3) govt support for OER repositories

29. ●
Open Public Resources policy globally
●
United States
●
State-level initatives for higher education
(California, Washington)
●
2bn USD program for college OER
development
●
Netherlands
●
focus on state-supported development of
content by teachers: Wikiwijs – focus on
platform / repository + active community

30. ●
Open Public Resources policy globally
●
New Zealand: NZGOAL (Open Access and
Licensing) as a broad framework for open public
content (CC licensing + other models)
●
Australia: AUSGoal
●
South Africa: Siyavula
●
Collaborative, grassroots production of
educational content
●
In 2011 approached by govt to align with
curriculum, publication of textbooks in 2012
●
Resources
●
COL: Survey on Governments' OER Policies
●
CC OER Policy Registry

31. Final Thoughts: specificity of OER
●
movement
●
Open Educational Resources vs. Open
Education – can OER trigger broader educational
reform?
●
Specific licensing requirements due to needs of
educators and learners
●
Education as a basic right, basic education as
obligation – strong stakes for educational content
policy

32. ●
Final Thoughts: specificity of OER
policy
●
Must be fitted within broader educational reform /
modernization processes
●
Introduction of OER overlaps with the shift from
paper to digital – time of uncertainty
●
Synergy of top-down policy and bottom-up
activity
●
Will new business models develop?
●
Teachers, students don't necessarily want open
education – openness as means for fulfilling other
needs and goals

33. Photo by woodlywoondy@flickr, CC BY

34. Thank You!
More about „Digital School” program:
http://bit.ly/OER_Poland