The document discusses open educational resources (OER) and related initiatives in Romania. It defines OER and provides examples of current Romanian projects promoting their creation and use. These include national guidelines on OER published in 2007 and 2012, a Romanian OER coalition formed in 2013, and OER incorporated into the government's 2013-2016 program. Strengths of Romanian OER efforts include trainings offered across education sectors and proposals to include OER in formal policies. Recommendations focus on using existing educational content under open licenses, creating an OER repository, and encouraging OER in teacher training programs and on approved materials lists.

1. The power of the three words
and one acronym: OER vs OER
(I’m not an Ogre of the Enchanted Realm
of cyberspace. I’m an Omnipresent
Educational Rescuer - because I use the OER!)
photocredit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/99353930@N00/4742226415/in/set-72157623425016221
oral presentation by
Carmen HOLOTESCU & Gabriela GROSSECK
at 6th World Conference on Educational Sciences
06-09 February 2014, Malta

2. OER Definition
[…] „the open provision of
educational
resources, enabled by
information and
communication
technologies, for
consultation, use and
adaptation by a community
of users for non-commercial
purposes.”
unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources
UNESCO (2002)

3. What are OERs? Open Educational Resources
„are any type of educational
materials that are in the public
domain or introduced with an
open license.
The nature of these open
materials means that anyone can
legally and freely copy, use, adapt
and re-share them. OERs range
from textbooks to
curricula, syllabi, lecture
notes, assignments, tests, project
s, audio, video
and animation.”
unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002136/213605e.pdf

4. Current Projects related to OER

5. „ICT tools, Open Educational
Resources, and open practices
allow for an increase in the
effectiveness of
education, allowing for more
personalised learning, a better
learning experience, and an
improved use of resources.
Such measures also promote
equity by increasing the
availability of knowledge.
Ultimately, opening up
education may lead to a
situation where all individuals
may learn
anytime, anywhere, with the
support of anyone, using any
device.”
Open Education Europa
Opening up education through new technologies
openeducationeuropa.eu
ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework/education-technology.htm

6. Main Outcomes:
• A mapping framework of ICT-enabled innovation for
learning
• The Creative Classrooms concept and reference
parameters
• A set of policy recommendations for mainstreaming
of systemic, ICT-enabled innovations in Education
and Training (E&T).
SCALE CCR: Up-Scaling Creative Classrooms in Europe
s.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/SCALECCR.html

7. Specific objectives:
• Study the sustainability and business
models of OER and OEP initiatives
• Build a classification of OER initiatives
and practices, and a detailed and
critical assessment of the
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats
• Contribute to the analysis of the
socio-economic impacts that OER and
OEP can have on the education
systems
• Implement a participatory foresight
methodology, based on targeted
stakeholder consultations, in order to
develop visions and scenarios on the
future of Open Education
• Derive policy recommendations
OEREU: Open Education Resources and Practices in Europe
is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/EAP/OEREU.html

8. POERUP: Policies for OER Uptake
„POERUP is focused on filling the following two gaps in research:
• The end-user–producer communities behind the OER initiatives and
what (or who) it is that actually provides the energy that make OER
initiatives work or not. At present there exists little experience in
how to best support the communities behind these initiatives or
what they actually want or do.
• Policies that governments and agencies (international, national and
regional) should adopt in order to best foster creation and uptake
of OER.”
„OER-based learning, seen as an extension of online
education, provides opportunity for everyone to access high quality
education at relatively low cost” (POERUP, 2013)
poerup.referata.com

9. POERUP: Policies for OER Uptake
Inventory of 120 notable OER initiatives
worldwide
http://poerup.referata.com/w/images/POERUP_D2.3_Comparative_Analysis_of_Transversal_OER_Initiatives_v
1.0.pdf
poerup.referata.com

10. OER Initiatives in Romania
poerup.referata.com/wiki/Romania
acces-deschis.ro

11. CCR was launched in
September 2, 2008, with
the help of ApTI
(The Association for
Technology and Internet)
http://ro.creativecommons.org/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ro/
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Romania

12. National OER initiatives
• OER in the Government Programme
The Government Programme for 2013-2016 adopted in December 2012
(http://www.gov.ro/upload/articles/118981/program-de-guvernare-2013-
2016.pdf) specifies that Ministry of Communication and Ministry of Education will
collaborate to support the innovative integration of Web2.0 and Open Educational
Resources in education.
• Knowledge based Economy Project
OER educational policies (recommendations in 2007)
• OER and OEP: The activities in the KEP project have led the schools towards a shift in
focus from the resources themselves towards the practices associated with the
creation, use and management of OER: that is, open educational practices (OEP).

13. Regional and institutional OER initiatives
Related to FLOSS (Free / Libre / Open
Source Software)
• Groups
• Conferences/Events
• Courses / Trainings / Research
• Linux distributions and Open
Source projects development
Related to OER, OEP and Open
Content/Access
Courses / Trainings / Programs
Open Content / Open Access /
Communities for OER and OEP
Studies

14. Open Educational Resources / Practices (1)
- A Romanian Coalition for Open Educational Resources
was created in October 2013, gathering persons or
organizations that support and promote the concepts
of open access and OER http://www.acces-
deschis.ro/ro/oer/60-coali%C8%9Bia-red
- Projects and sites that offer information/workshops
about copyright issues, open licenses and OER: Open
Educational Resources Policy in Europe
http://oerpolicy.eu/?s=romania, http://kosson.ro, htt
p://acces-deschis, http://copy-
me.org, http://www.ordu.ro, http://dreptuldeautor.no
isieu.ro/creative-commons
- Different products developed under CC licenses
http://ro.creativecommons.org
- Digital resources on the KEP portal created by
teachers and pupils in the pre-university system, by
using different Web2.0 technologies, guide “OER for
different disciplines”
http://tinyurl.com/KEPOERguide
- KEP launched two guides in 2012, having as central
topics the OER and collaborative technologies
(Web2.0) in education: "Integration of new
technologies in education" and "Using ICT for
educational activities"
- Open journals related to open education are
http://iteach.ro/experientedidactice, http://www.el
earning.ro
- Open materials and discussions around them:
http://forum.portal.edu.ro, http://didactic.ro, http:/
/e-
scoala.ro, http://www.dascali.ro, http://educatie.in
mures.ro

15. Open Educational Resources / Practices (2)
- Projects under CC licenses for Informal Learning /
Serendipity: Romanian Encyclopedia
http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro , Veioza Arte
http://veiozaarte.ro - a video sharing platform acting
as an open source production house for the Romanian
cultural scene, Local Records http://www.localrec.ro
are collections of audio products, Brașov Creative
Commons Film Festival http://bvccfilmfest.tumblr.com
- City Projects http://cityprojects.ro - community
proposing/working on software projects for local
communities/ smart cities, based on open data
- Most of the national projects related to OER are
designed / implemented for the pre-university
level, while in academia they are implemented by a
universities or a group of universities
- Teachers trained in KEP, Didatec project
(http://ctmtc.utcluj.ro/sites/didatec_ ) received
certificates, acknowledging also their skills in
using/creating OER (Andone and Vasiu, 2011)
- Training/courses related to open educational
pedagogies are offered by Moodle
Romania, Didatec, iTeach, Sloop2desc, ActiveWatch
Media Monitoring, UPT Technology Enhanced
Learning hosted by Cirip.eu, Compendiu.ro - links at
http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Romania#Regional
_OER_initiatives
- Proposals for MOOCs: at university level: Credis
Bucuresti with TICE-Online (http://www.unibuc-
virtual.net/140217-online-tice, a MOOC platform
based on Google Apps), Romanian Technical MOOC
Platform (Andone and Vasiu, 2014), UVVG
partnership with FEDE, and a MOOC for LLL
developed on a microblogging platform
(Holotescu, Cretu and Grosseck, 2013)

16. Strengths in Romanian OER initiatives
Romania is active in the OER movement:
• trainings/courses related to OER and OEP organized for both pre-
university and university sectors
• proposals at governamental level, more for pre-university –not yet in
formal politics.
• national events related to open resources produced by pre-university
teachers; national guides were published also
• directories with open resources more numerous for pre-university level
• strong communities/events for open source, open access, open
data, open licences
• MOOC projects in development - at university level: Credis, UPT
(Andone, 2014) and for continuing education: (Holotescu et al., 2013).

17. From POERUP elevator pitch: 26 countries in 26 minutes, slide 11
http://www.slideshare.net/witthaus/poerup-elevator-pitch

18. Recommendations (1)
• The educational content which already
exists, mainly in AeL/SEI, should be used
more intensive by teachers and students:
connections with curricula, the skills they
develop should be more clear; encourage
and support the sharing of best practices;
should be licenced under CC (*)
• Create a repository with the educational
projects in which Romanian
schools, universities and educational
organizations have participated, under CC
licencies (*)
• Public outputs from European Commission
programs should be made open, for
example using Creative Commons licenses
(**)
• Collaborations between schools and
universities in regards to OER projects (**)
(*) from Recommendations 2007

19. Recommendations (2)
• Partnership of Ministry of Education
with
publishers, broadcasters, libraries, cultu
ral institutions to provide open access
to their own resources (*)
• All teachers training programmes
should contain topics related to
OER, new licenses and tools to create
educational materials in a collaborative
manner (*)
• Encourage a competitive market for
educational resources
production, guarantee transparency of
supply and equal opportunities to
market actors; Define a set of quality
criteria (*)
• Budgets for digital education should
include money for developing and
maintaining OER (**)
• OER should be allowed on approved
materials lists (**)
• Encourage Europe-wide validation of
learning acquired online (not only via
(*) from Recommendations 2007
(**) from POERUP 2014

20. Thank you for your attention!
Gabriela
Grosseck
University of the West
Carmen Holotescu
Politehnica University
Timisoara, Romania
Twitter: @cami13