Human Rights and Social Justice through Open Educational Resources and Lifelong Learning

A landmark in the realization of UNESCO’s Sustainability Goals, Education for All (SDG4), was passed when the organization’s Recommendation of Open Educational Resources (OER) was uniformly adopted in 2019. Now it is time to transfer from the consciousness of OER to their mainstream realization at all levels, micro, meso, and macro, including all stakeholders, such as governments, institutions, academics, teachers, administrators, librarians, students, learners, and the civil service. The OER Recommendation includes five areas: building capacity and utilizing OER; developing supportive policies; ensuring effectiveness; promoting the creation of sustainable OER models; promoting and facilitating international collaboration; monitoring and evaluation. OER are valued as a catalyst for innovation and the achievement of UNESCO’s SDG 4, education for all, lifelong learning, social justice, and human rights. The OER Recommendation will be a catalyst for the realization of several other SDGs. Because access to quality OER concerns human rights and social justice, this Recommendation is vital. In 2020, the effects of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic clearly demonstrated the importance of opening up education and the access to internationally recognized, qualified learning resources. This article describes and discusses how the promise of resilient, sustainable quality open education can be fulfilled in the new normal and the next normal

Quality Models for Open, Flexible, and Online Learning

This article is based on research conducted for the European Commission Education & Training 2020 working group on digital and online learning (ET2020 WG-DOL) specifically regarding policy challenges, such as the following: 1) Targeted policy guidance on innovative and open learning environments under outcome; 2) Proposal for a quality assurance model for open and innovative learning environments, its impact on specific assessment frameworks and its implication for EU recognition and transparency instruments. The article aims to define quality in open, flexible, and online learning, particularly in open education, open educational resources (OER), and massive open online courses (MOOC). Hence, quality domains, characteristics, and criteria are outlined and discussed, as well as how they contribute to quality and personal learning so that learners can orchestrate and take responsibility for their own learning pathways. An additional goal is to identify the major stakeholders directly involved in open online education and to describe their visions, communalities, and conflicts regarding quality in open, flexible, and online learning. The article also focuses on quality in periods of crisis, such as during the pandemic in 2020. Finally, the article discusses the rationale and need for a model of quality in open, flexible, and online learning based on three major criteria for quality: excellence, impact, and implementation from the learner’s perspective

OER-Open possibilities for learning. A national initiative financed by the Internet Infrastructure Foundation .SE

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials available on the Internet. Resources are open and free, and usually under creative commons licenses (cc). Depending on the licenses resources are allowed to be used, reused, transmitted, and also sold openly and freely. Internationally, the OER movement is very strong. In Sweden, however, the trend towards open publication and sharing of educational resources is fairly slow. There is a need to satisfy with both management and teaching staff at Higher Education institutions in the use of and reuse of OER. Within the educational sector teaching staff is demanding support to operate pedagogically and qualitatively with OER. In order to exploit the potentials of OER for students’ learning it is not enough to bring in small OER:s here and there without bearing the educational and learning context in mind. Precious teacher time needs to be used more contextually for didactically purposes and not just to meet content issues. The idea of this national project is to foster an open dialogue about collaboration on infrastructural issues considering open knowledge exchange on the Internet. During the project period, a number of open webinars across university boundaries are co-arranged, where the use and production of OER are in focus. A virtual platform for Swedish OER initiatives and resources will also be established through the project. The project targets and has special focus on open educational practices (OEP). The project is funded by the Internet Infrastructure Foundation .S

EGIS+ European level developments of flexible learning models within geographical information systems (GIS) for vocational training

This paper deals with experiences from a successful previous pilot project under the Leonardo da Vinci programme implemented during the time period 2002-2006. That project E-GIS www.e-gis.org, is the basis for eGIS+ in the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP). Ten partners from six European countries; Bulgaria, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal participated in E-GIS. During the project period a study program, 100 % Internet based, corresponding to a one year full time study was implemented – resulting in eight course modules that were developed and tested out during the project. GIS – Geographical Information Systems – is a computer-based tool for handling and analysing digital map data to which are connected attribute data (spatially dependent phenomena), for statistical treatment – such as resource- and environmental planning, transport logistics, registration of archaeological findings etc. The main objectives of the E-GIS project was to establish a co-operation between European Universities and GIS user organisations and to develop modularised courses intended for Internet based learning. A heavy evaluation task was performed, based on digital questionnaires and interviews. eGIS+ is a pilot project, within the Leonardo Program “Transfer of Innovation”. The objectives of the project are to develop results from the previous E-GIS project. The aim is targeting a broader range of GIS user groups, test out new Learning Management System (LMS) and different media development software, translate course material into partner languages, create a larger variety of duration of course modules (modules from just few minutes duration, without credits, up to 10 ECTS) and create flexibility to a larger extent. During the new eGIS+ eight countries are involved with totally 11 partners. The duration of the project is two years (2007-2009)