dr Alek Tarkowski Creative Commons Defining OER policies for public content, and bringing them to life. OER14, Newcastle upon Tyne,

From grassroots activity to top-down policies „Open anything” begins with grassroots activity and develops into a policy debate over time Open data / PSI an obvious outlier

From grassroots activity to top-down policies. A shift from one kind of activity to the other can be seen over time in most fields of openness.

From grassroots activity to top-down policies Policies provide strong leverage for implementation of open standards Public character (funding) of content a strong argument for openness: the commons / public infrastructure Policies lack the element of personal, voluntary decision – but are an expression of a consensus as to the „management” of common resources

Openness: a template. We can map open policies based on a template that lists all key areas to address by policy means. This template is a work in progress.

Openness: a template Legal / licensing standards Author / publisher / intermediary compliance Content type / Repositories Embargo? Metadata Use / reuse practices (by users)

point of reference: OA Advantages: Mature content production and distribution model (also from an economic perspective) 20+ years of experience w/ implementation Precise goals / tools / theory of change – „modest” in a good sense (vs. open science) Clear institutional policy model Challenges: (relatively) low attention paid to licensing Low content reuse

point of reference: OER Advantages: Clear arguments about importance of reuse Greater potential for grassroots involvement Challenges: Less mature implementation model Tools / standards for OER Ongoing licensing debate More varied content makes developing a theory of change difficult Reuse: high potential / still little proof

Licensing debate. Providing a strong standard for open licensing should be akey goal of open educational policy.

Licensing debate Strong open licensing is crucial for OER and other areas, where reuse is of key importance (open data) Public funding – strong argument for fully open licensing Open Knowledge Definition as a underlying / unifiying mechanism for standards negotiation

Beyond the licensing debate Open Access vs. Text and Data Mining: the current debate in Europe, which favours an approach based on a new exception to copyright (instead of a free licensing model) demonstrates limits of open licensing.

Examples of policy language and definitions for OERs and open education. At the beginning was the grassroots- written Cape Town Declaration (2008).

OER definition: Cape Town Declaration 2. Open educational resources: Second, we call on educators, authors, publishers and institutions to release their resources openly. These open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they should also be available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet.

OER definition: Cape Town Declaration 3. Open education policy: Third, governments, school boards, colleges and universities should make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Accreditation and adoption processes should give preference to open educational resources. Educational resource repositories should actively include and highlight open educational resources within their collections.

The UNESCO Paris Declaration (2012) does not provide a strong open standard (due to the „limited restrictions” language). Still, it provides a baseline, used as point of refence in later policy making efforts. educational-resources/what-is-the-paris-oer-declaration/

OER definition: UNESCO a. Foster awareness and use of OER. b. Facilitate enabling environments for use of ICT. c. Reinforce development of OER strategies and policies. d. Promote understanding and use of open licensing. e. Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials. f. Foster strategic alliances for OER. g. Encourage development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts. h. Encourage research on OER. i. Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER. j. Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds.

OER definition: UNESCO UNESCO „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.”

OER definition: Scotland „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.”

The Hewlett Foundation definition provides a strong standard of openness through its definition of OER.

OER definition: Hewlett Hewlett Foundation „OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re- purposing by others.”

Poland. While lacking a general open education policy, Poland has developed a strong, model standard of openness for educational resources, as part of its „Cyfrowa szkoła” (Digital School) program.

Poland: Open Textbooks Context: OER in Poland in last 5 years Coalition for Open Education (KOED) Public OER projects Grassroots activities : Open e-Textbooks project 2014: Open Primer project No policy (yet!) behind the activities

OER definition: Poland all content will be available under the CC BY license (or comparable) – that allows use of resources and their derivatives without fees, in an unlimited, nonexclusive manner; all content will be available in at least one open format – for example, web content will be available as HTML5 documents; all content that is accessed online will be made available in accordance with the current W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Open Public Resources Act General model from the „Open textbooks” project Complimentary to Public Sector Information rules -> together would form a general open norm for public content Inspiration drawn from AUSGOAL and NZGOAL frameworks 2013: Bill proposal

The language used in the proposal for the FASTR Bill in the United States provides a model way of distinguishing between access and reuse, and securing both outcomes of openness. FASTR%29

OER definition: FASTR (US) (4) free online public access to such final peer-reviewed manuscripts or published versions as soon as practicable, but not later than 6 months after publication in peer-reviewed journals; (5) providing research papers as described in paragraph (4) in formats and under terms that enable productive reuse, including computational analysis by state-of-the-art technologies;

The MoU on OER between Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan provinces of Canada includes an explicit definition of a strong standard of openness for OER. 71ceb7810a5d&PN=Shared

OER definition: Canada “Open Education Resources” means “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 existing framework of intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and respects the authorship of the work.”

The „Opening up Education” initiative and the „Erasmus Plus” program of the European Union includes an open licensing requirement. What is missing is a definition of open licensing that would set a standard of openness for grantees.

Opening Up Education [footnote] “OER are learning resources that are usable, adaptable to specific learning needs, and shareable freely”. “Ensure that all educational materials supported by Erasmus+ are available to the public under open licenses and promote similar practices under EU programmes”.

Opening Up Education “Beneficiaries of Erasmus+ grants producing any such materials, documents and media in the scope of any funded project should make them available for the public, in digital form, freely accessible through the Internet under open licences” (Program guide)

Opening Up Education Pragmatic approach instead of an ideological one? (which OA already knows this very well) Educators, students don’t necessarily care about openness – they care about affordability, efficiency, ease of use, quality And therefore policymakers care about this too

Policy challenges Licensing standards / Risk of Openwashing MOOCs and openness Commercial usage as the controversial provision Differences between K-12 / HE / Vocational / Lifelong / Informal education

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