Looking at AI for quality and sustainability in OER repositories through stakeholders’ perspectives

ENCORE+ OER Technology Position Paper No. 3

This third technological position paper has aimed to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for ensuring quality and sustainability in OER repositories and  also considers ethical issues related to the use of these systems in education. The ENCORE + Network aims to increase the dialogue among stakeholders and showcase good practices and strategies around Open Education, so this position paper has collected teachers, researchers, business and technological experts’ perspectives to contribute to the growing body of evidence looking at these topics to enhance the discussion within OERs’ communities of practice.

Quality in OER repositories was found to be challenging, although some practical solutions were proposed related to the replication of successful initiatives and the human’s leading role in quality assessment over technology, although supported by it. Evidence and discussion on sustainability in these spaces moved us to the existing business models for OERs explored within the ENCORE+ Network with insightful thoughts on new ways of revenue streams generation based on the creation of educational-related services for learners. Lastly, AI’s role in OER repositories and education was explored by an overview of the work done so far within this community.

Good practices aligned with the ethical recommendations by UNESCO on the use of AI in education were also explained with the case of X5Learn (AI powered OER repository) in terms of privacy and data protection, design and development of processes, ensuring human oversight and determination, and providing meaningful explanations for users’ understanding of algorithm decisions. 

Read the Paper:

Coordinator of this work:

Paz Díez Arcón, K4A

Participants: 

Eleonora Pantò, (FPM, Italy)

Sahan Bulathwela (K4A)