European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education
A key part of the ENCORE+ project lies in taking up and sharing different stakeholder perspectives. Perhaps there is no single correct way to think about these groups as there are many ways to divide up a large base of stakeholders (and potential stakeholders). But I think it might be of interest to share how our models have shifted in response to interactions with ENCORE+ communities and elements of the wider OER ecosystem.
Details about the ENCORE+ OER Innovation Survey and excellence showcase
When the important restrictions on travel and face-to-face contact which were introduced to alleviate the Covid-19 pandemic began to be relaxed it became possible for the ENCORE+ team here to meet with our stakeholders at various in-person events. These included OER22 in London, UK and Open Education Global in-person congress in Nantes, France. Over the […]
New report from the ENCORE+ project, focused on Quality in OER. This report titled “Credentialing learning in the European OER Ecosystem“, based on expert interviews, has been produced by the ENCORE+ project to examine credentialing methodologies in the European OER ecosystem. It is intended to provide impetus to discussion, and so to move forward both […]
This (hot) summer has seen the first opportunities for the ENCORE+ project to meet with members of our stakeholder communities face-to-face! The first conference came in April at OER22 in London, UK. OER22 is the foremost open education conference in the UK and Ireland and was run as a hybrid event with one day in […]
We need you! We are calling for participation of good practice examples of Open Educational Resources (OER) higher education policies and business strategies. The ENCORE+ Network aggregates stakeholders as well as existing networks around a community of practice with four thematic strands: technology, policy, innovation and quality. The aim of the Encore project is to […]
Policy and strategy report no. 1 The aim of this report is to explore how stronger relationships between higher education and business can address barriers to mainstream adoption and development of innovative and sustainable models and policies for Open Educational Practices (OEP).In this report, we explore how educational institutions and business interests can work together […]
Roadmap towards building the POC of key features of OER infrastructure The aim of the activity within the ENCORE+ project that brought to this Proof of Concept is to investigate and identify success criteria for a robust, sustainable and quality assured OER repository.The investigation has taken into account not only EU examples, but also the […]
Reflection on Policy Circle 2 event: OER – what does it mean? What does it involve? and who is it for? Maeve O’ Regan On the 4th of May 2022, the ENCORE+ project team held an online circle event, to discuss OER policies and to present case examples of OER in practice with participants interested […]
Reaching out beyond the OER bubble! by Fiona Schmidbauer, NextEducation Research Group, Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University Karlsruhe, Germany In June 2022, the 10th Conference of the University Industry Innovation Network took place in Amsterdam. UIIN Conference aims to connect the university and industry sector, mixing science and practice and thus combining research and practical experience. […]
Open Educational Resources and Repositories: the role of technology Whether you are a developer, a content creator, or simply a user of Open Educational Resources, technology plays a fundamental role as a tool for streamlining processes, improving outcomes, and thus driving adoption of open resources among an ever-widening audience. The second Position Paper for the […]
Open Educational Resources and Repositories: the role of quality Thematic Peer Group Workshops as a method for building a community-oriented quality framework Quality for OER, respectively quality for open education is viewed as the single most important factor determining the uptake of OER in institutions and training contexts. This is stated in Position Paper 1, […]
A European Ecosystem for Innovation in Learning: Harnessing the Power of OER This second Position Paper from the ENCORE+ Innovation and Business Models Circle is a continuation of the development of the ENCORE+ project as a whole and the discussion in the first ‘Circle’ event where the core concepts for a vision for a European […]
OER Policy and Strategy: where next? This Position Paper comments on the current state of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Europe, in particular at the policy and strategy level. It challenges some of the altruistic, philanthropic and public good drivers underlying the OER movement by identifying the need to align new open solutions with the […]
For the latest post in our series on OER business models, we focus on ways in which we can focus on concrete examples of innovation using open educational resources. Burd et al. (2015) highlight several business opportunities for open education described by Moodys: New revenue opportunities through fees for certificates, courses, degrees, licensing, or advertisement […]
Konkol et al. (2021) recently wrote about OER business models and sustainability. They frame this in terms of what they call the paradox ‘“that generating revenue out of OER is not intended, but ignoring income can make OER unsustainable”. This does capture the basic tension inherent in the idea of reducing the cost of educational […]
One key strand of our work in the ENCORE+ project is to capture, crystalize and build consensus around the potential of open educational resources (OER) to support alternative and innovative business models. This blogpost summarises some of the existing work in this area and indicates some key areas for further exploration. This is the initial […]
No innovation without integration Building on the overview of services, repositories, business models, and policy innovation practices described in the 2nd Innovation Briefing and the discussions held in the first Circle event, the 2nd Circle event of the ENCORE + project, focusing on innovation and business models, will invite participants to engage in a critical […]
Whether you are a developer, a content creator or simply a user of Open Educational Resources, technology plays a fundamental role as a tool for optimizing processes, improving results and therefore promoting the adoption of open resources in an ever wider audience. The 2nd circle event of the ENCORE+ project dedicated to Technology will be […]
In our upcoming ENCORE+ Circle event, focused on Quality on European Open Educational Resources, we will present and discuss our findings so far. Since the first circle events we have not only started a survey where we have asked several experts about their statements, fears and hopes for OER in Europe, but have also organized […]
Free + open? If we truly want to create a European Open Education Resources (OER) ecosystem we must address the challenges of OER financial sustainability. Central to the open education movement are the principles of openness and freedom in order to democratise access to knowledge, “everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and […]
When talking about specific metrics and measures on resources usage, probably the first element to discuss is whether current metrics and measures are effective or whether they contribute only partially to validating, supporting and thus improving the organization and traceability of open educational resources. In parallel, we should clarify who should access these metrics, because they can obviously play […]
Since the beginning of 2021, a number of European partners have come together to create a European Ecosystem for OER. This May, the ENCORE+ project is inviting you and your colleagues to join the ENCORE+ OER Ecosystem in a series of events on Open Educational Resources. The ENCORE+ “Circles” are designed to support and facilitate […]
Usability, easy access, user interface, friendly experience represent important factors for success of an online service, unfortunately in some cases they are mentioned as an actual issue of OER repositories. If users will not have a satisfactory experience, the availability of OER will be of limited added value.UX (User eXperience) is defined by “the international standard on ergonomics […]
From theory to practice. Open Educational Resources, in most of the cases, are published allowing re-use and re-editing. But… But moving to practice, many issues emerge, at different levels. Do you think that technologies, tools and strategies aimed at supporting the continuous improvement of the OERs are effective? You need to join the Technology Circle […]
Authoring tools need to be user-friendly both for the users of the OERs and for the creators that support the population of open contents in the web, mainly teachers and educators, but also passionate people.On one side, we need for example clear queries that help to find relevant and qualitative results. On the other, we […]
At the beginning of May we’ll have the 2nd ENCORE+ Technology circle event (more info will follow). Meanwhile why not to warm-up the engines of the debate focusing on the features of the OER repositories!? 10 polls, one per week, will be launched soon on the Technology Circle Linkedin group. We really hope to meet […]
What? Invitation to a moderated peer working group of repositories. Who? Repositories, Owners of collections, quality managers, experts, open educators. How? Peer working group with 4 meetings over 6 months. Objetive? OER repositories mutually explore practices of addressing their constituency, the community of educators and learners and analyse successful concepts to create impact. When? The […]
Reflections on the first Policy Circle The first meeting of the policy circle took place on the 30th of September. The session was attended predominantly by educators and those with an interest in Open Education. A draft position paper entitled “The Current State of OER in Europe: Going Beyond Altruism” was circulated in advance of […]
Data analysis of different attitudes and preferences Current research is lacking to provide such individual target profiles representing subjective preferences of usage as well as awareness and expectations (Mishra et al. 2016). One crucial factor in the uptake of OER in higher education and business are the different preconditions that various stakeholders bring to the […]
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