European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education
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 […]
OER Technology Focus Welcome to the second ENCORE+ Innovation Briefing! The purpose of this series is to provide an accessible introduction to the innovation potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Europe. These briefings are aimed at professionals and leaders from higher education and business. This edition provides an overview of technologies used to support […]
During our first live event (click here to watch the recording) we talked about the issues affecting OERs, with the result of a potential negative user experience. Obviously, this situation doesn’t help if we want OERs to become pervasive in the educational scenarios. ENCORE+ Technology Circle main question is “how technology can help?” There is more […]
The first ENCORE+ circle event on OER quality in Europe – and the road ahead 25th, 2021, more than 30 stakeholders from all over the world came together to discuss the future of OER quality in Europe. The event served as an inspiring kick-off to a series of quality circle events facilitated by the ENCORE+ […]
A European Ecosystem for Innovation in Learning: Harnessing the Power of OER This position paper argues that there is an untapped potential for Open Educational Resources (OER) to support innovation in European learning. While there are viable, established strategies for OER, there is no integrated European OER university-business ecosystem able to identify, catalyse and share […]
From the first round event to the next actions On October 29th , 2021 ENCORE+ opened the doors of the Technology Circle with an online, side event of the ICDE virtual global conference week “Upskilling and upscaling for quality Open, Flexible and Distance Learning”. Main focus of the event: the state of the art of […]
The first meeting of the Innovation Circle took place on the 27th September. This was the inaugural Circle meeting for this project but also for ENCORE+ as a whole. The session was attended by a range of people but predominantly educational technologists and OER advocates. The draft position paper was circulated ahead of the meeting […]
State of Play for an Emerging European OER Ecosystem Stakeholders, drivers and challenges in European OER Currently, the potential of open educational resources (OER) in Europe in higher education and business is not fully harnessed. The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) responds to this by building the foundation of a European […]
Open Educational Resources and Repositories: the role of quality Towards a community-oriented Quality Review Framework for OER The issue of quality assurance is fundamental in supporting the uptake of OER. Research has shown that it “remains a concern despite availability of many guides and frameworks” (2017 CoL Global Report, 62). This holds true for stakeholders […]
Technology has undoubtedly represented the enabling tool for the massive diffusion of online open educational resources, but also for this reason it is pulled in the middle every time there is some difficulty or limitation. Before starting to think about solutions, we would like to understand what priorities are perceived by users, teachers and enthusiasts. […]
Open Educational Resources and Repositories: the role of technology The position paper for the ENCORE+ Technology Circle argues that enabling technologies to enhance the potential of Open Education Resources and Repositories already exist, but they still have to be integrated in a joint process where stakeholders agree on the necessary standardization and interconnection to be […]
Open education is a philosophy that believes: Everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint. (Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2012). Open education is a key interest in Europe and the main focus of the ENCORE+ project. Although Open Educational Practices (OEP) have existed for over thirty years […]
The Current State of OER in Europe: Going Beyond Altruism This 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 […]
Understanding Open Educational Resources and Innovation Welcome to the first ENCORE+ Innovation Briefing! The purpose of this series is to provide an accessible introduction to the innovation potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Europe. These briefings are aimed at professionals and leaders from higher education and business. Coordinator of this work: The Open University […]
Innovation is a key interest in Europe, and also a key interest in the ENCORE+ project. So much so, that one of our four Circles is dedicated to understanding the relationship between OER and innovation; and documenting and sharing the new business models that are enabled by OER. Why should there be a relationship between […]
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