Learning

ENCORE+ OER Policy and Strategy for Higher Education in Europe

Giving a better understanding of OER’s policy initiatives This study provides a detailed analysis of policy measures, including OER policy initiatives from European universities in France, the UK, Greece, the Netherlands, and Ireland. The aim is to give a better understanding of OER’s policy initiatives from the perspectives of challenges, impacts, implementation, and sustainability. Specifically, […]

Quality transparency in OER repositories

Building the ENCORE+ Quality Transparency Framework (ENCORE QTF) The workshops and expert consultations conducted by ENCORE+ initiative during 2022 concluded that practices which OER repositories employ to develop the quality of the repository – called “quality approaches of repositories” – have to be made transparent. Transparency would allow users to understand upfront or in the […]

OER Innovation Briefing n.3

Innovation, Quality, Success Welcome to the second ENCORE+ Innovation Briefing! The goal 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 in higher education and business. This issue provides updates on some interesting projects, reports and […]

Does your organisation have an Open Educational Resources Policy or Strategy?

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 […]

Strategic support for OER value proposition

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 […]

Debrief: Policy Circle 2

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 […]

ENCORE+ at UIIN Conference Amsterdam 2022

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. […]

OER Technology Circle – Position Paper No. 2

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 […]

Quality – Position Paper No. 2

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, […]

No such thing as a free lunch?

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 […]

Invitation to a Peer Working Group on Quality for (European) OER repositories

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 […]

Debrief: Policy Circle 1

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 […]

Awareness, Experience and Organizational Maturity of Open Education

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 Innovation Briefing n.2

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 […]

Technological solutions for OER repositories: the H5P hub proposal

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 […]

Innovation and Business Models – Position Paper No. 1

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 […]

Open Education and Training – Where does Europe go from here?

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 […]

Quality – Position Paper No. 1

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 […]

OER Technology Circle – Position Paper No. 1

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 […]

How can Open Educational Practices become mainstream in Europe?

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 […]

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