E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

From 20th to 22nd of June UNESCO is organising a World Congress on Open Education Resources.

The goal of the 2012 World OER Congress is to invite Governments to view and discuss the merits of open educational resources and to adopt a Declaration that calls on Governments to support the sustainable development and dynamic use of OERs.

In preparation of the conference they are working on an Paris Declaration on OER. Version 7 is now available for review. The draft declaration calls governments to:

• Foster awareness and use of OER
• Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies
• Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER
• Promote and adopt legal frameworks for open licensing
• Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials
• Foster strategic alliances for OER
• Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts
• Encourage research on OER
• Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER
• Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds

During the conference there is also a parallel programme:

To provide an opportunity to civil society organizations, academia, and individual experts to present on their OER initiatives, UNESCO is organizing a parallel Open Seminar & Exhibition from Thursday 21 – Friday 22 June.

I will be present there to promote OpenCourseWare in general and our OpenCourseWare in Europe in specific.