E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

Last friday during the 20120 World OER Congress at UNESCO HQ in Paris the 2012 Paris OER Declaration is approved. This declaration is the result of a process of couple of months with regional and online meetings and the final discussion at the Congress. The declaration recommends States to:

1. Foster awareness and use of OER.
2. Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
3. Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER.
4. Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks.
5. Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials.
6. Foster strategic alliances for OER.
7. Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts.
8. Encourage research on OER.
9. Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER.
10. Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds.

The declaration is now given to Director-General. She will submit this to the Executive Board. When they approve it, it goes to General Conference for the final approval.

You can download the declaration here. More information about the process is here.

What's next?
Interesting is how the different member states of UNESCO will implement this declaration. They shouldn't wait for the official approval, but should get started directly. An easy first step is to publish your own documents with an open license. UNESCO has announced that they will do this, when the Declaration is approved.

OpenScout has created a very good document about the Declaration and its implications. Per item they also do suggestions for actions a government can do.