European Open Educational Resources Policy Project

"Open Educational Resources Policy in Europe" is a project that brings together a coalition of international experts to strengthen the implementation of open education policies across Europe. It aims to take advantage of the current high profile of open education in Europe, demonstrated by developments such as the explicit mention of Open Educational Resources (OER) as an important policy goal in the EU's new educational strategy "Opening up Education."

Goals of the project

Through the project, we want to establish Creative Commons and its European affiliates as key stakeholders in a policy debate on open education in Europe. Our goal is to ensure that educational policy with regard to resources and their use incorporates open principles based on best practices and high standards developed by our community. This can be achieved by licensing all educational content (both textbooks and other educational materials) that is being produced in Europe with public funding (both at European level and in member states) under a free license (CC BY or CC BY­SA).

The goal of the project is to support adoption of OER policies in Europe and European states by raising awareness of the OER model and demonstrating its advantages to governments, users and businesses. The project will focus on the K­12 level, but flexibly involve also issues related to higher education and lifelong learning. The initial phase of the project will run until April 2014 and will be based on three key activities:

1. building a COMMUNITY of activists, in particular by bringing together CC affiliates and others in their networks involved in OER activities;
2. creating CONTENT ­ a policy position and analyses to support it, as well as outreach and educational materials, in particular a handbook explaining the operation and benefits of open education; and
3. establishing CONTACT with policymakers and other key stakeholders through a series of targeted meetings and workshops.

The target audience of the project includes policymakers and decision making bodies: the European Commission, organizations working on OER policy and adoption in European states, opinion leaders in the field of education and international organizations influencing European OER policy.

Our plans

As part of the project, we will prepare a range of policy content, starting with a policy brief defining our position on Open Educational Resources policy for Europe. We want to compliment it with a range of analyses, including one on current textbook production models in European states (into which OERs need to fit) or educational exceptions and limitations. We will end the project with a publication of a comprehensive handbook on open education and policies that can implement it in Europe.

We will also conduct our work through a range of events, starting with our participation in the OERde13 conference in September in Berlin, continuing with a range of workshops and ending with a final event (details are still to be determined). Expect us also to take part in key events related to OER issues, which will be happening in the coming year.

All this will not be possible to achieve without a team of activists and researchers working in the field of OER policy and recruited from among Creative Commons affiliate teams.

Who we are

The project is led by Alek Tarkowski, Public Lead of Creative Commons Poland, with the assistance of CC’s Regional Coordinators in Europe and the local CC affiliate network. For almost a decade, Alek has been involved in Creative Commons and the open movement, and is a founding member of the Polish Coalition for Open Education (KOED). For the last several years, he has been actively conducting policy work on openness and OER in particular, and has been involved in establishing the governmental open textbooks program and a concept for a bill on the openness of public resources in Poland.