SPECIAL CIDER SERIES ON OPEN EDUCATION AND PUBLISHING
During Open Education Week this March, the Canadian Initiative for Distance Education Research will host a series of three online webinars to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the open access journal, the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning.
These three free, online sessions exploring the critical role of openness in education and scholarly publishing will be held on Monday, March 3, Wednesday, March 5, and Friday, March 7, 2025. For details on each webinar and to join, visit https://www.cideresearch.ca
UNESCO has released its Dubai Declaration on Open Educational Resources: Digital Public Goods and Emerging Technologies for Equitable and Inclusive Access to Knowledge. from the 3rd World Open Educational Resources Congress held in Dubai, 2024. The Declaration's recommendations are:
Emerging technologies, including AI, provide opportunities to advance the 2019 Recommendation. Beyond the creation of new openly licensed content, potential applications include: facilitating the detection of existing openly licensed content online; developing techniques for effective OER curation; translating OER into multiple languages; and facilitating content indexing through the recommendation of descriptive metadata. Other emerging technologies, such as decentralized and secure digital ledger systems, could potentially ensure the provenance, integrity and lawful use of OER.
Legal frameworks are not up to date with technological advancements such as these. In the realm of intellectual property rights (IPR), the key to OER, this can lead to ambiguities on what constitutes legal use as well as issues regarding how exceptions and limitations to copyright law may be used even when a work is not openly licensed. Developing clear guidelines and policies that address these issues can help protect the rights of content creators, ensure proper attribution and create innovative technology spaces for the public good.
The Global Digital Compact and UNESCO’s ROAM-X principles, which are rights-based, open, accessible and promote multi-stakeholder participation based on cross-cutting principles, in particular gender equity, can inform policies for OER by providing a comprehensive framework that ensures inclusivity, equity and collaboration in the development and implementation of open educational resources.
These frameworks and principles, alongside the 2019 Recommendation, provide a robust foundation for developing OER. The stakeholders addressed in this document are those in the 2019 Recommendation 4. With regard to generative AI, it is important to underscore that these recommendations apply both to the inputs and outputs of large language models (LLMs). Furthermore, the principle of human-centred use of technology prevails in all recommendations. The principles of transparency and knowledge-sharing are fundamental for the implementation of these recommendations. The guidelines below aim to provide actions to harness the opportunities posed by emerging technologies, such as AI, for expanding knowledge-sharing and creation through the implementation of the 2019 Recommendation.
Dr. Rory McGreal
September 11, 2024, 11am MT
http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/mcgreal-2024
The recognition and transfer of credits is becoming essential for students, as an increasing number of them are studying at different institutions, often at the same time online, in both traditional and unconventional settings. Micro-credentials can aid in this process by providing easily accessible and transparent evidence of skills or knowledge, certified by an authority, based on small units of learning. The development of Blockchain technology holds promise of becoming a useful enabler for supporting the storage and dissemination of micro-credentials on a global scale. Because of its immutability, Blockchain can be used to attest to students' accomplishments securely and privately under their control. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can facilitate the micro-credential assessment process as well as their maintenance and dissemination on the Blockchain.
This session will describe the important features of these three technologies for higher educational contexts, and suggest how they can work together to improve learning for students, administration for institutions, and ensure security for both.
Related chapter: Empowering Micro-credentials using Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence
Registration is not required; all are welcome. To join the session, go to:
http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/mcgreal-2024
The Cloud data includes searchable records of journal articles (eg. papers in periodicals), reports (eg. from government or industry), books or other items in any medium. These items are available either directly from the Cloud repository or by links to their sources. Through the Cloud, Athabasca University Library aims to be a repository for all data related to open educational resources and the source of electronic copies of many references.
The Cloud's documents will be of enduring value to the OER community of researchers and scholars, industry and government, writers, historians, journalists and informal learners. By providing free access to research initiatives, data and other information on all aspects of open educational resources, the OER Knowledge Cloud enhances research opportunities and access to knowledge, removing barriers, opening up scholarship and making research universally accessible.
The OER Knowledge Cloud was winner of a 2014 ACE Open Research Award, recognizing "excellence in research studies about open education and/or related areas... that help advance our understanding and demonstrate effectiveness related to challenges in discoverability, presentation, usability, accessibility or availability of OCW/OER."The OER Knowledge Cloud is an initiative of UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning, developed and supported by Athabasca University.
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Individualisiertes Lernen mit digitalen Bildungsressourcen
