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The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has funded a five years program to encourage the use, creation and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER) by teachers from various types of education. This program is known as Wikiwijs. Ultimo 2013, the program has come to an end. As some of the assumptions at the start of Wikiwijs proved to work out in unexpected ways the lessons learned could fuel the next steps in developing Wikiwijs. Besides, other national initiatives on opening up education1 may also benefit from the lessons learned reported here. The main conclusion from five years Wikiwijs was that to accomplish mainstreaming OER, the Wikiwijs program should go along with other interventions that are more oriented toward prescriptive policies and regulations. In particular: the Dutch government should be more directive in persuading executive boards and teachers on schools to adopt OER as an important part of educational reform and the acquisition of 21st century skills.
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... This is largely attributed to the inability of both teachers and learners to access key learning resources such as electronic textbooks (e-textbooks) and other online materials, including reliable internet connectivity (Atenas et al., 2014). Teachers and learners also contend with skills' gap and technical barriers for use and access to OERs, limited reward and time for development of OERs contents, inequitable access to bandwidth and connectivity, and unclear/restrictive institutional policies (Atenas et al., 2014;Schuwer et al., 2014). These circumstances explain why Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy to make scholarly work and materials freely available online for students', teachers' and the public's access (Schuwer et al., 2014). ...
... Teachers and learners also contend with skills' gap and technical barriers for use and access to OERs, limited reward and time for development of OERs contents, inequitable access to bandwidth and connectivity, and unclear/restrictive institutional policies (Atenas et al., 2014;Schuwer et al., 2014). These circumstances explain why Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences adopted a policy to make scholarly work and materials freely available online for students', teachers' and the public's access (Schuwer et al., 2014). ...
... The action by Harvard University set precedence in the United States on open educational resources (OERs) for other universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to begin its Open Courseware (OCW) initiative (Schuwer et al., 2014). These open access policies largely build on the OERs' definition as propounded by UNESCO's 2002 Forum on Open Courseware. ...
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Research is an essential tool for the creation and advancement of knowledge for socio-economic development. Whilst individuals pursue different kinds of education in order to match international standards, employers are keen to recruit employees with needed skills for a competitive edge. Due to the newly existing educational technologies, individuals have been left with insatiable desire to learn more skills, yet, with limited resources. The advent of Open Education (OE) has led to mass retention, use/re-use, redistribution, revision, and remix of open educational resources (OERs) thereby transforming the learning and research landscape in higher learning institutions. This paper analysed the contribution of OERs and social justice (SJ) on research productivity in higher education institutions. A scoping review was adopted for this study to gather extant literature from relevant available databases with the aim of obtaining as much evidence as possible to make a clearer and succinct conclusion. Existing literature provides evidence that OER and SJ principles positively influence production of research outputs in higher education institutions. The main challenges hindering universality of OERs include economic, technical, legal, social, and infrastructural requirements needed for availing OERs to the beneficiaries including learners, educators, learning institutions and governments. Currently, there are many open and free-to-use resources and websites existing on the internet. There is however, need for attitudinal change towards OERs among students, academics, and scholars among other stakeholders if its optimum uptake is to be realized.
... Some country-specific OER platforms for schools have been developed, such as Wikiwijs in the Netherlands [8] or KlasCement in Belgium with an approach relying heavily on sharing materials [9]. e Norwegian OER Platform Nasjonal digital laeringsarena (English title: Norwegian Digital Learning Arena, NDLA) has been gathering experience with a large-scale OER model since 2006. ...
... e inclusion of linguistic minorities is of particular importance with regard to the heterogeneity within a country. NDLA has therefore developed materials for the 8 Education Research International ...
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Inclusive education and the associated consideration of the diverse needs of students from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds and different talents and disabilities are a worldwide challenge. This article shows how by addressing different user groups, state-funded platforms for open educational resources (OER) can contribute to the implementation of inclusive education. This is done using the example of the Norwegian platform NDLA, which has been providing open educational resources for upper secondary education in Norway since 2006. This paper is based on 13 expert interviews conducted with NDLA staff, cooperation partners, and members of the opposing schoolbook publishers union in 2017. The presented results focus on the diversity of learners, teachers, and platform staff and how this diversity is addressed. The presented results focus on the diversity of learners, teachers, and platform staff and how this diversity is addressed to ensure the best possible outcomes in learning and teaching. Finally, country-specific aspects that can be addressed by an OER platform are highlighted. In summary, the transferability of the Norwegian experience to other countries is discussed.
... Eine der wenigen, breit angelegten staatlichen Initiativen im Schulbereichin den Niederlanden -wurde nach Beendigung der initialen Förderung nicht fortgeführt: Wikiwijs, als nationales Portfolio für Lehr-Lernmaterialien in der Schule von 2008 bis 2013 (mit user-generated content) aufgebaut, konnte trotz einer vergleichsweise substanziellen Nutzung nicht genügend politischen Rückhalt erzeugen (Schuwer et al. 2014 Petko et al. 2003). Ob eine Lehrperson im Unterricht Medien erfolgreich einsetzen wird, hängt jedoch massgeblich von der Vorbereitung ab. ...
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... As stated by Bozkurt and Gil-Jaurena, "comprehending the past, learning from experiences, and devising strategic roadmaps based on that knowledge is crucial for understanding the future and positioning oneself effectively in the academic landscape," (2023). My aim in sharing my college's OER program builds upon and implements the assertions put forward by Müller (2021), Schuwer (2014), Mallinson & Emil Krull (2015), and Harold & Rolfe (2019): that there is tremendous value in sharing experiences with OER programming in order to help other educators, administrators, and librarians streamline their own open initiatives, equipped with robust understanding of the successes, challenges, and reflections of other open endeavors. As Baas, Schuwer, van den Berg, Huizinga, van der Rijst, & Admiraal determined from their study, educators find OER initiatives to be more successful if there is a strong community of peers to share their knowledge and experiences with each other, leading to more sustainable programs (2023). ...
... Some country-specific OER platforms for schools have been developed, such as Wikiwijs in the Netherlands (Schuwer et al., 2014) or KlasCement in Belgium with an approach relying heavily on sharing materials (Pynoo & Van Braak, 2014, p. 321). The Nasjonal digital laeringsarena (English title: Norwegian Digital Learning Arena, NDLA) is standing out for its long-term experience (since 2006), its extensive funding (20% of the textbook budget) and maximum openness. ...
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The article shows in which areas other countries can benefit from the work of the Norwegian platform NDLA (ndla.no). This assessment is based on interviews with 13 representatives of the platform, three cooperation partners and one representative of Norwegian textbook publishers. The experiences described refer to a large-scale Open Educational Resources (OER) platform for upper secondary education, which was founded in 2006. The contents and experiences of the interviews were categorised into four areas: creation process, consumption, context based decisions and peer-production. The openness of the colleagues through the interviews conducted allows –for the first time– insights into the structures, strategies and considerations of NDLA. In conclusion, the special potential of such a state funded OER platform for inclusive education and which aspects might be relevant for higher education is shown.
... While the Wikiwijs Project was primarily concerned with creating an infrastructure for Open Educational Resources (OER), it also clearly demonstrated the commitment of the Dutch government to realising a clearly defined and realistic approach to incorporating ICT into schools. However, even with all of the provision and support put in place not all teachers availed of the resources (Schuwer et al., 2014). One of the lessons learned from the project was that: more communication would have been helpful … to be persuasive in nature to convince various parties (school management, teachers, and so on) about the benefits and role that Open Educational Resources can have regarding educational reform and in acquiring 21st century skills. ...
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There is a significant movement towards digital learning internationally. However, policymaking in Ireland regarding the use of ICT in education, specifically second-level education, has been lacking. Students' experience of technology at school varies hugely. The current debate has become device focussed rather than content focussed. This paper examines how the lack of clear policy by the Department of Education and Skills has led to resistance by many stakeholders in embedding the use of technology into schools, and particularly teaching and learning.
... Belikov and Bodily (2016), based on 218 US faculty responses regarding OER, found that primary barriers to the adoption of OER are the need for more information, lack of discoverability of OER repositories, and confusing OER with digital resources. A five-year program in the Netherlands called Wikiwijs was intended to encourage the use, creation, and sharing of OER by teachers from various education levels (Schuwer, Kreijns, & Vermeulen, 2014). The results suggest that for mainstreaming, OER has to be affiliated with other interventions that are focused on prescriptive policies and regulations. ...
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