Description
In 2007, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration defined a shared vision of an open education movement, focused on participation of educators and learners, policies and resources (Cape Town Open Education Declaration 2007). In celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Declaration, a group of open education activists and experts collaborated in 2017 to reflect on progress made by the community over the last ten years. Collaboratively, they defined ten new themes, or directions, that the open education movement could follow to further grow. These themes can be seen as extending the scope of the open education movement, in particular when compared with formal policy process, conducted for example by UNESCO. The Ljubljana OER Action Plan, adopted 5 years after the original UNESCO Paris OER Declaration, is an example of a slow evolution of policy goals (UNESCO 2017). The ten directions, in comparison, translate into a broader and bolder extension of previous goals.
The ten directions are:
- Communicating Open;
- Empowering the Next Generation;
- Connecting with Other Open Movements;
- Open Education for Development;
- Open Pedagogy;
- Thinking Outside the Institution;
- Data and Analytics;
- Beyond the Textbook;
- Copyright Reform for Education;
- Opening up Publicly Funded Resources (Cape Town Open Education Declaration 2017).
During the workshop at OER18, Nicole Allen will start by presenting the Cape Town + 10 years project (http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/cpt10/), including an overview of the 10 directions. We will follow up with a discussion among participants of the workshop on whether such an extension of the concept of open education is useful and supports either policy or practice. Secondly, we would like to discuss the potential for further using this framework to support development of open education.
In the third part of the session, we would like to focus on three key areas: Communicating Open, Empowering the Next Generation, and Connecting with Other Open Movements. The discussion will be facilitated by Nicole Allen and will engage all participants of the session. We are not aiming to develop any recommendations or conclusions – but rather believe that through an in-depth discussion we can make session participants appreciate better the new directions.
The workshop will be part of a series of events highlighting the Cape Town + 10 years project, initiated with a satellite event during the 2nd World OER Congress, and continued during Open Education events in 2018. Potential outcomes will be shared on the project’s website and by project partners.
References
Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007). Cape Town Open Education Declaration. [online]. Available at: http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration [Accessed 26.11.2017].
Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2017). Cape Town Open Education Declaration 10th Anniversary. Ten directions to move Open Education forward. [online]. Available at: https://oerpolicy.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/09/Cape-Town-Declaration-10th-Anniversary-Booklet.pdf [Accessed 26.11.2017].
UNESCO (2017). Second World OER Congress Ljubljana OER Action Plan 2017. [online] Available at: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ljubljana_oer_action_plan_2017.pdf [Accessed 26.11.2017].