Three Days of Focus on and Annotating the Developing Supportive Policy Action Area

We are preparing for a second Three Days of Focussed Annotation February 1 - 3, 2022 on the Developing Supportive Policy Action Area of the UNESCO Recommendation on OER .

Like we did in early December for the Building Capacity Action Area, the three day frame is just a time we will be calling for activity. As the act pf web annotation is largely asynchronous, you are invited to contribute notes before and after these dates.

Why Annotation?

We see web annotation as an opportunity to position our open education work by attaching notes in the Recommendation and to learn from the work of others. Attached to specific words of the Recommendation, annotation offer practical and examples of supportive policy from the field, critical discussions, and insights from a global perspective that can be applied to future implementation strategies for the Recommendation.

It brings a layer of conversational ties to relevant words in the document. And as annotation activity increases, just at a glance at this section, may provide an indication of the progress in this action area.

highlighted portions of action area indicate annotation activity.

We hope to collectively expand on the meaning and application specific words of this section of the OER Recommendation, and be able to share where policy has impacted practice. Possible notes to add might include

  • If your institution has an operating policy on OER, attach it to the specific section that best correlates to the suggestion. This means, what does an example of the recommendation look like in the world?
  • You can also explore the OEPolicy Hub for examples of other policies from different parts of the world, and find in the recommendation where it is best connected.
  • Links to policy research that addresses a key portion of the Recommendation.
  • Critical questions about the recommendation – discuss what it is missing in terms of policy issues or where local or national regulations cause challenges. What should be changed? How can policy makers be more engaged?

Learn more about this effort

Developing Supporting Policy is…

… perhaps like the support elements of our physical structures?


Photo by icon0com from PxHere shared under CC0

Questions we might ask you to consider when thinking about what kind of notes to attach to the OER Recommendation include:

  • What will convince governments, education authorities, and institutions to adopt regulatory frameworks and policies that openly licenses publicly-funded education and research materials now and into the future?
  • What do they need to make the benefits clear?
  • How does policy affect educators in the field?
  • What makes policy “supportive”?
  • Who influences policy making?
  • Why is this important?
  • Who does this affect?
  • What are the larger implications?
  • How is effectiveness of policy determined?
  • What is currently being done?
  • What needs to be done?
  • How can it be implemented globally?

Reply to this post (see button below) to generate discussion around these questions and/or post them as annotations in the Pressbooks version of the Recommendation.

Background on this Action Area

The Recommendation on OER describes the Developing Supportive Policy action area:

encouraging governments, and education authorities and institutions to adopt regulatory frameworks to support open licensing of publicly funded educational and research materials, develop strategies to enable the use and adaptation of OER in support of high quality, inclusive education and lifelong learning for all, supported by relevant research in the area;

More specifically Article 12 suggests:

Member States, according to their specific conditions, governing structures and constitutional provisions, should develop or encourage policy environments, including those at the institutional and national levels, that are supportive of effective OER practices.

Prepare for the Three Days of Focus

  • Watch the UNESCO Dynamic Coalition webinar on "Developing Supportive Policy: (june 2021) featuring a panel of educators from Africa, Asia and Europe

In These Three Days…

Participate in any way that works for you, we just hope to enrich the text of the Recommendation with a global perspective on the current implementation of Developing Supportive Policy and its relationship to expanding the reach of OER and Open Education in general.

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Will look forward to contributing in one way or the other. There is so much to do!
Thanks!

We are off and running… or “noting” for this second Three Day of Focus on an OER Recommendation Action Area.

This is the place to reply and maybe pose questions about the concept of Developing Supportive Policy- how did that come to be an action area? In your own work what kinds of policy exist that affect your open education work? What makes it supportive?

We have heard feedback that the general and broad language of the Recommendation is a challenge to work with. But that’s why breaking it down to words, phrases, and attaching notes is aimed at doing-- to dissect the words, maybe rather than to answer the Recommendation to critically interrogate them.

Mostly we hope to gain perspectives from different geographic regions, sectors on this action area.

So if there are any questions, comments, criticisms, suggestions, the platform is here to pose it.

If you are looking for a where to start, look at the specific items under this action area where we provide possible locations to add notes and prompt questions. Each “grain” includes a direct link that opens the Recommendation to the exact location of a sub-item for Developing Supportive Policy, with the annotation layer open.

We hope to light up the Crowd Layers summary for this round of annotations- before today, we stood at 171 total annotations (my colleague @igorlesko got three notes in before I grabbed a screenshot) (Go Igor, Go!)

crowd-layers-day-1

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