Open Educational Resources (OER)

OERs help improve education across the globe. They are important for developing countries, where many students may not be able to afford textbooks, where access to classrooms may be limited, and where teacher-training programs may be lacking. They are also important in wealthy industrialized countries, where they can offer significant cost savings.

The 2nd World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress took place from 18 to 20 September 2017 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, organized by UNESCO and the Government of Slovenia/Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, with the generous support of the Government of Slovenia.

The objectives of the 2nd World OER Congress were to:

• examine solutions to meet the challenges of mainstreaming OER content and practices into education systems worldwide;
• showcase the world’s best practices in OER policies, initiatives and experts, and;
• identify recommendations that are demonstrably best practices for the mainstreaming of OER.

The Congress marks the fifteenth anniversary since the term OER was first coined at a UNESCO meeting, and the fifth anniversary of the 2012 Paris OER Declaration that provided an internationally recognized strategy for OER actions.

The 2nd World OER Congress brought together Ministers of Education and Higher Education, decision-makers responsible for human resources development, senior policy makers, expert practitioners, researchers and relevant stakeholders. Some 500 participants attended the event from over 100 UNESCO Member States, including Ministers from Bangladesh, Barbados, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Kiribati, Lithuania, Malta, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Mauritius, Mauritania, Slovenia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

The 2nd World OER Congress resulted in the “Ljubljana OER Action Plan”1 and the 2ndWorld OER Congress Ministerial Statement2 which were both adopted by consensus.
The Ljubljana OER Action Plan provides recommendations to stakeholders in five strategic areas: building the capacity of users to find, re-use, create and share OER; language and cultural issues; ensuring inclusive and equitable access to quality OER; developing sustainability models; and developing supportive policy environments.

The stakeholders, identified in this Action Plan: educators, teacher trainers, librarians, learners, parents, educational policy makers at both the governmental and institutional level, teacher and other.

The 2012 Paris OER Declaration was formally adopted at the 2012 World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress held at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from 20 – 22 June 2012.

• 2012 Paris OER Declaration (English)
• Déclaration de Paris sur les REL 2012 (French)
• Declaración de París de 2012 sobre los REA (Spanish)
•  إعلان باريس لعام 2012 بشأن الموارد التعليمية المفتوحة (Arabic)
• 2012年开放式教育资源巴黎宣言 (Chinese)
• Парижская декларация по ООР 2012 г. (Russian)

The Declaration marks a historic moment in the growing movement for Open Educational Resources and calls on governments worldwide to openly license publicly funded educational materials for public use.
Non Official Translations of the 2012 Paris OER Declaration :

• Declaração REA De Paris em 2012 (Portuguese)
• Declaració de París de 2012 sobre REO (Catalan)
• 2012 Paris AEK Bildirgesi (Turkish)
• 2012 파리 OER 선언 (Korean)
• ปฏิญญากรุงปารีสด้านแหล่งทรัพยากรการศึกษาแบบเปิด พ.ศ. ๒๕๕๕ (Thai)
• Imyanzuro ya Parisi ku byigwa biboneka ku buntu yo mu mwaka w’2012 (Kinyarwanda)
• Pariser Erklärung zu OER 2012 (German)
• 2012 Paris OER Declaration (Hindi)
•  منابع آموزشی آزاد پاریس ٢٠١٢ بيانيه (Persian)
• 2012 Paris OER Declaration (Gujarati)

• Dichiarazione Di Parigi Sulle RDA 2012 (Italian)