Intergovernmental Expert Meeting adopts revised Draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources

An important step forward: Intergovernmental Expert Meeting adopts revised Draft Recommendation on Open Educational Resources by consensus – submission to UNESCO’s General Conference in November 2019.

The Intergovernmental Expert Meeting related to the Draft Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommendation was held at UNESCO Headquarters on 27 and 28 May 2019. Some 100 experts nominated from UNESCO’s Member States and observers from intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations participated in the meeting.

The meeting was opened by Mr Moez Chakchouk, Assistant Director–General for Communication and Information and Ms Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education.

Ms Trudi Van Wyk, South Africa was elected as Chair of the meeting through its 2-day deliberations, which focused on the revision of the text of the Draft Recommendation related to  OER.

OER   are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.

This Intergovernmental Expert Meeting was held further to Resolution 44, of the 39th session of the UNESCO General Conference, by which Member States expressed their support for the development of a Recommendation on OER and requested that a draft text for this Recommendation be presented for examination at the 40th session of the UNESCO General Conference in November 2019.

The Draft OER Recommendation has five objectives: (i) Building capacity of stakeholders to create access, use, adapt and redistribute OER; (ii) Developing supportive policy; (iii) Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; (iv)  Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and (v) Facilitating international cooperation.

Reflecting recent educational trends, and taking into account a context marked by rapid technological changes, the draft Recommendation text sets out a transformative vision of OER, one that contributes to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

In his closing  remarks Mr Moez Chakchouk, Assistant Director General for Communication and information, highlighted that “…since 2002, when the term Open Educational Resources (OER) first emerged, OER has increasingly been recognized as an innovative tool for meeting the challenges of providing lifelong learning opportunities for learners from diverse levels and modes of education worldwide”.

Throughout the two-day meeting, a spirit of cooperation guided the meeting, which resulted in the production of a sound and robust text, that will be submitted to the 40th session of the General Conference this upcoming November.

The revised draft recommendation, adopted by the Intergovernmental Expert Meeting, will  be sent to all Member States by Circular Letter, in line with the procedure foreseen by the Basic Texts of UNESCO  (2016) concerning the  submission of draft Recommendations to be submitted to the General Conference for consideration and adoption.

  For more information, please contact Zeynep Varoglu at: z.varoglu@unesco.org