OER

OER are defined as teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

More than a decade of international collaboration focusing on advocacy and capacity building has helped to advance the level of understanding and use of OER by educational decision makers worldwide. This year we celebrate the Year of Open:

• 2002: 15 years of positive impacts that open practices have brought to education, government, research and business.
• 2002: 15 years ago the term Open Educational Resources was created, the Budapest Open Access Initiative was launched, and the first Creative Commons licenses were released;
• 2007: 10 years ago the Cape Town Open Education Declaration was written;
• 2012: 5 years ago the first Open Education Week took place and the first OER World Congress was held, resulting in the Paris OER Declaration.
• 2013: 4 years ago the European Commission’s Opening up Education Communication was launched.
• 2013: 3 years ago Slovenia answered with its own holistic approach called the Opening up Slovenia Initiative
• 2017: 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
• 2019: Adoption of UNESCO Recommendation in OER.