As already mentioned in my earlier post, UNESCO has published the OER Recommendations in a first public version.

Attached my comments on the Open Call for Contributions to collect comments on the OER Recommendations by UNESCO that I have submitted today.

In principle, the OER Recommendations are balanced and formulated very well. They are presenting a vision on how OER can improve future education and learning.

What I’m missing are two key points:

First, the focus could be increased by addressing not only OER (as a means and instrument) but Open Education (as a multi-dimensional methodology) in general. As I understood that it is a political question, I have not mentioned it in my submitted somments but I hope that it can be added later.

Second, the importance of quality of OER and Open Education is not highlighted. Therefore I propose to add a sixth objective: “Quality assurance for OER: support and encourage the monitoring, evaluation and improvement of OERs. I hope that it will be included in the final version to underline and strengthen the need and demand for the (appropriate) quality of OERs.

UNESCO’s long-term aim is the approval of the OER Recommendations as official international UN recommendations by the United Nations in the global plenary 2019. That would be a milestone for our global OER movement and Open Education in general!

The OER Recommendations are following up the Second World OER Congress organized by UNESCO in Ljubljana on 18th to 20th of September 2017. And they are based on the Ljubljana OER Action Plan 2017 that were approved during the Second World OER Congress.