#COL4D welcomed the opportunity to be present at the 3rd World OER Congress held in UAE from 19-20 November 2024 under the theme “Digital Public Goods: Open Solutions and AI for Inclusive Access to Knowledge.” The aim of this year’s Congress is to optimise openly licensed content to address the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies.
COL President and CEO, Professor Peter Scott reminded attendees of COL’s place in the OER landscape, “COL is a catalyst for change focusing on open learning, for which OER is a critical instrument to deliver change. The real impact is not just OER as a product, but in the process. OER creation requires educators to collaborate, to think about others using their work and to create with the intent to share and extend benefit beyond on single use.”
In a panel discussion focussed on strategies to meet emerging challenges, Professor Scott explained, “If in our future work, we must create resources that are described in the language of skills – so critical to learners and employers, but also with respect to the ‘currency of credit’ – so critical to institutions and award pathways. AI is now ready to help us in this important transition from ‘content to impact’.”
Professor Scott was joined by Dr Shadrach, Director of COL’s regional centre in Asia, CEMCA, who presented at a breakout session focusing on “AI and OER initiatives” and by Professor Jane Agbu, COL Adviser: Higher Education who chaired a panel discussion and also presented at a breakout session on “OER as a public good for employability and emerging skills”.
The close of the Congress resulted in a draft ‘Dubai Call for Action on OER’, inclusive of guidelines aimed at providing actions to harness the opportunities posed by emerging technologies and for expanding knowledge sharing and creation through the implementation of the ‘2019 UNESCO Recommendation on OER’.
This call for action aligns with COL’s strategic goals to promote the rapid design, development and use of quality gender-responsive OER, to strengthen institutional systems to use OER for scaling teacher development and to support the integration of ICT and OER in teaching and learning through evidence-informed policy development and implementation.
COL has partnered with UNESCO over the last twelve years in organising global OER events in addition to a number of regional consultations. In 2012, COL and UNESCO co-organised the first World OER Congress which resulted in the adoption of the Paris OER Declaration encouraging governments to openly license educational materials developed with public funds.
The 2nd World OER Congress in Slovenia in 2017 developed strategies for mainstreaming OER for achieving inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. Congress participants agreed on an OER Action Plan to improve knowledge sharing, capacity building and universal access to quality learning and teaching resources.
COL and UNESCO later released joint “Guidelines on the Development of Open Educational Resources Policies,” i.e. specific tools to analyse current contexts and policy environments, understand issues related to copyright and licensing and align policy in support of Sustainable Development Goal 4.
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The annual 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign begins on 25 November, the International Day to End Violence Against Women and ends on December 10, International Human Rights Day. This global campaign emphasises the urgent need to address the rising violence against women and calls for actionable commitments to break the cycle. This year’s theme is “Towards 30 years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: Unite to end violence against women.” Read the full COL
Blog, here: www.col.org/news/col-in-support-of-16-days-of-activism/
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Pacific workshop breaks new ground: Merging traditional wisdom with digital innovation for skills development for women.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) #COL4D and the Pacific Centre for Flexible and Open Learning for Development (PACFOLD) recently held a three-day regional workshop on Women, Skills and Resilient Livelihoods in the Small States of the Pacific in Nadi, Fiji. The event brought together 25 participants from nine countries – Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu (mostly from the non-governmental, not-for-profit sector but also inclusive of six government officials from five countries). The expected outcome was the generation of several new project ideas.
The workshop provided a space for both government and civil society to hold critical discussions on challenges facing girls, women, and persons with disabilities in their various nations. This led to deliberations on ideas that could address some of those challenges. For instance, drug use and violence emerged as challenges where training on peer-based support, counselling and health education was identified as an emergent skill that could provide young women with livelihood opportunities while also addressing a social issue.
The discussions on the potential of technology facilitating social innovations that can create opportunities for skills training and resilient livelihoods were another highlight of the workshop. The case studies that were presented gave new ideas for scalable solutions where participants could visualise and think of adapting some solutions for their own context. This activity is part of a regional project on open, flexible, and distance learning supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand.
Ideation invited participants to reframe challenges in skilling and building resilience. Individually and then collectively, they suggested solutions to shared problems. Building on a foundation of human rights, leadership and financial literacy training, participants co-created targeted interventions into outputs with clear possible outcomes for context-relevant lifelong learning for girls, women and persons with disabilities. One participant’s feedback shows that the approaches used were helpful: “Day 3 was my best day because we were able to solve problems by reframing them from different angles and providing numerous solutions. I find group discussion is the best tool to get work done.”
Dr Karen Nyangara, COL’s Adviser: Gender, commented, “The approaches used during the workshop were new to some participants. COL and PACFOLD kept participants fully engaged and gave them the platform to hear each other’s perspectives on shared issues, rethink solutions to societal challenges and collaboratively plan for social innovation.”
#COL4D #WomenEmpowerment #DigitalInnovation #TraditionalWisdom #SkillsDevelopment #GenderEquality #PacificRegion #TechForGood
#SustainableDevelopment #DigitalInclusion #EmpoweringWomen
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