Members of HAEMUS were part of the round table ‘OER – Experiences, benefits, challenges, open issues and future steps’ took place on December 19, 11.00 am at the Conference and Study Center of the National & University Library ‘St. Kliment Ohridski’ – Skopje. The Alliance for Open Educational Resources was presented at the event supported by the Metamorphosis Foundation, attended by 35 participants from primary and secondary schools, universities, libraries, non-governmental organizations and public institutions.
The roundtable began with a presentation of Mrs. Lidija Topuzovska from the National Commission for UNESCO of Macedonia, who talked about UNESCO’s projects and programs for open education. She noted that we are in the UNESCO Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, and spoke about the UNESCO clubs and efforts to translate several UNESCO guides in local languages, including the guide: World Heritage in Young Hands.
After the keynote presentations, attendees shared their experiences and exchanged ideas and recommendations for the development of education and open educational resources.
■ These were some of the issues that remained open during the discussion of the participants:
■ The lack of sustainability of the projects for Open Educational Resources is a challenge when it comes to guaranteeing that they would continue to exist after their official completion;
■ The familiarization of teachers with the OER Initiative is a complex process, users need to be motivated to visit this platform instead of using Facebook as a platform for communication and sharing;
■ Piracy as a challenge, when it comes to awareness raising about OER and appreciation.
Some of the recommendations given at the end of the round table:
■An open educational resource is not an open educational resource if it is not available on the internet;
■ It is necessary to make a correlation between the Ministry of Education, open educational resources and legislative initiatives;
■ Many creative teachers and creative students must have a chance to demonstrate their potential in creating resources by establishing a link with the Bureau of Education Development;
■ Resources created by children during the educational process should be acknowledged as their copyright works and be published with institutional support with the help of teachers who would edit the work and filter the content;
■ The media can be used as a means for OER promotion;
■ The www.oer.mk website can be a sustainable catalyst and aggregator of resources, and a place where everyone can share, download and rate resources.
Source: oer.mk
