"Single-Entry Window" as a Platform for an OpenCourseWare Repository

Alexey ABRAMOV, Maria BULAKINA, Alexey SIGALOV,State Institute of Information Technologies and Telecommunications

"INFORMIKA", Russian Federation,

Svetlana KNYAZEVA, UNESCO IITE

Joint Pilot Project ofINFORMIKA and UNESCO IITE

INFORMIKA:

Portal "Single-Entry Window"

UNESCO IITE:

Project "Open Educational Resources"

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= OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository – Teaching Materials with Open Licenses for Higher Education

UNESCO IITE OER Project

Since 2010 IITE has been implementing a project on Open Educational Resources in non-English-speaking countries.

ObjectivesAdvocating the OER movement and building the capacity in production, sharing and use of OER in UNESCO Member States, in particular, in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Baltic States and other non-English-speaking countries.

ApproachThe project activities build on the results of examination of the needs, capacities, opportunities and challenges for the production and use of OER in the selected countries. Emphasis is placed on the exploration and dissemination of best practices, raising awareness of open licenses and development of recommendations for a wider use of OER in educational practice.

OER in Non-English-Speaking Countries

At its initial stage the project was focused on educational content in the Russian language and in national languages and involved most CIS and Baltic States.

The state-of-the-art, challenges and prospects for the development of OER were studied in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, as well as in Latvia and Lithuania.

.The surveys covered national policy for ICTs in education with a focus on OER-related issues, the current state of advancement of educational content, major achievements, challenges, and obstacles, including technological and IPR aspects.

OER in Non-English-Speaking Countries

The scope of the project expanded to include Japan, People’s Republic of China, Brazil, Turkey and Vietnam. The surveys provided a further insight into the OER-related patterns in various non-English-speaking countries.

Case studies on OER in Brazil, China, Lithuania and Russia were published. Several other case studies are being prepared for publication.

In total, surveys in 16 non-English speaking countries have been completed, several more are in progress.

Publications Information brochure "Open Educational Resources in Non-English-Speaking Countries".

Analytical report "The Use of Creative Commons Licenses in the Russian Federation".

Survey "Educational Portals and Open Educational Resources in the Russian Federation".

Policy briefs:"Global trends in the development and use of open educational resources to reform educational practices";"Open educational resources and intellectual property rights".

Online training course"Open Educational Resources"

IITE has launched a new training course on the creation and use of open educational resources for teachers of higher and secondary schools.

http://lms.iite.unesco.org

IITE and INFORMIKA at UNESCO World Open Educational Resources Congress

The 2012 World Open Educational Resources Congress was held on June 20-22, 2012 at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France.IITE and INFORMIKA delegations took part in the Congress and the Open Seminar and Exhibition.

Portal "Single Entry Windowto Educational Resouces"

http://window.edu.ru

• Project commissioned by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (2005 - …).

• Goal - integration of educational resources in a single information system.

• Main components:- Catalogue of Internet resources – metadata of over 56 000

resources.- Digital Library – more than 30 000 resources.

"Single-Entry Window":Digital Library

Digital library includes over 30 thousand full-text electronic versions of educational and instructional materials:

textbooks and manuals; lecture notes; laboratory courses; problem books; instructional guidelines; curricula; tests; monographs; reference books.

"Single-Entry Window":Digital Library

Sources of electronic library materials

• Universities and higher education institutions;

• Faculties, departments, research centers of universities;

• Institutes of the Academy of Sciences;

• Publishers, journal editors;

• Non-profit organizations.

In total more than 300 organizations.

Rules of publication in the Digital Library “Single-Entry Window”

• Authors submit their materials to the Portal Editorial Board for publication in open access.

• Electronic materials published in open access at the websites of their authors/owners can be included in the Digital Library upon receiving a consent of the authors/owners.

• The materials should be designed for educational purposes (not for commercial purposes).

• Printed books are not converted to the digital format by Portal Editorial Board.

• The Library does not contain printed books digitized and published in open access without receiving the consent of their authors/owners.

• The relations with the organizations providing their materials are regulated by the agreements on transfer of non-exclusive rights.

• Permission for publication of materials are requested by e-mail from authors and officials (chairs, heads of departments, project coordinators).

Open Digital Libraries of Higher Education Institutions

Content – digital versions of textbooks published at the institutions (pdf, doc):

• Textbooks and instructional guidelines• Collections of problems, assignments and tests; learning activities• Instructional guidelines for laboratory courses, term papers and

graduation theses• Educational and instructional complexes of disciplines• Monographs• Collections of papers and proceedings

Types of digital libraries:• Databases with options of attribute-context search using the

descriptions of resources.• “Static” lists with links to full-text documents.

Several dozens of large-scale digital libraries.

Examples of open digital libraries of higher education institutes

Open resources at the websites of chairs and personal pages of tutors

• Static web pages with collection of links to resources (pdf, doc, zip, etc.).

• Various forms of presentation even within one web page.• Descriptions of resources are often unavailable.• Digital versions of printed books and sometimes

unpublished materials – presentation of lecture materials, course curricula, assignments, tests and examination questions.

Examples of materials at the web sites of chairs, departments, teachers

Agreements with the organizationsproviding their materials

Agreements on transfer of non-exclusive rights.

“Single-Entry Window” statistics

Dynamics of visits to the portal: 40-70 thousand users per day.

“Single-Entry Window” Portal: Lessons Learnt• The information system containing resources for all levels of

education commissioned by the Ministry of Education had been designed and successfully functioning.

• State Institute of Information Technologies INFORMIKA is the head organization that is in charge of portal design, hosting, technical maintenance, information support.

• Information is provided by hundreds of organizations (higher education institutions, research institutes, further training institutions, publishing houses, noncommercial and commercial organizations) and thousands of individual educators.

• The portal integrates resources designed for various purposes – developed both purposefully for the portal and published in open access on the Internet.

• Portal resources are in high demand: - about 40-70 thousand visitors per day; - “total digital circulation” of the portal materials – above 5 million copies per year.

• 2008 – RF Government Prize in the field of education.

Digital Library of the “Single-Entry Window” Portal: problems and challenges

• Approaches to content management of the Library are not in full compliance with the Russian legislation in force (Civil Code, Part IV).

• Drafting and signing of individual contracts with each author is not feasible for the Editorial Board of the Portal, as the Library includes over 30 thousand resources.

• There is no certainty about the ways of use of the resources by the users.

• The Library cannot be positioned as a digital library system that should be used by higher education institutions in accordance with the federal education standards.

HEIs and digital libraries: President’s opinion (2010)

• Dmitry Medvedev: “Digital libraries of universities should be open for everybody”

“As to digital libraries, every university locks its library. If I am not a student or a teacher of a particular university, I often cannot have access to it. These libraries are our national asset, and it is unfair that universities do not allow access to them“ –

President’s speech at the joint meeting of the State Council of the Russian Federation and the Commission for Modernization and

Technological Development of the Economy on the development of professional

education in the Russian Federation (August 2010)

OER in Russia: conclusions

• Are the Russian resources available in open access the proper “Open Educational Resources” that comply with UNESCO definition? The answer in many cases is NOT.

• The quality of Russian educational resources available in open access is at the level of world standards of OER and those designed for general education are probably even of higher quality than average world level.

• Russian higher education institutions are lagging behind their foreign counterparts in promoting open access to their educational resources (educational courses).

• Most Russian repositories of open educational resources were set up under state order.

• The open licenses that are widely used worldwide are not taken into account by the acting Russian legislation on author rights and are merely used in education.

International practice: Open Educational Resources and Creative Commons licenses

http://creativecommons.org

ИРИО, http://creativecommons.ru

UNESCO OER Project, http://unesco.org,

UNESCO IITE, http://iite.unesco.org/

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), http://ocw.mit.edu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001

OpenCourseWare Consortium,

http://www.ocwconsortium.org

Creative Commons (CC) licenses

BY - «Attribution»

SA - «Share Alike»

NC - «Non Commercial use»

ND - «No Derivatives»

The most permissible license – CC BY

The most prohibitive license – СС BY-NC-ND

Joint Pilot Project ofINFORMIKA and UNESCO IITE

INFORMIKA:

Portal "Single-Entry Window"

UNESCO IITE:

Project "Open Educational Resources"

+

= OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository – Teaching Materials with Open Licenses for Higher Education

OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository

Setting up a repository of open-licensed educational materials on the basis of the “Single-Entry Window” Portal:• Using the system and software components of “Single-Entry Window” Portal, hosting at INFORMIKA datacentre.

• Extended functions of the Portal: modification of the structure of the database, metada, user and administrator interfaces; upgrading of the application program software.

• Development of instructional materials for authors, uploading demonstration and training materials for repository users, advise to users.

• Disseminating information about the project to the research and education community in Russia and CIS, promotion of the OER movement.

OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository

Content management and maintenance of the repository

Ways of acquisition of educational materials for the repository: Bulk download of the materials provided by higher education institutions, chairs and departments - xml-conversion. Uploading the resources and metadata in online mode using the web interface. “Licensing” the resources already uploaded to the “Single-Entry Window” Portal (contacting authors/owners of the resources).

Information support: Authors: content management, amendments and updates through the web interface. Editorial Board: checking metadata and uploaded materials; moderating forums; advice to users.

Launch of the repository — September 2013.

Thank you for your attention!

http://ru.iite.unesco.org

Contacts:

State Institute of Information Technologies and Telecommunications "INFORMIKA". St. Petersburg Branch

Alexey SIGALOV, sigalov@run.net

UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education

Svetlana KNYAZEVA, s.knyazeva@unesco.org

http://www.informika.ru