Open Education Week: Why is Open Education important?
6 Mar 2023 08:00 | HvA LibraryOpen Education Week (this year from March 6th to 10th) is an annual event that brings together teachers, educational support staff, policymakers, librarians, activists, and other enthusiasts to highlight the importance of Open Education. More and more teachers are using open education because it saves time. But what is open education, and what is the Library doing to promote it?
Increasing Accessibility to Knowledge
Digitization raises important issues regarding accessibility and copyright. Can information or knowledge be claimed? Or should it be freely available? These questions are also extremely relevant within education. Essentially, open education is about increasing accessibility to education and educational materials.
More Time for Lecturers
Open learning resources, including free e-learning and open textbooks, are on the rise. Crucial to this is that materials that are subject to copyright have been released under an open license or are in the public domain. Lecturers can exchange and reuse these, saving them a lot of time. Additionally, the quality of education can be improved through peer feedback on open learning resources.
Workshops on Open Education
By supporting lecturers in searching for and finding open learning resources that they can share and reuse in their courses or materials, libraries contribute to the accessibility and quality of knowledge. In the coming month, the Library will offer 2 workshops to AUAD lecturers on open learning resources. In the "Finding Open Learning Resources" workshop (in Dutch) on March 20th, lecturers will receive tips on how to find and apply open learning resources in their classes. In the "Making Open Textbooks" workshop (in Dutch) on April 6th, lecturers will work on searching and the basic principles of making freely accessible open textbooks.
National Approach to Open Learning Resources
In 2022, higher education institutions, including AUAS and UvA, agreed on a national approach to Digital and Open Learning Resources . Additionally, the Npuls program has been launched. Part of the national approach is a more efficient and accessible system for digital and open learning materials in which educational institutions have control.