This document summarizes a presentation given at a global education conference on building open collections. It discusses barriers to accessibility of open educational resources (OER), including language barriers since most online content is in English. It proposes some ways to address these barriers, such as using automated translation tools, collaborating on translations, and involving communities in translating and localizing content. The presentation provides several examples of projects working to make OER available in more languages and engage international communities in developing open collections.

1. THE FREE AND OPEN COLLECTIONS
Laura Franklin
Moustapha Diack
Barbara Dieu
Global Education Conference
November 17th, 2010

2. Laura Franklin
lfranklin@nvcc.edu

3. Professor Moustapha Diack
moustapha_diack@subr.edu
SL: moustapha shilling

4. Barbara Dieu
http://barbaradieu.com
Bee
http://beespace.net
Bee Kerouac
SL
http://twitter.com/bdieu

5. WHERE I WORK

6. WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING

7. NAVEGAR É PRECISO
http://beespace.net/resources/navquest

23. ACCESSIBILITY MATTERS
IN OER
DESIGN AND DEPLOYMENT
BUILDING LOCALLY
SHARING GLOBALLY

24. • Language
• Design (concepts of
openness)
• Universal Design for
Learning
• Physical Infrastructure
BARRIERS TO
ACCESSIBILITY

25. Internet - a predominantly English-speaking
medium:
- 80 % of the distributed learning resources on
the Internet are in English
- 80 % of the global Community do not speak
English
UN members speak at least 60 languages
- not everyone is comfortable expressing
themselves in English
Diplo Foundations on Internet Governance
http://www.diplomacy.edu/ISL/IG/default.htm
Language a Big Problem to Solve
BARRIERS TO OER
ACCESSIBILITY

26. Top Ten Languages Internet

27. Top Ten Languages Web
Top Ten Languages Internet Stats were updated for June 30 2010.
Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm

28. a) Technology and Exemplary Communities
b) Emerging Technology Solutions:
translation tools, automated translation services
Eg. Language Weaver: trusted automated
translation solutions for high-value, dynamic digital
information to improve human communications
c) Collaborative Work on OER Translations
The Way Forward
LANGUAGE:
A BIG PROBLEM TO SOLVE

29. http://adoteumparagrafo.pbworks.com/
Community of learning and practice around shared interest
Suggest articles for translation on new media, Internet culture by
bookmarking in delicious
http://www.delicious.com/tag/adoteumparagrafo
Each person adopts one or more paragraph of an article of
interest
Work on wiki (experimented on Google Translator)
Revision by one person at the end
Presential meetings to meet peers and celebrate completion
ADOTE UM PARAGRAFO

30. http://universalsubtitles.org/
UNIVERSAL SUBTITLES

31. http://www.franceculture.com/
http://owni.fr/
Which is more accessible to educators
and learners?
LICENCES
FRANCE CULTURE X OWNI

32. MERLOT World Languages Portal
an educational resource for teaching and learning languages.
MERLOT World Languages Community
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
http://worldlanguages.merlot.org/

33. UNESCO: Multilingualism + OER Community
Make OER accessible in the variou UN partner countries.
http://oerwiki.iiep-unesco.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Global Textbook Project
open content electronic textbooks freely available from a website
http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/
HOW TO GET INVOLVED

34. http://man.merlot.org/projects/index.html
Promoting Open Education Resources
in French-Speaking Africa
http://fr.wikieducator.org/REL-AF
HOW TO GET INVOLVED

35. Adopting the Quality Matters
Process and Rubric
in French West Africa
http://fr.wikieducator.org/Questions_de_Qualité/Introduction
HOW TO GET INVOLVED

36. http://rea.net.br
http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Rea
Promoting and Developing
Open Education Resources
in Portuguese
HOW TO GET INVOLVED

37. ANY QUESTIONS?
THANK YOU!