Report for POERUP Project published at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Romania, in December 2012

1. OER in Romania
Consultant: Carmen Holotescu
Contents
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
1 Overview
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
1.1 Further information
2 Education in Romania
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
2.1 e-learning
2.2 Quality procedures
3 Internet in Romania
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4 Copyright law in Romania
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
3.1 Internet in Education
4.1 Copyright law in Education
5 OER Initiatives in Romania
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5.2 Regional OER initiatives
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
5.1 National OER initiatives
5.3 Institutional OER initiatives
6 References
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6.1 Reports
Overview
Romania (archaic: Rumania, Roumania; Romanian: România) is a country located in Southeastern and
Central Europe, north of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian
arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory. It shares a
border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraineand the Republic of Moldova to the northeast,
and Bulgaria to the south.
The territory's recorded history includes periods of rule by Dacians, the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of
Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. As a nation-state, the country was formed by the merging of Moldavia
and Wallachia in 1859 and it gained recognition of its independence in 1878. Later, in 1918, they were
joined by Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly
the present day Moldova) were occupied by the USSR and Romania became a member of the Warsaw
Pact. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms.
Since December 1989, Romania has pursued a policy of strengthening relations with the West in general,
more specifically with the United States and the European Union. It joined the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO) on 29 March 2004, the European Union (EU) on 1 January 2007, while it had joined

2. the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in 1972, and is a founding member of the World Trade
Organization.
Romania has the 9th largest territory and the 7th largest population (with 21.5 million people) among the
European Union member states.
Its capital and largest city is Bucharest (Romanian: Bucureşti), the 6th largest city in the EU with 1.9 million
people.
Romania is a semi-presidential unitary state.
Further information
For further general information see Romania in figures (2012) from National Institute of
Statistics and Wikipedia:Romania.
Education in Romania
According to the Law on National Education (http://www.edu.ro/index.php/legaldocs/14847) adopted in
2011, the education system is regulated by the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport, and it
consists of:

The preuniversity system that contains the following levels:
a) early childhood (0-6 years), consisting of the ante-preschool (0-3 years) and preschool (3-6 years);
b) primary education, including the preparatory class and grades I-IV;
c) secondary education, including:
(i) lower secondary education or secondary education, which includes classes V to IX;
(ii) secondary education or secondary education, which includes X-XII/XIII classes with the following
channels: general, vocational and technological
d) vocational education lasting 6 months to 2 years;
e) nonuniversitar tertiary education, including post-secondary education.
The pre-university education system also includes related units: "Houses of the Teaching Staff" (teacher
training centres), County Centres for Pedagogical and Psychological Assistance, logopedic centres, School
Inspectorates.

The Romanian higher education system is in line with the Bologna Agreement. As a result, most
Bachelor’s programs take 3 years to complete. However, some programs last longer – for example,
some technical fields, medicine and architecture. Master’s programs take 2 years beyond the
Bachelor’s degree. Master’s programs are a prerequisite for admission to Ph.D. programs. Ph.D.
programs usually take 3 years to complete. Under special circumstances, the duration of study may be
extended by 1 or 2 years. Romania has a large higher education sector with 54 public universities and

3. approximately 40 accredited private universities. The new Law on National Education seeks to bring
about the following changes to HE institutions:
- increased autonomy and increased public accountability;
- university classification (see below);
- concentration of resources;
- entrepreneurship;
- human resources policy reform;
- student-centred universities.
A new university classification is being introduced in 2011 that distinguishes three types of institutions:
- Education-centred (bachelor)
- Education- and research-centred (bachelor and master)
- Advanced research and education-centred (plus doctoral). The evalution project was supported by the
European University Association http://www.eua.be/News/11-0325/EUA_to_support_development_of_higher_education_reforms_in_Romania.aspx.
A university can move from one category to another. Further flexibility is provided to the extent that, e.g., a
university classified as education-centred can offer master or doctoral studies in certain fields, provided that
the specific programme has been evaluated to be of high quality. Funding will be dependent on the type of
university and the results of a ranking of study programmes.
Among the educational priorities of the government program of 2012 there are http://gov.ro/programul-deguvernare-2012__l1a117011.html:

a performant continuing education program for teachers co-financed with European funds

"The school of the second chance": reintegration in schools of children who abandoned the studies

"The school after the school": pupils may remain in the school building after the end of the lessons for
tutoring sessions or as participants of organized sport, interest and recreation activities

adapting learning programs to meet individual and society needs

creating community centers for lifelong learning - http://www.edu.ro/index.php/articles/18341

the development of the RoEduNet network for gaining fast internet access in a large number of areas.
For a detailed overview of the Romanian pre-university system, access Popescu, Ana‐Cristina. "The
decentralisation of the school system in post‐communist Romania." Journal of Educational Administration
and History 42.3 (2010): 315-336.http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220620.2010.492964, and
for an overview of the higher education system, access the Monograph on Higher Education
in Romania http://www.fulbright.ro/media/pdf/Monograph%20on%20Higher%20Education%20in%20Roman
ia.pdf .

4. There are also an authoritative recent reports
at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTROMANIA/Resources/EducationPolicyNote.pdf (2007), http://www.
see-educoop.net/education_in/pdf/workshop/tesee/dokumenti/book/Romania.pdf (2006, other
reportshttp://www.see-educoop.net/portal/id_rom.htm)
and http://www.ibe.unesco.org/National_Reports/ICE_2008/romania_NR08.pdf (2008).
Further information at EURYPEDIA
Romania https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/mwikis/eurydice/index.php/Romania:Overview, Analysis of the
implementation of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET2020) Country analysishttp://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc/joint11/wp2_en.pdf,
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_educational_system.
e-learning
A clear and comprehensive overview of projects and initiatives aimed at integrating ICT and e-learning at all
levels of education is provided by the paper Istrate, Olimpius (2007). "eLearning in Romania: the State of
the Art". eLearning Papers, no. 5. ISSN 18871542.http://www.elearningeuropa.info/files/media/media13566.pdf, which however dates back to 2007, thus
referring mostly to closed projects. See also:

Marin Vlada: The most important ten eLearning initiatives and projects in
Romania http://www.elearning.ro/utilizarea-tehnologiilor-elearning-cele-mai-importante-10-initiative-siproiecte-din-romania.

Vlada, Marin, Radu Jugureanu, and Olimpius Istrate. "E-Learning and Educational Software.
Educational Projects and Experience of Implementation in Romania." Proceedings of ICVL
(2009).http://www.icvl.eu/2009/disc/icvl/documente/pdf/met/ICVL_ModelsAndMethodologies_paper01.p
df

Two chapters about eLearning in Romania in "eLearning
Practices" http://www.midasebook.com/dosyalar/volume_II.pdf.
The Romanian education institutions began to include new technologies in their development agenda in the
1990s - see Marga, Andrei. "Reform of Education in Romania in the 1990s: A Retrospective." Higher
Education in Europe 27.1-2 (2002): 123135. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0379772022000003279.
In recent years it has been noticed a general trend shifting from the access to technology (equipping
schools with ICT tools) to the access to quality eContent and to virtual learning spaces.
The eLearning Romania programme is an initiative of different Romanian civil society institution to support
e-learning development and innovation in Romania. Decisionmakers, academics, researchers, practitioners,
opinion leaders and educational software developers are involved since 2006 within a community meant to

5. share resources. Other institutions from private sector supports this initiative. The eLearning Romania
programme aims to raise the quality and the efficiency of the computer-assisted education area, through
offering theoretical support; disseminating best practices and significant local e-learning experiences;
providing continuous informing regarding events and relevant announcements; promoting available
solutions and systems and services for e-learning.
2.1.1 In pre-university system
a. SEI Project
SEI programme (Sistem Educational Informatizat - Education IT-Based System) represents the
implementation of the Romanian Government Strategy in the field of information and computer-aided
education, being initiated by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in 2001, and being developed with
the main partners Siveco http://siveco.ro, a company specialized in eLearning, HP Romania, and IBM
Romania. SEI has as main objective to support the pre-university system with the latest technology. The
introduction of information technology in the Romanian educational system has two main components: ICT
based learning, and management efficiency and transparency in education at all levels, using IT tools
support. See SEI Presentation http://portal.edu.ro/index.php/articles/c11, also Evaluation ICT-Based
Education System: S.E.I. Programme in Romania. Evaluation Research Report
2008 http://www.elearning.ro/resources/EvalSEI_report_2008.pdf at http://www.tehne.ro/activitati/.
Currently, all schools in Romania have computer laboratories equipped with the latest technology: 13,181
Romanian schools now have a complete eLearning solution. 192,000 computers were installed with the
latest software, including AeL eContent (over 3,500 lessons).
SEI covers all major activities in the education sector:

Education - AeL (from Advanced eLearning) is the core of the SEI programme, offering support for
teaching and learning, testing and evaluation, content management, and training programs for 141,750
teachers; the program is meant to integrate the use of ICT in daily school practice, improving the
teaching/learning process;

School management and educational resources management;

IT support for national exams - admission to colleges and professional schools (ADLIC),
Baccalaureate, tenure;

Creating National Education Database http://www.harta.edu.ro;

Communication and collaboration - national education portal http://www.portal.edu.ro - forums,
newsletters, training sessions, educational initiatives.

6. Users and beneficiaries (4 million) are situated at all levels of the education system: local, regional and
national level, being teachers, students, parents, managers, operators, policy makers and the general
public.
The project, implemented by the Ministry of Education in partnership with the private sector, was carried out
in three phases:

SEI-1 (2001-2002): pilot period including the design and experimentation (and adjustement) of the main
components

SEI-2 and SEI-3 (2003-2004): transition period with communication lines and technical support
established; general methodology for implementation developed and favourable area covered at high
school level;

SEI-4 (2005-2008) period of construction and generalization of ICT in the pre-university system.
During the first 3 stages of the SEI Programme (high-school computerisation), the dynamics of the
computerisation initiative was more pronounced than the European growth rate.
The 4th SEI stage brought the Romanian schools closer to the European level of computerisation in
primary and lower secondary education. (Evaluation ICT-Based Education System: S.E.I. Programme in
Romania. Evaluation Research Report 2008 http://www.elearning.ro/resources/EvalSEI_report_2008.pdf,
page 10).
The projects developed with SEI can be found at http://portal.edu.ro/index.php/articles/c147/en.
b. Knowledge Economy Project
Another important strategic national project is the Knowledge based Economy Project
(KEP) http://www.ecomunitate.ro/en/proiect,
presentation http://www.cegd.eu/renaissance_for_eGovernance_2012/materials/ppt/1_Tuesday/Romaniapresentation.pdf, implemented by the Ministry of Communication and Informational Society between 20052013, and founded by the World Bank. The Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport is a partner in
this program, that has three componentshttp://www.ecomunitate.ro/Raport_CPI_%2817549%29.html:

Expanded access to Information & Communication Technologies and improved digital literacy

Development and promotion of government e-services

Promotion of e-commerce and innovation support for SMEs.
During the KEP implementation, the access to knowledge was enabled for 255 rural/disadvantaged
communities from 38 counties, addressing to over 1,8 million people (8% of Romania's population). The
schools of these communities are the beneficiars of
(http://www.ecomunitate.ro/Implementarea_tehnologiei_informatiei_si_comunicatiilor_in_scoli%2817527%2
9.html):

7. 
ICT infrastructure

training of teachers

inclusion of new technologies in education.
c. INSAM
The INSAM System http://insam.softwin.ro/insam provides digital tools to improve quality assessment in
pre-university system, being a project implemented by Ministry of Education and its partner
Softwin http://softwin.ro, a company specialized in eLearning.
The system is based on specific digital resources (assessment items, standards and performance
descriptors) needed to improve evaluative processes and self-assessment of high school students,
providing an Evaluation Guide for specific curricular area, progress reports and statistics, discussions
forum.
The system is used by:

767,439 students

11,270 teachers in secondary education.
2.1.2 In universities
A report published in 2010 found that over 58% of the Romanian higher education institutions use
eLearning solutions for online/blended courses or for courses
enhancement. http://advancedelearning.com/index.php/articles/pressrel/1082. The Romanian Agency for
Quality Assurance in Higher Education ARACIS published the standards for eLearning platforms used
in distance learning programs offered by universities (http://www.aracis.ro/fileadmin/ARACIS/Legislatie__Proceduri/Partea_a_V-a_-_Ghid_evaluare-ID.pdf).
Open source platforms (Moodle, Caroline, ILIAS) or proprietary solutions (AeL of Softwin, University
Management System, Microsoft Learning Gateway, Blackboard) are used for LMSs (Dima, Lucian Lupu,
Eduard Edelhauser, and Andreea Ionică. "E-Learning Platforms In Romanian Higher Education." Annals of
the University of Petrosani, Economics 10.1 (2010): 137148. http://upet.ro/annals/pdf/20100115.pdf, resources
at http://www.timsoft.ro/index.php?pagina=resurse2 and http://www.elearning.ro/elearning-universitar).
During the last years a high percentage of the academic teachers took part in online/blended trainings
related to eLearning developed in programs co-financed with European funds.
300,000 students and teachers in 25 universities use the University Management System
(UMS) http://ums.ro, a solution Red Point http://theredpoint.ro:, that consists in an integrated system for
virtual communities, admission, fees, scholarships, awards, accommodation, transport and management

8. reports (http://theredpoint.ro/produse-software-proprii/ums-university-managementsystem http://theredpoint.ro/produse-software-proprii/ums-university-management-system):

University of Bucharest

University "Spiru Haret" Bucharest

University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest

National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest

Ecological University of Bucharest

University “Bioterra” Bucharest

CODECS Bucharest

University “Valahia” of Târgoviste

University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Iasi

University of the Arts "G. Enescu" Iasi

University "Petre Andrei" of Ias i

University "Mihail Kogălniceanu" of Iasi

University "Vasile Alecsandri" of Bacău

University "George Bacovia" of Bacău

University "Dunarea de Jos" of Galați

University "Danubius" of Galați

University "1 decembrie" of Alba Iulia

University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu

University of Petros ani

University "Constantin Brancusi" of Târgu Jiu

University "Ovidius" of Constanța

University "Andrei Saguna" of Constanța

Maritime University of Constanța

University "Vasile Goldis" of Arad

West University of Timisoara.
Other universities use OS or other proprietary solutions for their LMSs:

eLearning Center of Politehnica University of Timisoara

Department of Continuing and Distance Education of the West University of Timisoara

Credis Department of University of Bucharest

Faculty of Communication and Public Relations - Online Master Programs

Virtual Campus of University of Economic Sciences

ADL Partnership Lab - "Carol I" National Defence University

University "Babes Bolyai" Cluj-Napoca - Distance Education Portal

9. 
Blackboard Learn at University "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" Iasi

Online Psychology Cluj-Napoca

Online Courses at University "Vasile Goldis" Arad

University "Lucian Blaga" din Sibiu

University of Bucharest - Distance Learning

Virtual Campus of Faculty of Electrotehnics Iasi

UCEBS - Faculty of Economic Sciences Drobeta Turnu Severin

University "Dimitrie Cantemir" Cluj-Napoca

Cisco Networking Academy - Romania

eLearning Portal of University Transilvania Brasov.
Social Media are used by Romanian educational actors for information, knowledge sharing, collaborative
spaces, for courses enhancement or to enlarge the "walled garden" LMSs, even if only a few universities
have specific policies related to SM (see "Academic research in 140 characters" (2011) that shows how
Romanian educators use microblogging (Twitter, Cirip.eu, Edmodo, Yammer, Plurk, Google Buzz, Identi.ca,
Jaiku, Twiducate) http://www.scribd.com/doc/54084667/Academic-research-in-140-characters-orless and "An empirical analysis of the educational effects of Social Media in universities and colleges"
(2012) http://www.scribd.com/doc/92289204/Else-2012-GrosseckHolotescu-Full).
2.1.3 In continuing/post-secondary education
CODECS Romania
The Open University Business School http://www8.open.ac.uk/business-school has been offering courses
in Romania for almost twenty years in partnership with The Centre for Open Distance Education for the Civil
Society (CODEDS) http://www.codecs.ro/en, a major provider of management education in Romania.
CODECS aim to provide a high quality and internationally recognised programme of management
education for active managers in the emerging free market economy.
The internationally recognised Master of Business Administration (MBA), presented in English, provides
opportunities for networking locally at regular seminars and internationally, both at residential schools and
online, with managers studying the programme around the world. Seminars are presented by CODECS and
OU Business School lecturers who have management and business experience. The MBA alumni in
Romania become members of the OU Business School Romania Alumni
Network http://www.codecs.ro/en/alumni-oubs.
The Open University Business School's Professional Certificate and Professional Diploma in Management
programmes are presented in Romanian through a network of twelve Regional Centres across Romania.
Each year over a thousand students study these programmes; many students then progress onto the MBA
Programme.

10. Online communities/continuing education
The following platforms offers online courses/resources and host online communities for teachers and
trainers:
1.
http://elearning.ro
2.
http://iteach.ro
3.
http://tehne.ro
4.
http://cirip.ro
5.
http://forum.portal.edu.ro
6.
http://didactic.ro
7.
http://e-scoala.ro
8.
http://www.dascali.ro
9.
http://www.1educat.ro
10. http://www.academiaonline.ro
11. http://www.ecursuri.ro
12. http://www.academiadeafaceri.ro
13. http://www.cursuri-online.info
14. http://www.training.ro
15. http://www.cursurionline.ro.
2.1.4 Main scientific events

eLSE - International Scientific Conference "eLearning and Software in
Education" http://elseconference.eu, at the 9th edition in 2013, is organized by Romanian
Advanced Distributed Learning Association http://www.adlnet.ro, and is one of the top eLearning
Conferences http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&view_op=search_venues&vq=elearning

CNIV - National Conference on Virtual Learning, that will have the 11th edition in 2013 http://cniv.ro, and

ICVL - International Conference on Virtual Learning will have the 8th edition in 2013 - http://icvl.eu,
are prestigious conferences organized by University of Bucharest http://www.unibuc.ro/e, National
Authority for Scientific Research ANCS http://ancs.ro, Sivecohttp://siveco.ro,
TEHNE http://tehne.ro, and Institute for Education http://www.ise.ro

"Informatics at the Castle" is a summer school organized by Vasile Goldis Western University Arad
at the Macea Castle -http://proinfo.uvvg.ro, gathering teachers and students interested in FLOSS,
OER, collaborative platforms, and new technologies in education (2009 - 2012). This event

11. continues the "Linux and Virtual Learning Environments" International Symposium, organized by
the same university (2003 - 2008).

RILW - Romanian Internet Learning Workshop had 5 editions (1997-2001) promoting OS and
online education (http://rilw.itim-cj.ro,
archivehttp://web.archive.org/web/20120524072120/http://rilw.itim-cj.ro/).

eduVision 2020, September 2011 http://eduvision.ro - an international conference on the newest
trends in education and eLearning, best practices on using IT&C in education and a vision for the
future of education.

e-LiT Education Conference http://www.elit-education.ro/a00-elit-education-conference.htm was
organized by British Council Bucharest between 2003-2006, for academics, experts and
professionals working in education and connected fields in Romania and UK.
According to the report "The Western Europe Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services:
2011-2016 Forecast and Analysis." published by Ambient Insight in 2012, September: "the growth rate
for Self-paced eLearning in Western Europe is 5.8%" and "there are now major digitization efforts going
on in the school systems in France, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, the Czech Republic, and
Spain." http://www.ambientinsight.com/Reports/eLearning.aspx
"Up until quite recently, the global Self-paced eLearning market has largely been a story of corporate
adoption in developed economies. That has changed dramatically in the last two years and the
narrative is now one of rapid adoption in all the buyer segments, particularly in the consumer,
academic, and government segments in developing economies. The top ten countries with the highest
growth rates are Vietnam, Malaysia, Romania, Azerbaijan, Thailand, Kenya, Slovakia, the Philippines,
India, and China. The growth rates in these countries are all above 30%, more than four times the
worldwide aggregate growth rate."
Quality procedures
Pre-university level
At the national level of the education system, the quality assurance strategy is implemented by
the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in School Education - ARACIP.
This agency is responsible for:

external evaluation of the quality of education offered by schools;

authorisation, accreditation and evaluation schools.
The purpose of the external evaluation is mainly (i) to certify the capacity of the schools to meet the
quality standards, (ii) to play a role in the development of a 'culture of quality' in school education
institutions, and (iii) to recommend policies and strategies to the Ministry of Education, Research,
Youth and Sports in order to improve the quality of education.

12. Public education is financed in Romania at a minimum of 4% of GDP. According to the Law on National
Education adopted in 2011, public education is financed from the state and the local budgets (town,
commune). Public education institutions of all levels can raise and use their own funds, in accordance
with the current legal provisions. Current legislation provides the general framework for the
establishment of private education institutions at all levels. In order to be recognised as part of the
national education system, private education institutions have to be accredited through specific
procedures established by the law. Diplomas and certificates emitted by the accredited private
education institutions produce the same effects as the ones emitted by the public education institutions.
Organizing bodies of private education institutions are entirely responsible of the administration and
financing of the activities within the established legal framework.
The quality of the work done by teachers in eTwinning projects is recognized through a National
Certificate of Qualitye, which stands as an appreciation of their efforts in promoting quality and
openness in European eTwining activities. From 2011, September also students are awarded for their
results in such projects. If at least two partners receive the National Certificate of Quality for the same
project, they will automatically receive the European Quality Label, which is a prerequisite for
participation in European awards. The European version of the certificate is given only once a year (in
September).
Higher Education
The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education ARACIS was established in 2005.
One major change has been that universities are now less strictly controlled by the Ministry of
Education, Research, Youth and Sports. However, in every university growing autonomy should be
accompanied by the development of a quality assurance system that safeguards the quality of
university education and highlights differences between universities in terms of educational
performance. Universities are very much aware that their appeal among students is largely determined
by their ability to deliver tangible results. Furthermore, Romanian universities are implementing an
effective quality assurance system in order to prepare for future competition with other universities.
From this perspective, the main principles of Romanian quality assurance system focus on:

the European Dimension, characterized by the integration in the European Higher Education Area
of all Romanian higher education institutions;

institutional responsibility, considered as a concept based on the principle of academic autonomy;

institutional diversity, guaranteed through the external quality evaluation of all study programmes;

cooperation of all the components of the education system as parts of a whole system;

a performance-based system, by reference to the position obtained in quality assurance/evaluation;

institutional identity, by influencing good practices and successful structures in the field of
academic quality;

13. 
internal institutional self-evaluation, as universities present the specificity of the quality culture
through self-evaluation reports, continuous performance improvements;

external evaluation, by monitoring the results reported by universities, through analysis of
performance and relationship with the stated institutional reality (including student activities,
conformity to the stated standards);

improvement of quality – the main objective of all higher education institutions and, therefore, of the
Romanian quality assurance system.
In 2012, January, two strategic projects for Higher Education 2012-2014 were launched: "Performance
in research, performance in teaching. Quality, diversity and innovation in Romanian universities" and
"Ready to innovate, ready to respond better to local needs. Quality and diversity of Romanian
universities" - http://www.uefiscdi.gov.ro/articole/2758/Conferinta-de-lansare-a-proiectelor-strategicepentru-invatamantul-superior-2012%E2%80%902014.html. The projects are implemented by
UEFISCDI (Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and
Innovation) http://www.uefiscdi.gov.ro and aimed at improving management and quality assurance
system in
Romanian higher education in order to increase its capacity to contribute to relevantly, long-term socioeconomic development of Romania. The universities' institutional assessment methodology is
developed and implemented by the European University Associationhttp://www.eua.be (EUA) as main
partner in these strategic projects - http://www.forhe.ro.
Internet in Romania
Official statistics on the information society in Romania are provided by the European
Commissionshttp://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digitalagenda/scoreboard/countries/ro/index_en.htm and by Global Information Society
Watch http://www.giswatch.org/reports/country/Romania.
Digital inclusion has been a high priority on the Romanian ICT Ministry’s agenda since 2004, and is still
present in the authorities’ official statements and actions. An important step in facilitating equal access
to ICT infrastructure is the 200 Euro Programme, launched in 2004 and operational since 2005, in
partnership with the Ministry of Education. The programme helps Romania’s low-income families
purchase computers for school-going children and for university students, assisted by governmental
financial aid.
Tangible results concerning digital inclusion in the country have also been achieved by the Knowledge
Economy Project (2006-2013), which helped 255 communities get internet access, and supported
small business e development and local content creation. This effort was awarded the European
Commission’s e Inclusion medal in 2008 in the Geographical Inclusion section.
In 2009 The Romanian Ministry of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) adopted a
Strategic Plan for 2010-2013 that set out the actions and programs for developing an efficient

14. information society and knowledge economy. Through this strategic plan, MCSI has established the
following directions of activity:

Electronic Communications – aimed to encourage investments in infrastructure, promote innovation
and ensure effective management of limited resources, as well as, improve the capacity of R&D
systems to support future policy documents, strategies and regulations developed by MCSI.

Information Society – aimed to ensure an integrated approach according to the European policies,
to modernize public administration by managing and promoting information and public services
using electronic means, to develop the IT research-innovation sector, and to implement the
specific technologies in central and local administration and business environment; to contributes
to computer skills improvement and facilitates access to modern ICT for citizens in disadvantaged
communities.

Structural Funds Management – trying to achieve a high degree of absorption of structural funds
and an efficient use of interventions.

MCSI Administrative Capacity – financed through the budgetary program Advanced Institutional
Management, which aims to mobilize the available resources for developing a competitive,
knowledge based information society, promoting ICT services and increasing citizens' comfort.
There were 8,578,484 internet users in Romania (representing 39.2% of the population) in mid-year
2012 (June 30, 2012), according to Internet World Stats, October 2012 http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats4.htm#europe.
The majority of users in Romania access the internet through a PC, with 67.3% citing this as their main
point of access. Laptop computers are significantly less popular, and the devices make up only 4% of
total national internet access in Romania.
As is the case across Europe, the most active age group is the 18 - 24 year-olds, who make up 35% of
the online community. The 25 - 34 age group comprises 33% of internet users, and the 35 - 45 age
group represents 32% of users. Overwhelmingly, Romanian internet users are educated to degree
level; employees with university degrees account for 38% of the online population, with students and
post-graduate scholars representing a further 22% of users.
Romanian Internet users by occupation:

Employee with a university degree - 38%

Scholar, student - 22%

General Manager (executive) - 11%

Self Employed - 8%

Qualified worker - 5%

Homemaker - 3%

Pensioner - 1%

15. 
Unemployed - 1%

Farmer - 1%

Unqualified worker - 1%

Other - 10%.
There are significant discrepancies across geographies in Romania in terms of internet accessibility.
The capital city, Bucharest, is the most active location in Romania on the Internet: 79% of its
inhabitants have access to the internet either from home, work, school or public access points, and
56% access online content on a daily or weekly basis. (Public Intelligence, January 2011 http://publicintelligence.net/ufouo-u-s-state-department-social-media-landscape-romania)
A report published by the Romanian Institute of Evaluation and
Strategy(http://www.ires.com.ro/uploads/articole/ires_romanii_si_internetul_2011.pdf) analyses the
Internet uses in Romania at the end of 2011.
The report "Statistical data report on the Internet access services and the leased lines and data
transmision services" published by the National Authority for Management and Regulation in
Communications of Romania (ANCOM http://www.ancom.org.ro/en) provided figures such
as http://www.ancom.org.ro/en/december-12-2012_4910 states that the market of broadband Internet
access services maintained the ascendant trend in almost all segments in the first half of 2012, with
mobile Internet registering the most significant growth rate:

the number of fixed broadband Internet access connections exceeded 3.4 million, standing for a
half-yearly growth of 4.1% and for an annual growth of 9.1%, respectively

the penetration rate of fixed broadband Internet access connections per 100 inhabitants reached
18% as of mid-2012

the penetration rate per 100 households grew to 44%

in the first half of 2012, the number of fixed connections installed to business users rose by 4% as
compared to the same period of the previous year

the connections installed to residential users registered an annual growth rate of 9.6%; out of the
3.4 million fixed broadband Internet access connections reported by the middle of 2012, more than
90% have been installed to residential users

a noteworthy increase in the number of connections installed in rural area was registered as of mid2012, i.e. almost 0.8 million connections (+11.7% half-yearly growth, respectively +26.4% annual
growth)

in urban area, the number of connections registered a 2% half-yearly increase and, respectively, a
4.8% annual increase, reaching 2.6 million connections

as regards the speed of fixed Internet connections, half of such connections used by residential
subscribers are high-speed connections (at least 30 Mbps)

16. 
according to the data reported by the 6 providers of mobile Internet access services, the total
number of active mobile broadband Internet access connections amounted to 6.9 million, up by
63.8% as compared to end-2011 and almost double as compared to the value registered at mid2011: thus, 5.6 million active mobile broadband connections achieved over mobile telephones and
1.3 million active mobile broadband connections achieved over modems/cards/dongles were
reported; the total number of terminals/SIM cards allowing mobile Internet access over 3G
(including 3G+), EV-DO, 4G or other technologies superior to 3G reached about 7.4 million as of
30 June 2012.
"Romanians are increasingly interested in mobile Internet and this is shown by the spectacular
evolution registered in the number of connections achieved over mobile phones, against a monthly
payment. Basically, in only one year, the total number of active mobile broadband Internet access
connections almost doubled", Mr. Catalin Marinescu, the president of ANCOM, said.
Further information at http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/markets-by-country/10-europe/80romania,http://mediafactbook.ro/ebook/wpcontent/uploads/2012/06/MediaFactBook2012_Initiative.pdf and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in
_Romania.
Internet in Education
Developing the ICT infrastructure and the internet connection for the Romanian education institutions
were the core goals of the major programs:

SEI Programme (Sistem Educational Informatizat - Education IT-Based
System) http://portal.edu.ro 13,181 Romanian schools have computer laboratories equipped with
the latest technology and with internet connection, the total number of computers being over
192,000.

Knowledge Economy Project http://ecomunitate.ro: ICT and internet infrastructure was enabled for
255 schools in rural/disadvantaged communities from 38 counties.

RoEduNet (Romanian National Research and Education Network) http://www.roedu.net is
Romania's research and education (R&E) network, consisting of more than 4,200 km of optical
fiber that connects universities, schools, research centers and cultural institutions across the
country. RoEduNet was initiated in 1993, connecting the universities of Bucharest, Iaşi and ClujNapoca - see RoEduNet hsitory at http://www.roedu.net/ro/page/istoric. RoEduNet forms part of
GÉANT http://www.geant2.net, the European education and research network linking academic
and research institutions in 34 European countries. In 2011, RoEduNet has moved to 100G to
carry 100GbE traffic across a link from Bucharest to Iaşi, the country’s second largest city located
more than 450 kilometers to the north http://www.ciena.com/connect/blog/Ciena-100G-hitsEastern-Europe.html.

17. Starting with 2013, the Romanian government will implement two educational projects, due to the fact
that Romania is the first EU country which provided 4G license:

wireless connection in every school

e-book reader for all children.
Copyright law in Romania
Romania is a member of the Bern Convention on Copyright.
The Romanian Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights 8/1996 was adopted in March 14, 19968
ENGLEZA.doc http://www.orda.ro/fisiere/legi/LEGEA%208%20ENGLEZA.doc, http://www.legiinternet.ro/en/copyright.htm. The law was further modified several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006,
mainly to adopt it to the EU acquis communitaire .
In 1998, the Romanian Parliament ratified the latest versions of the Bern and Rome conventions. The
Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA) was established in 1997 http://www.orda.ro.
In 2005, the Government and Parliament stiffened sanctions for copyright theft, stripped the Romanian
Copyright Office (ORDA) of its law enforcement responsibilities, and designated the General
Prosecutor's Office as the national coordinator of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) enforcement
activities.
A new change to the Copyright Law (see info in Romanian and comments http://apti.ro/modificarelegislatie-drepturi-de-autor) has passed the Senate vote and should be discussed and adopted by the
Chamber of Deputies at the end of 2012. The new text implements a definition of “orphan works” but
establishes a quite difficult regime for their re-use. Also the new text will impose a new levy to be paid
to collective societies for the public libraries and higher education libraries (only the pre-universitary
libraries will be exempted).
In September 2, 2008 the Creative Commons Romania version was launched with the help of ApTI The Association for Technology and Internet http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/3.0/ro/, http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Romania. This launch followed a period of prior work with
iCommons, the entity that manages these licenses internationally, which involved the translation of
licenses and their adaptation to the Romanian legal framework, a consultation period public, and finally
the availability of these licenses in Romania. News about events related to CC and a non-exclusive list
of projects/blogs using CC licenses may be found at CreativeCommons
Romaniahttp://ro.creativecommons.org.
Copyright law in Education
The Article 22 of the Romanian Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights specifies that the
educational uses of (some parts of) a work already disclosed to the public are permitted without the

18. author's consent and without payment of remuneration, being mandatory to mention the source and the
author's name if it appears on the work used http://www.legi-internet.ro/en/copyright.htm:
(c) the use of isolated articles or brief excerpts from works in publications, television or radio
broadcasts or sound or audiovisual recordings exclusively intended for teaching purposes and also the
reproduction for teaching purposes, within the framework of public education or social welfare
institutions, of isolated articles or brief extracts from works, to the extent justified by the intended
purpose;
(...)
(i) the representation and execution of a work as part of the activities of educational institutions,
exclusively for specific purposes and on condition that both the representation or execution and the
public's access are free of charge.
The Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport has a National Ethics Council
(http://www.ancs.ro/ro/articol/1011/despre-ancs-organizare-organe-consultative-3-consiliul-national-deetica) governed by the specifications of the National Ethics Code, and an Ethics Commission and Code
exist in each university; the council and commissions inform and monitor the respect of the codes and
of the Intellectual Property rights in education, analyzing the plagiarism cases.
Some independent websites have been developed to publicly present the cases of plagiarisms that
allegedly are widespread in the Higher Education system. See for example:

http://integru.org

http://www.plagiate.ro
A few universities have dedicated departments for Copyright/Intellectual Property, such as:

The University "Transilvania" Brasov has a Department of Intellectual
Property http://www2.unitbv.ro/dpi.

The University "Lucian Blaga" of Sibiu has an Office for Intellectual Property
Protectionhttp://www.ulbsibiu.ro/ro/universitate/dep_proprietate.
The Intellectual Property Right Scientific Association (ASDPI) http://www.rrdpi.ro is a Romanian nonprofit, apolitical, non-governmental, private legal entity, the members being professors, specialists in
the law field, especially in the field of intellectual property, researchers in the Judicial Research Center
of the ”Nicolae Titulescu” University of Bucharest. The main concern of The Intellectual Property Right
Scientific Association is the quarterly publishing of The Intellectual Property Right Romanian Magazine,
and also the development of scientific relations in the field, organization of courses, conferences,
debates, symposiums, round tables, bilateral exchanges, dissertations and other activities in this field
in order to prevent and stop the counterfeiting and the piracy.

19. Co-financed with European Funds, the project "Interuniversity virtual community for science,
technology, innovation and intellectual property valorization" (2010-2013) aims to create and develop a
portal with resources, courses related to research intellectual property, and also service centers
dedicated to both students and teachers from partner universities and business
people http://www.cviu.ro. Such a center was already opened by University "Politehnica" of
Bucharest http://cttpolitech.webs.com.
An Intellectual Property Campaign http://www.osim.ro/Proprietate_Intelectuala_in_Universitati/en was
launched recently by the European Patent Office (http://epo.org), through its European Patent
Academy (http://www.epo.org/about-us/office/academy.html), and the State Office for Inventions and
Trademarks (OSIM - http://www.osim.ro). It is a pilot project and is being developed for one year
simultaneously in four countries: Spain, Romania, Czech Republic and Turkey. The goal of the project
is to raise and increase awareness on Intellectual Property, promote Intellectual Property culture and
Intellectual Property management in universities and expand Intellectual Property in university
curricula.
OER Initiatives in Romania
Romania appears active in the OER movement mainly through initiatives by institutions/groups and
engaged individuals and through specific projects or programmes, but also there are a few initiatives at
the government level that can become driving forces.
National OER initiatives
5.1.1 Knowledge based Economy Project
An important strategic national project that worths mention is the Knowledge based Economy Project
(KEP) http://www.ecomunitate.ro/en/proiect,
presentation http://www.cegd.eu/renaissance_for_eGovernance_2012/materials/ppt/1_Tuesday/Roma
nia-presentation.pdf, implemented by the Ministry of Communication and Informational Society
between 2005-2013, and founded by the World Bank. The Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and
Sport is a partner in this program, that has three
componentshttp://www.ecomunitate.ro/Raport_CPI_%2817549%29.html:

Expanded access to Information & Communication Technologies and improved digital literacy

Development and promotion of government e-services

Promotion of e-commerce and innovation support for SMEs.
5.1.1.a OER educational policies

20. A report published in the "Knowledge Economy" Project (2007), after after a review of the OS, OER
and open collaboration practices in the European educational context, made recommendations for
Romanian Ministry of Education for policies supporting these topics in Romanian educational
system: to adopt a clear definition of open licenses and to support the principle that products of publicly
funded work should carry such licenses; to facilitate the sustainable implementation of OER by creating
incentives for use and reuse, and funding technical infrastructure to increase access to OER
(http://www.ecomunitate.ro/Elaborarea_politicii_educationale_referitoare%2817548%29.html). A part of
the recommendations are quoted below:
1.
encourage the use of open source software in schools and in educational institutions
for operating systems, applications, for virtual learning environments and content
management systems, for open educational content development
2.
the training programmes for teachers and administrators to contain open source solutions
presentations and applications, not only proprietary solutions;
3.
teach pupils and students skills, not specific applications; the ICT and Technological
Education manuals to present both proprietary and OS solutions;
4.
create a repository with the educational projects in which Romanian schools and educational
organizations have participated, such as Leonardo, Socrates, eContent programmes: trained
human resources, gained experience and skills, produced materials could be used, projects
could be continued or new ones could be started;
5.
partnership with publishers, broadcasters, libraries, cultural institutions to provide access to
their own resources;
6.
implement an online system for collaborative production of open educational resources by
teachers and students, based on Web2.0 collaborative technologies. OER can make a
valuable contribution to a diversified supply of learning resources, supporting methodological
diversity, and promoting the individualization of the learning process;
7.
the teachers training programmes should contain topics related to OER, new licenses and
tools to create educational materials in a collaborative manner;
8.
encourage a competitive market for educational resources production, guarantee
transparency of supply and equal opportunities to market actors; define a set of quality
criteria.
Some of the recommendations were specified in the "Proposal for public policies for ICT integration in
the pre-universitary system" and adopted by the Ministry of Communication and Informational Society
and of the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sporthttp://www.mcsi.ro/Minister/DespreMCSI/Unitatea-de-Politici-Publice/Documente-de-politicipublice/formular_pp_TIC, http://administraresite.edu.ro/index.php/articles/9132 (2007): diversification of
the educational resources for schools, encouraging educational software market, usage of open / free

21. educational resources, development and sharing of resources by teachers; quality criteria /
development standards / evaluation / selection are necessary.
5.1.1.b OER and OEP
During the KEP implementation, the access to knowledge was enabled for 255 rural/disadvantaged
communities from 38 counties, addressing to over 1,8 million people (8% of Romania's population).
The schools of these communities are the beneficiars of
(http://www.ecomunitate.ro/Implementarea_tehnologiei_informatiei_si_comunicatiilor_in_scoli%281752
7%29.html):

ICT infrastructure

training of teachers

inclusion of new technologies in education.
The training of teachers and pupils started with the pilot program in 2007, in which 17 schools were
involved; OER, OS, open collaborations, CC licenses were main
topics http://www.slideshare.net/cami13/program-pilot.
The pupils and teachers in the 255 schools are very active in integrating open collaborative
technologies and in using and creating OER (little OER - Martin Weller
2010 http://openaccess.uoc.edu/webapps/o2/handle/10609/4851, usually published on social
networks) in the process of learning and teaching. They take part in networking activities, summer
camps and competitions (http://www.ecomunitate.ro/evacanta, http://ebc-networking.wikispaces.com)
organized in this project.
In October 2012, in the KEP project, the Ministry of Communication and Informational Society together
with the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport organized the national seminar "Open digital
resources in educational practices"http://www.mcsi.ro/Minister/Comunicate-de-presa-2012/EconomiaBazata-pe-Cunoastere-ofera-profesorilor-s, http://ebc-networking.wikispaces.com; there were launched
two guides, having as central topics OER and collaborative technologies (Web2.0) in education:

"Integration of new technologies in education" and

"Using ICT for educational activities".
The activities in the KEP project have led the schools towards a shift in focus from the resources
themselves towards the practices associated with the creation, use and management of OER: that is,
open educational practices (OEP). "The vision of open educational practice includes a move from a
resource based learning and outcomes based assessment, to a learning process in which social
processes, validation and reflection are at the heart of education, and learners become experts in
judging, reflection, innovation within a domain and navigation through domain knowledge" (OPAL,
2010, p. 46 http://www.slideshare.net/OPAL2010/opal-d3-v6-07052010). "Open Educational Practices

22. (OEP) constitute the range of practices around the creation, use and management of open educational
resources with the intent to improve quality and innovate education." OPAL OEP Guide http://www.oerquality.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/OPAL-OEP-guidelines.pdf.
5.1.2 OER in the Government Programme
The Government Programme for 2013-2016 adopted in December 2012
(http://www.gov.ro/upload/articles/118981/program-de-guvernare-2013-2016.pdf) specifies that Ministry
of Communication and Ministry of Education will collaborate to support the innovative integration of
Web2.0 and Open Educational Resources in education.
Regional OER initiatives
Institutional OER initiatives
Both Regional and Institutional OER initiatives are presented below:
5.2.1 Related to FLOSS (Free / Libre / Open Source Software)
The interest and use of open source software by teachers, pupils, and students in Romania are very
important, but there are mainly institutional/group/personal initiatives.
Many Linux and LAMP users are active in user groups, building online communities, with online
support, discussions forums, but also periodical f2f meetings. Romanian Linux distributions were
developed by teams formed by young students. A lot of workshops and conferences in which actors
from educational system participate are organized.
This important issue of FLOSS and its benefits for education were not the subject of a concrete
initiative or programme of the Ministry of Communication and Informational Society and of the Ministry
of Education, Research, Youth and Sport. "On 14 September 2010, ICT Minister, Valerian Vreme,
reveals that the Government sought to develop - http://www.epractice.eu/en/news/341075 - an IT
strategy in order to increase public administration’s use of open source software, as a means to reduce
government spending. Furthermore, he declares the start for drafting rules on interoperability to ensure
that governmental institutions using open source can communicate with those using proprietary
applications." (eGovernment Romania Factsheet http://www.epractice.eu/en/document/288404).
5.2.1.a Groups
1.
Free Unix for Romania http://linux.punct.info/freeunix.html, active in the 90s, was an
international independent non-profit organization, founded in 1992 by Marius Hancu, working

23. to help in the technical and scientific progress of Romania. It managed in less than a year to
practically cover the entire surface of Romania with free software distribution centers.
2.
Asociation ProLinux http://prolinux.ro is a non-profit organizations that promotes FLOSS,
having as central words: "Community. Ideas. Help".
3.
LUG - Linux Users Group http://lug.ro is a national group of FLOSS enthusiasts, organizing
events and developing projects.
4.
Rosdev - Romanian Open Source Development http://www.rosdev.ro has as aim to promote
Romanian OS developers in academic groups and in IT events.
5.
Ubuntu Romania http://ubuntu.ro is a community of Ubuntu users; see other communities of
specific Linux
distributions http://wiki.lug.ro/Comunit%C4%83%C5%A3i_Linux_din_Rom%C3%A2nia#Comu
nit.C4.83.C5.A3i_centrate_pe_distribu.C5.A3ii_specifice.
6.
Foundation Ceata http://ceata.org is a foundation that creates and promotes free arts and
technologies; projects http://ceata.org/realizari.
7.
Community ROSEdu - http://rosedu.org, founded in 2007, gathering programming and opensource software enthusiasts, mainly from the Faculty of Automatic and Computer Science of
Politehnica University of Bucharest - https://csite.cs.pub.ro/index.php?lang=en. An annual
event is Linux Install Fest in universities http://lif.rosedu.org/.
8.
ApTI (Association for Technology and Internet) http://www.apti.ro is a non-governmental
organisation whose aim is to support and promote a free and open Internet where human
rights may be observed and protected. "ApTI is an independent Romanian NGO that has the
scope to promote the fair use of information society services in agreement with the legal
norms in force, the human rights in the digital environment and support the digital civil rights in
the Romanian society." ApTI is a member of European Digital Rights EDRIhttp://www.edri.org, ICANN’s European Regional At-Large Organisation EURALO https://community.icann.org/display/EURALO/European+Regional+AtLarge+Organization+(EURALO), Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council CSISAChttp://csisac.org.
9.
ORDU (Romanian Organisation for User Rights) http://www.ordu.ro advocates for change and
adapt existing copyright laws to new socio-cultural paradigms imposed by the emergence and
development of the Internet: using of open licenses by the state institutions and in education.
10. The Free Software Group (FSG) took birth in 2005 among several students from Technical
University of Cluj-Napoca - http://www.utcluj.ro/english/index.php. The people activating now
in the groupd are involved individually in local, national and international projects that respect
the idea of Free Software. FSG promotes Free Software through the group projects page,
where some of them are dedicated to localizations, others to get connected communities and
bring new people, and the last ones have the meaning to support new communities and
inform the society about their activities and/in Free Software - http://softwareliber.ro.

24. 11. Society of the free software authors (Societatea Autorilor de Software
Liber) http://soft.punct.info/ and http://dan.corlan.net update the site Linux in Romania: Linux,
Unix and Open Source History in Romania, and also lists of Romanian authors of open source
software, Non-profit groups related to open source, Portals, Publications, Companies,
Localization efforts, Translations - http://linux.punct.info/indexen.html.
12. OpenGIS http://opengis.unibuc.ro, Geo Spatial http://earth.unibuc.ro - groups for Free open
source solutions for geospatial data processing and representation.
See also:

Mihai Jalobeanu: A history of Linux in Education in Romania - http://www.itimcj.ro/~jalobean/Cursuri/Linux-in-educatie.html.

Mihai Jalobeanu, Antoanela Naaji, Dragos Acostachioaie: The Linux and Virtual Learning
Environments Workshop Project http://www.academia.edu/1125362/The_Linux_and_Virtual_Learning_Environments_Workshop_P
roject.

Linux Communities in Romania http://wiki.lug.ro/Comunit%C4%83%C5%A3i_Linux_din_Rom%C3%A2nia (on LUG
wiki http://wiki.lug.ro)

Romanian Linux Projects http://wiki.lug.ro/Proiecte_Linux_cu_participare_rom%C3%A2neasc%C4%83 (on LUG
wiki http://wiki.lug.ro).
5.2.1.b Conferences / events
1.
"Informatics at the Castle" is a summer school organized by Vasile Goldis Western University
Arad at the Macea Castle - http://proinfo.uvvg.ro, gathering teachers and students interested
in FLOSS, OER, collaborative platforms, and new technologies in education (2009 - 2012).
This event continues the "Linux and Virtual Learning Environments" International Symposium,
organized by the same university (2003 - 2008). The event hosts ProInfo, a national
competition for students developing projects using FLOSS.
2.
RILW - Romanian Internet Learning Workshop had 5 editions (1997-2001) promoting OS and
online education (http://rilw.itim-cj.ro,
archivehttp://web.archive.org/web/20120524072120/http://rilw.itim-cj.ro/).
3.
eLiberatica - The Benefitis of Open and Free Technologies http://www.eliberatica.ro (20072009) was a prestigious International Conference initiated by a group of IT enthusiast (ROSI Romanian Open Source and Free Software Initiative http://rosi.ro); check "OER and FLOSS"
presentation at eLiberatica 2007 http://www.slideshare.net/cami13/oer-and-floss.

25. 4.
Programatica Open Source is a conference organized in 2012 by the Romanian IT media firm
Agora, having as aim to continue the eLiberatica Conference and to revive the community
built around it - http://www.agora.ro/conferinta/programatica-open-source.
5.
ROSE Romanian Open Systems Conference and Exhibition were a series of prestigious and
innovative conferences organized between 1993-1996 by the Romanian UNIX User Group
(Grupul utilizatorilor români de Unix - GURU), coordinated by Alexandru Rotaru, and by Prof.
Irina Athanasiu http://www.irinaathanasiu.ro from Politehnica University of Bucharest. Richard
Stallman, Jeffrey S. Haemer, Phil Zimmerman came at Cluj-Napoca in 1993, later John
Quarterman, Evi Nemeth, Esther Dyson, and Linus Torvald had participated in ROSE'93, in
Bucharest; see Marius Hancu's presentation at Rose
'93 http://linux.punct.info/rose93.html and Mihai Jalobeanu: A history of Linux in Education in
Romania - http://www.itim-cj.ro/~jalobean/Cursuri/Linux-in-educatie.html.
6.
LOAD - Linux Open Alternative Days is an international conference being organized
from between 2006 - http://itchannel.ro/load.
7.
Linux Innovation was organized in November
2006 http://web.archive.org/web/20070125214949/http://www.futurefreedom.ro.
8.
OSOM – Open Source Open Mind http://osom.ro - an event held annually, designed to reveal
the general Open Source and Free Software concepts, and trying to promote them in
business, media and education.
9.
FLOSS Camp http://camp.softwareliber.ro - summer camps held annually starting with 2008,
gathering those interested in FLOSS.
5.2.1.c Courses / Trainings / Research
1.
OOSS - Open Source Summer School - http://open-source.cs.pub.ro/summer-school was
organized at Politehnica University of Bucharest (http://www.pub.ro) in 2012, June.
2.
Summer Camps in Eforie, Gălăciuc-Focşani, Bucureşti 1994-1996, where courses on Linux
were facilitated by the volunteers of the Romanian UNIX User Group (Grupul utilizatorilor
români de Unix - GURU), coordinated by Alexandru Rotaru; see the archived GURU About
page http://web.archive.org/web/19980131010342/http://www.guru.ro/about.html.
3.
Intel Student Open Lab http://intel.pub.ro is a laboratory for OS research-development at
Politehnica University of Bucharest, Faculty of Automatics and Computer Science, equipped
by Intel, that will host 650 students and researchers interested in OS (October, 2012).
Technology Day is an event organized in 2012 November, aimed to present Intel
Technologies and Open Source http://intel.pub.ro/technology-day/.
4.
Unix, Linux and OS are topics in numerous courses offered by Romanian (CS) faculties.
5.2.1.d Linux distributions and Open Source projects development

26. 1.
Check a list of Authors http://linux.punct.info/autori.html and
Projects http://linux.punct.info/limba-romana.html.
2.
The IOSSPL Project proposes to develop a complete web-based, standards-compliant, opensource library software system which will become available to be implemented in all the public
libraries in Romania in the long
run http://www.iosspl.org,http://news.softpedia.com/news/Romanian-Libraries-Use-OpenSource-Software-68807.shtml.
5.2.2 Related to OER, OEP and Open Content/Access
5.2.2.a Courses / Trainings / Programs
1.
Moodle Romania http://www.moodle.ro/course offers courses for teacher training in using new
technologies, also hosts/supports courses for schools and universities.
2.
Didatec http://elearning.upt.ro/proiecte/ro/didatec/126 is a Human Resources Development
Project (2010-2013), implemented in 10 important technical universities, offering a blendedlearning training in new educational technologies for teachers and trainers; OER, CC licenses,
open technologies are core
topics (http://elearning.upt.ro/assets/upload/content/Didatec_Prezentare_Program_formare_u
pt.pdf).
3.
iTeach http://iteach.ro - offers online courses on new technologies and pedagogies
(http://iteach.ro/pagina/21495).
4.
"Facilitator for lifelong learning in school - a new teaching qualification for a school that
learns" http://www.invatarepermanenta.ro is a Human Resources Development Project, that
offers training for Lifelong Learning facilitators and will pilot centers for LLL.
5.
"Social Media for Higher Education" was one of the courses developed and run in the project
"Improving University Management", having as goal to promote updated knowledge, modern
techniques and actual management instruments for the higher education institutions across
Romania http://www.management-universitar.ro/606/section.aspx/362. OER and OEP were
topics of the course.
6.
Partnerships and participations of Romanian schools in eTwinning projects related to OER
and OEP (Romania became a partner in the eTwinning programme, with ISE - Institute of
Educational Sciences as the national coordinator in 2007, October 1; since 2012, 7000
schools and 9000 teachers took part in eTwinning projects).
7.
Sloop2desc courses at “Dunarea de Jos”University of Galati, involved 75 participants; the
courses have been characterized by collaborative interaction between trainees and tutors,
resulting in the production of 26 open educational resources for student

27. usehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/72898865/8/THE-EXPERIENCE-OF-THE-SLOOP2DESCCOURSES-IN-ROMANIA.
8.
ActiveWatch Media Monitoring Agency (http://www.activewatch.ro/en/home), a human rights
organization that militates for free communication for public interest, offers an online course
for effective use of digital tools, for understanding the concepts of mediated reality, privacy,
copyright, and open educational resources http://www.activewatch.ro/en/mediaeducation/mediasis-online-course.
9.
The Technology Enhanced Learning course offered in the Department Academic
Development programme for the academic staff and Master students of University Politehnica
of Timisoara is run on the Cirip.eu microblogging platform, integrating activities on many other
SM networks, and having as topics: eLearning2.0, social VLEs, Learning communities
facilitation, OER, RSS, Blogs, Microblogging, Wikis, Social Networks, Collaborative
documents, OS/CC, Social Search Engines, PLE.
5.2.2.b Open Content / Open Access / Communities for OER and OEP
1.
Open materials (especially for the pre-university system) and discussions for validation /
improving them in the online communities:
 http://forum.portal.edu.ro
 http://didactic.ro
 http://e-scoala.ro
 http://www.dascali.ro
2.
The University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine
Bucharest http://en.usamv.ro is a partner in the project Organic Balkanet http://www.organicbalkanet.eu, that developed Organic.Edunet http://portal.organic-edunet.eu, a learning portal
that provides access to OER on Organic Agriculture and Agroecology.
3.
iTeach http://iteach.ro - online community of over 8500 teachers, sharing educational
resources and practices; iTeach publishes also an open journal
(http://iteach.ro/experientedidactice) - http://www.oer-quality.org/iteach-a-teacher-trainingprogramme-for-the-xxi-century; o revistă pentru educaţie şi educatori -
4.
The Centre for Innovation in Education (TEHNE Romania) http://www.tehne.ro is an
organization aiming to support educational initiatives through projects and programs covering
areas of e-learning, ICT in education, curriculum development, education for democratic
citizenship, lifelong learning, and in-service teacher training.
5.
Cirip.eu (http://cirip.eu) is an educational multimedia microblogging platform, hosting online /
blended courses on new educational technologies, open to SM platforms for
using/sharing/creating/recreating (little) OER, gathering an educational community around
learning scenarios.

28. 6.
Siveco (http://siveco.ro) and Unisoft (http://unisoft.ro) are two Romanian software companies
participating in the project Open Discovery Space: A socially-powered and multilingual open
learning infrastructure to boost the adoption of eLearning
resourceshttp://opendiscoveryspace.eu.
7.
The Romanian Open Access community portal http://www.acces-deschis.ro/en is a website
aimed to bring more insight into the Open Access publishing models and to open new
directions in Romanian research and development. The expected audience are researchers,
scholars, university and high school teachers, university librarians, research librarians,
archivists, and all those who work in the information science field.
8.
Kosson (http://kosson.ro) is a portal about open access and new techniques and technologies
for data communication and management, published under a CC license, and is dedicated to
Romanian specialists in the field of information science (documentary, archives, library,
museum curators, etc.), to eGovernment sector specialists, to students, and to general public.
Founding Kosson community members are supporters and signatories of the Budapest
Declaration on Open Access Initiative. In November, 2012, Kosson organized an International
Workshop on Open Access, at University "Transilvania" of Brasov http://kosson.ro/resurseprofesionale/124-cultura-informatiei/653-abordari-inovatoare-promovare-acces-deschiscultura-informatiei.
9.
An important number of Romanian libraries have signed the Agreement of Open
Access http://startad.kosson.ro/, http://www.kosson.ro/acces-deschis/50-despre-promovareacces-deschis/650-accesul-deschis-sibibliotecile,http://www.slideshare.net/kosson/valorificarea-cercetarii-europene.
10. Romanian Encyclopedia http://enciclopediaromaniei.ro is published under a CC license.
11. Veioza Arte http://veiozaarte.ro is video sharing platform acting as an open source production
house for the Romanian cultural scene.
12. Sound Supradose http://www.soundsupradose.com and Local
Records http://www.localrec.ro are collections of audio products under a CC license.
13. Other projects under CC licenses can be found at http://ro.creativecommons.org.
5.2.2.c Studies
Recent studies reveal an important interest of the Romanian educational community for applying new /
open technologies in education, for sharing resources and practices on Social Media platforms, for
using social networks for collaboration with students, teachers, practitioners. One can note a shift in
focus from the resources themselves towards the practices associated with the creation, use and
management of OER: that is, open educational practices (OEP). "The vision of open educational
practice includes a move from a resource based learning and outcomes based assessment, to a
learning process in which social processes, validation and reflection are at the heart of education, and

29. learners become experts in judging, reflection, innovation within a domain and navigation through
domain knowledge" (OPAL, 2010, p. 46 http://www.slideshare.net/OPAL2010/opal-d3-v6-07052010).
1.
At the beginning of the KEP project (in 2007), a survey applied to the 17 pilot schools showed
that: "even if teachers create a lot of didactic materials, very seldom the materials are shared,
validated in discussions with others or create in a collaborative way. The teachers are not
aware about the OER or licences such as Creative Commons, and don't have the necessary
skills to search materials in repositories and to evaluate their
quality." (http://www.ecomunitate.ro/Elaborarea_politicii_educationale_referitoare%2817548%
29.html).
2.
A recent study "Academic research in 140 characters" (2011) shows how Romanian
educators use microblogging (Twitter, Cirip.eu, Edmodo, Yammer, Plurk, Google Buzz,
Identi.ca, Jaiku, Twiducate), one of the top educational
technologieshttp://www.scribd.com/doc/54084667/Academic-research-in-140-characters-orless:
 The search for scholarly (open) content remains a favorite activity, 56% of academics are
looking to discover new information, ideas or practices. By looking for specific ideas the
researcher can scan easily the stream for news other than academic papers, science
magazines, data bases, scientific discoveries etc.
 It seems that the use of microblogging as a dissemination channel for promoting of own
results / articles / projects or studies / formal products has a greater importance for 47%
of respondents.
 22 percent say that microblogging is an important tool for reviewing the literature,
collecting and analyzing research data, “for listening what other researchers are going to
say”.
 Talking and sharing experiences online, communicating scholarly ideas, collaboration
between colleagues, networks of stakeholders, and other contacts are favorite activities
for 73% of academics.
 Building a network of contacts for research opportunities, finding sponsors, reaching fellow
specialists was indicated by 38% of the responders. Thus the development of a Personal
Research Network (PRN) is appropriate not only for “establishing professional expertise”
but also for “professional identity construction”.
 Only 17% of the respondents believe in the power of sharing, skills development or
knowledge creation by building a “social scholarship” in communities of practice.
 A 26% percent shows a low participation within learning academic community, student
centered. Thus we can say faculty members are (still) unprepared to deal with
incorporating microblogging technologies into their courses.

30.  Nowadays following conferences and posting from scientific events (with a special
hashtag) is a common practice. Thus, the usage for monitoring scientific events is
encountered at 41% of the respondents and may fall in one of the following categories:
communication before, during and after the event, using microblogging as official, quasiofficial or unofficial back-channel, for collaborative keynotes, feedback etc.
 An important percent (22%) say that they use microblogging for scholarly publishing and
capturing contextual information
3.
"An empirical analysis of the educational effects of Social Media in universities and colleges"
(2012) http://www.scribd.com/doc/92289204/Else-2012-GrosseckHolotescu-Full concludes
that:
 Almost all respondents are aware of the large categories of Social Media platforms. The
most popular seems to be those for multimedia content sharing: video – 89% of
responders declared that they use such platforms, documents/books - 87%, image –
78%, in all cases at least half posting content. The large interest for the documents/books
sharing (78%) and presentation sharing platforms (61%) confirms the social reading trend
in the 2012 Horizon Report in higher education. However, we can note that the platforms
for podcasting and audio sharing are at the opposite pole of interest – only 20% of
respondents use them.
 More than two third are active on wikis (78%), general networks (78%), professional
networks (76%) and blogs (66%), and more than half of them post content on these
platforms, the highest rate of postings being on general networks (68%).
 Half of respondents (48%) monitor feeds to keep track of news and activate on microblogs.
As one of the most important usage of microblogging is for news searching, the microposts streams can be seen as curated feeds, containg news, but also comments and
validation. Only 20% pay attention on miniblogs (such as Tumblr and Posterous).
 Even if with very interesting and challenging uses, such as collaborative work on
scenarios, tutorials and micro-lectures, the educators show a low interest on
mindmapping (24%), screencasting (16%) or digital storytelling platforms (15%). An
explanation could be the fact that to use such platform you need to be and keep
informed, to activate in online communities where to learn and share ideas and
experiences.
4.
Digitaledu http://www.digitaledu.ro is an evaluation and monitoring service of the new
technologies integration in the Romanian educational system. It offers a map of the uses of
such open technologies by educational institutions, teachers and students.
5.
Check also the studies of TEHNE http://www.tehne.ro/activities.
References
1. ReVica/VISCED page for Romania (http://virtualcampuses.eu/index.php/Romania)

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