The presentation provides some results and reflections from the Report "Policy Approaches to Open Education - Case Studies from 28 EU Member States"

1. Open Education policies in Europe: state of
the art and possible ways forward
Open Education Week – 5 March 2018
Fabio Nascimbeni, Daniel Burgos, UNIR iTED
Andreia Inamorato Dos Santos, JRC-European Commission

2. Context
“Opening up Education” Communication by the European Commission (2013)
OpenEdu project by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Two new reports:
• Going Open: Policy Recommendations on Open Education in Europe
• Policy Approaches to Open Education

3. Report: Policy Approaches to Open Education
Study run by the European Commission’s JRC in collaboration with the
Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education of UNIR
(UNIR iTED)
First ever study on OE policies across all 28 EU MS
• State of the art in each MS
• Policy identification and snapshotting
• Interviews with policy stakeholders
• Analysis and extraction of policy ideas

4. Main results

5. 1. Vision and practice of OE in EU MS
In most MS the vision of open education is rather broad, going beyond OER
and open content, even if in a number of MS when this vision is applied into
a policy, the approach towards open education is still limited to OER.
JRC report (2016) 'Opening up education: a support framework for higher education institutions'

6. 2. Four typologies of OE policies
1. Policies focusing specifically on opening up education through the
promotion of OER and OEP
2. Policies relating to general ICT for learning with some open education
component
3. Comprehensive strategic educational policies with some open education
component
4. Polices built up as National Open Government Plans with some open
education component
“The road to open education implementation is a long one and different MS are
travelling along it at very different speeds and by using different sizes
vehicles.”

7. 3. Main barriers & enablers
Barriers
• low policy priority assigned to open education
• fragmentation of initiatives
• lack of institutional support
• absence of an open licenses national recognition scheme
• Enablers
• clear policy priority assigned to OE both at MS and EU level
• awareness-raising on open education targeting leaders and educators
• advocacy communities

8. Reflections & suggestions

9. Reflections from the research team
1. From OER policies, to OE policies, to policies aiming at opening up
education
2. Open education is an ecosystem (flexible but unpredictable)
3. Open Education is almost everywhere (often not with this name)
4. Policies are instruments to ADVANCE but also to CATCH UP
5. Importance of Knowing what works and what does not work
6. The importance of collaboration dimension (openness & collaboration)
7. Local Authorities have strong leverages

10. Suggestions for OE policy, at all levels
• Funding is important, but “frugal innovation” can emerge in low-funded
environment
• OER is NOT a standard assumption
• “Openness as default” is not the way to go for many countries or institutions
• Staff dealing with business modelling must be involved

11. Full report:
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/policy-approaches-open-education-
case-studies-28-eu-member-states-openedu-policies