Presentation by Irina Shumadieva on Open Educational Resources (OER) at the SFK12 Software Freedom Kosova Conference 2012

1. OPEN EDUCATIONAL
RESOURCES
IN MACEDONIA
Irina Shumadieva
Metamorphosis Foundation
07.09.2012, Pristina, Kosovo

2. BEFORE THE OER
INITIATIVE IN MACEDONIA
There was…

3. Open Access Initiative
• We introduced the concept of free availability of high
quality research and scientific materials to faculties
around the country
• We hold presentations and trainings for academics
• We helped one institution to set up an online repository for
their works – Institute of Economics in Skopje

4. Dspace
• Localized in Macedonian and Albanian
• Virtual machine (OVF format)
• + Documentation with installing instructions
• set and running in less then an hour

5. The problems
• Universities doubt the quality of the research materials
produced by the students
• Especially private universities
• Lack of resources: technical, human, procedures…
• Lack of enthusiasm

6. The positive effects
• Visibility  More impact
• Searching is easy
• More citations
• Saving time and money
• Less plagiarism
• Long lasting harvesting
• Improvement of scientific work

7. OPEN ACCESS + OPEN
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

8. Resources available in Macedonia
• Е-uciliste.com - independent project by a secondary
school teacher; most of the content is generated by the
students
• Toolbox (http://toolbox.pep.org.mk) – rich collection of
useful links and educational materials in Macedonian and
Albanian Language
• Grandma's Games (http://www.grandmasgames.org) –
innovative way for transferring knowledge and cultural
practices and implementation of the learn through games
methodology
• http://skoool.mk – interactive multimedia content
• e-ucebnici.mk - digital library of e-textbooks for children
in primary and secondary school

9. Why is OER important?
OER usually stands for educational tools that are easily
accessible on the internet and are free to use
• Less time and money for education and research
• Helps teachers to share contents they need for teaching
• Opens new ways of adopting knowledge
• Easily accessible materials all the time
• Educational materials in new formats (multimedia)
• Easy exchange of knowledge and better cooperation
between students, teachers and between them
• Promotes local languages and culture

10. Coordination group
• Group of teachers in primary and secondary schools
• Researchers
• Academic scientists
• Enthusiasts
 sharing experiences, knowledge and ideas
 promote OER in their institutions

11. Educational and promotional materials

12. OER.mk

13. OER application
• In process of development
• Based on the concept of systematization proposed by
http://www.oercommons.org
• Goal:
• To gather individual OER initiatives in one place
• To incite creation of new materials
• To promote the culture of sharing
• To help students find proper
educational materials

14. CONFERENCE
14th and 15th of November in Skopje
You are invited

15. OPEN EDUCATION FOR
AN OPEN WORLD – LET’S
SHARE THE KNOWLEDGE

16. THANK YOU
Irina Shumadieva
Metamorphosis Foundation
http://metamorphosis.org.mk
irina@metamorphosis.org.mk