This document summarizes an upcoming conference on open education in Scotland. It provides information about Open Scotland, an initiative to promote open education resources and practices. It also outlines the progress of the Scottish Open Education Declaration, including endorsements from the Scottish government and interest internationally. The conference called OER16 will focus on embedding an open culture in institutions and be hosted at the University of Edinburgh in April 2016.

1. Scottish Open
Education
Declaration
Update
and

2. EDINA
• http://edina.ac.uk/
• Centre for digital expertise and online service
delivery.
• Part of Information Services at the University
of Edinburgh
• Develops and delivers shared services and
infrastructure to support research and
education in the UK

3. Scottish Open Education Declaration
http://declaration.openscot.net/

4. Open Scotland
Open Scotland is a cross sector
initiative that aims to raise
awareness of open education,
encourage the sharing of open
educational resources, and
explore the potential of open
policy and practice to benefit
all sectors of Scottish
education.
http://openscot.net/

5. Original Open Scotland Partners

6. Progress
• Very positive response but initially assumed to be a formal
policy.
• Positive response from Cabinet Secretary for Education and
Lifelong Learning.
• Considerable interest internationally.
• Engaged with Open Policy Network.
• Added to the CC OER Policy Registry.
• Featured in the Open Education Consortium Newsletter.
• Incorporated into the POERUP open education policy
guidelines for Scotland.
• Funding provided by OEPS to complete second draft.
• Declaration being used at institutional level.

7. Response from Scottish Government
“The Open Education Declaration and its aim at
implementing wider and more equitable access to
education and to lead the way in Europe is a noble
initiative with potential to enhance diversity as well as
many of our key aims, including widening access to
education through free access to high quality education
and to redraw traditional boundaries between informal
and formal learning.”
- Jamie McIntyre
Higher Education and Learner Support Division

8. Response from Scottish Government
“As well as the OEPs project, SFC also funds Jisc which
supports the development and use of Open
Educational Resources through platforms, repositories,
and projects…Scottish Government’s funding
represents a demonstration of our commitment to
helping support Open Education going forward.”
- Jamie McIntyre
Higher Education and Learner Support Division

9. The way forward?
• Scot Gov and SFC appear to regard Declaration as a
worthwhile initiative, but reticent about providing
funding or support.
• Harmonising Declaration with current policy.
• Evidencing the Declaration.
• Evidence of impact.
• Engaging Universities Scotland.
• Engaging schools, colleges and third sector.

10. Open Culture

11. OER16 will be hosted by
the University of Edinburgh
Scottish education has a distinctive tradition of openness,
social inclusion and widening participation.
Over the past four years Scotland has seen a surge of
engagement in open education at institutional, sector and
national level.

12. The conference will focus on
the value proposition of
embedding open culture in
the context of institutional
strategies.
The conference will be
chaired by
Melissa Highton
&
Lorna M. Campbell

13. OER16: Open Culture
Conference themes:
• The strategic advantage of open and creating a
culture of openness;
• The converging and competing cultures of open
knowledge, open source, open content, open
practice, open data and open access;
• Re-use practice in hacking, making and sharing;
• The reputational challenges of open-washing;
• Openness and public engagement;
• Innovative approaches to opening up cultural
heritage collections for education.

14. 19th & 20th April 2016
at the
John McIntyre Conference Centre

16. Get involved
You can get involved in the OER16 conference by
joining the Conference Committee.
Sign up here:
http://go.alt.ac.uk/OER16
Keep up to date #OER16
oer16.oerconf.org

17. Open Culture
19th & 20th April 2016
University of Edinburgh