Wikiwijs is a national open educational resources (OER) initiative in the Netherlands launched in December 2008. It aims to stimulate the development and use of OERs, improve access to learning materials, and support teacher professional development. Wikiwijs provides a repository of OERs, a referatory of both open and closed digital resources, and tools for teachers to create and use learning materials. However, its technical infrastructure and metadata standards require improvements to better support scalability and interoperability across different educational sectors.

1. Wikiwijs Robert Schuwer 27 May 2011, Leuven Using OER as Driver for Innovation

2. Agenda What is Wikiwijs Driver for technical infrastructure Driver for metadata infrastructure Driver for structure on learning materials

3. National initiative: Wikiwijs December 2008: Former Minister of Education launches Wikiwijs as a national OER initiative: initial focus on primary, secondary and community college education but actually for all educational sectors April 2009: broad support in Parliament May 2009: OU & Kennisnet start preparing this programme July 2009: delivery Programme Plan 12th Aug. 2009: Minister’s final OK ;

4. Wikiwijs: phases Dec. 2009: launch of beta version with: three focus subjects Arithmetics, Math, Languages Primary, secondary, community college sector Continuous improvement based on user feedback Sept. 2010: roll out to: other subjects and domains Higher Education March 2011: delivery of Implementation Plan for a second period of funding until end of 2013 How to make it sustainable?

5. Wikiwijs: policy objectives … stimulate development and use of OER extend options for customized education increase quality of education through more flexible and up-to-date learning materials improve access to both open and ‘closed’ digital learning materials support teachers in arranging their own learning materials and professionalization increase teacher involvement in development and use of OER Making the profession more attractive

6. Wikiwijs offers … a Repository of open educational resources a Referatory to digital educational resources: open and closed free access and access to be paid for public and commercial easy to use arrangement and development tools for teachers / professors end-user support for teachers / professors when creating and using learning materials

7. Wikiwijs architecture Wikiwijs search Standard metadatamodel “ National” harvester Need for structure on Learning objects

8. Technical infrastructure Harvester proof-of-concept Technical challenge No quality checks on metadata Not scalable Influence Wikiwijs Scalable architecture Actions to improve metadata More collections to connect (mix open and closed) Combination with harvester for HE

9. Metadata infrastructure Two standards HE vs other sectors Both LOM-application models Complicated process for management of vocabularies Influence Wikiwijs Harmonisation to 1 standard: NL-LOM Improved process for management of vocabularies

10. Structuring learning materials National curriculum primary & secondary education High level Implemented in commercial textbooks Influence Wikiwijs Development of vocabularies to model learning trajectories Bridge between closed and open learning materials

11. Role Wikiwijs Create demand on infrastructure Important stakeholder Therefore influence on development But also dependant on choices not influencable by Wikiwijs (in speed of development)

12. Thanks for your attention! [email_address] www.wikiwijs.nl Photo by Wouter Schuwer