OER Open Educational Resources
Since the Cape Town Open Education Declaration in 2007 and 2012 Paris OER Declaration (UNESCO, 2012a), the United Nations and UNESCO have advocated and promoted the use and creation of OER (Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray, 2009) to uphold open education initiatives in support of the SDGs in education (UNESCO, 2012b). In 2017, the Ljubljana Action Plan provided direction in building capacity, ensuring inclusive and equitable access, and developing sustainability models for the development of policy and environments for OER (Jožef Stefan Institute Centre for Knowledge Transfer in Information Technologies, 2020). These directions coincide with UNESCOs plan for sustainable development goals specific to education (CICAN, 2020).
In 2019, the UN General Conference adopted a recommendation outlining five areas of action for OER: a) build capacity to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER; b) foster supporting policies; c) inspire inclusive, accessible, and equitable OER; d) develop models to sustain OER; and e) accelerate international teamwork (UNESCO, 2019a). This sets a global direction for OER to be recognized and supported as an area for growth within each country. Here in Canada, the development of OER and open education relies on provincially funded educational initiatives. A pan-Canadian organization is helping to open up the traditionally siloed educational K-20+ sector (“Canada’s Open Education Initiatives,” n.d.). Networks of educators are building collaborative OER as part of course work, with students as active agents of information generation (Brown et al., 2021; O'Byrne et al., 2014; Robertson et al., 2012). For this research, the primary focus is not on the production of OER but rather the shift in teaching practices that may or may not include the use, creation, or assessment of OER.