 Dear distinguished panelists, it's a great honor for me to host this first webinar at the OEW week 2021, hosted by Eden, the European Distance and E-Learning Network. So Eden is hosting webinars each day of the week, this week from the first of March to the fifth of March and some days there are also two webinars a day, so I will come back to that later on. The theme of this webinar today is about the role of the openness in shaping of the past pandemic education and the role of international associations. This really shows how important this webinar is because we have managed to gather all the global organizations and associations dealing with open and online e-learning and not at least the post-pandemic next normal, what will come in the future. So we have a 90 minutes webinar and it will be a presentation from our distinguished panelists. There will be a discussion and there are possibilities to raise questions in the Q&A and also to participate in the chat and also please use the chat to write where you are from, but strict questions will be in the Q&A. So we have of course Eden, the President Sandra Kustina Softik, the President of Eden. We have the President of ICDE International Council for Distance and e-Learning Network, Naifasina. We have the Vice President from OE Global, Lena Patterson. We have the Director Secretary, George Buebaks from EIDTU, European Association for Distance and Teaching Universities. We have the Vice President from Euken, the European University Continuing Education Network, Lena Sandron. We have Michael Gable from the European University Association. We have Ashka Khamber, coming from Commonwealth of Learning, the President of Commonwealth of Learning. And we have Seine Baraglu from UNESCO who is responsible for the OER Dynamic Coalition. So we have eight distinguished panelists for this session. And I am myself. I am the moderator. I am Ebas Janilsson. I am Professor in Innovation and Open Online Learning. And I have had the honor for many, many years to work with all of the associations and all the persons behind the organizations. I am in the Eden EC, Executive Committee, and I'm also sharing the Eden Special Interest Group on Tel and Quality Enhancement. I'm also in the ICDE, EC, and sharing there the OER Advocacy Committee. I have been in the Euken EC for many years, two periods in 2004 and 2008. And I'm working as a site with all of the organizations for different kind of purposes. So it's a great honor and great pleasure for me to host this webinar. And I hope you will find it of interest and that you also actively take part in the discussion and raise questions. So after this short introduction, which is really an honor for me to be together here with you, I will give the floor to the panelists. And I will do so in alphabetic order for the organization, except for the first one, because I would like to start with Eden, as Eden is the host of this webinar series and for the session today. So I will start to give each of the panelists have first five minutes to give the overview of the questions we have raised in the information of this webinar and that they have chosen to focus on some of the questions or issues. So I will first give the floor to the president of Eden, Sanna Krusina Softik. Thank you. Thank you, Eba. Hello, everyone. First of all, greetings from Eden. I'm really happy and honored that we were able to have this session today. I wish to thank the panelists for joining me and joining Eba in this first session within Eden Open Education Week. I think that by joining such a distinguished association, we are showing importance of open education, of openness in science and in education. And definitely giving the right direction that openness should be something which is an agenda of all countries, nevertheless, it's Europe or on a global level. Definitely, we are facing challenging years. Last year, we started with the COVID crisis. We are still facing this crisis even today. But the issue of openness and open education has become even more important now than ever. Although openness and open education is nothing new, I think that we still have the issue how to enhance the possibility, accessibility, equity to education for all citizens in this world. Definitely, number of statement numbers, of policies, number of documents have been prepared regarding the open education. We have seen already a number of good case examples. Knowledge has been shared, but still we have the issue with open education. Eden is fostering open education and supporting in a way of being, I would say, a community of practice where you can share and find important resources. We have joined the open education movement five years ago. This is our fifth open education week. And also, we hope that by joining our efforts, we can give a strong message that we have to enable the possibility that each of us has the right and possibility for education, and whether it's a formal or non-formal education. And here today, we can start with this strong message by all of us showing a good example how openness and open education can be available, used, reused, and with five are already reshaped in all possible ways. Eden has been doing openness with its work. We are celebrating 30 years this year. For a number of years, we are doing open education. So all our materials, all our resources, all our events are recorded and open in a public way, so they are open for access. Whether these are webinars, whether these are the proceedings, whether these are blogs, or our gerodel, our newsletter, or these are proceedings for the research workshops. So we are having a number of things to share. And I would say that each of us as an association have lots of issues to share. This is actually the gold. We are sitting on the gold, which has to be visible, available, and shared to everyone. And with these words, I open this webinar and the floor for other panelists. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sandra, for this introduction and for this information about what Eden is doing in the field. So I will now give the floor to George Ubat from EAD2U. We are still waiting for Asha from Commonwealth of Learning. So I will sweep a bit. So if you are ready, George, the floor is yours. Thanks, Eva and Sandra. Let me look at this topic from the viewpoint of online education from MOOC providers. As you know, EAD2U is also the coordinator of the European MOOC consortium, and we are very active in bringing open education to the labor market. And this event is about creating access to education, valuable education, meaning quality assured, relevant and recognized. And as you know since 2013, the MOOC platforms offer MOOCs in collaboration with universities. They are designed by innovative pedagogies and accessible to all anywhere for free. Certainly the number of students over the past 10 years showed that there was a real interest in open education and the real need. So recently we have within the European MOOC consortium, the platforms, are now collaborating with universities and to start working on MOOC pathways for containment education and professional development. So we are increasingly co-creating this with the sectors and businesses. So even if this is open education, we are still looking for making them in collaboration more relevant for the labor market. Who are the MOOC learners? The learners here chose that about 75% of the MOOC users are people who are in jobs. They are looking for increasing their skills for being educated for a new job, reskilling and upskilling. So all with the goal of further career development by open education. To better support now the labor market goals of these students, recognition is becoming more and more important than ever. It is needed to prove the reskilling and upskilling visible and transparent on quality, subjects covered, and the workload. So for the learners it is important that it is very clear and transparent and what they put their time and efforts in and make clear what they have gained on competencies at what level and related workload. So in short, the value of the upskilling and reskilling. And this in itself is also a trigger for further education and sets a clear pathway of continued education. The European MOOC consortium partners have started about two years ago with creating this micro-credential, what is needed to indicate the value of the continued education in what we call the common micro-credential framework. And it is a qualification that relates to an average of five ECTS level six, seven, or eight, and which is quality assured. And it has all the specs that are needed to indicate the value also on the workload of the study. But next to formalizing the recognition, we need to better serve the labor market also by MOOC platforms establishing connections with the sectors and companies. So next to the recognition, we have to look at the relevance. And the relevance is by collaboration with the sectors and companies. So the MOOC platforms then start to operate as an interface between universities and companies, labor organizations, to be more demand-driven, more relevant and timely in offering. And therefore they offer company spaces, wide-labeled platforms with a purpose for internal training of staff by organizing a suite of MOOCs and meaningful pathways for learners, the most successful other ones that are actually co-created with the sector. We had the two conferences on labor market developments and the use of open education in the past half year, actually. And in this context, we established a structure of collaboration between MOOC platforms, universities, employment agencies, companies, and sector representatives to connect open education to continued education. For all the parties, we were able to formulate a kind of a message on how they can contribute by open education to the labor market. And for the MOOC providers, the message is as follows. The MOOC platforms and universities start collaborating with private and public labor market organizations, sectors, enterprises, ministries, and public agencies. They deliver and co-create with these organizations MOOCs and MOOC pathways for employment and innovation, which after assessment are awarded with a micro-credential. These are stackable to wider certified programs and academic degrees. And due to the crisis, the co-incredible, more and more people have to change from a particular sector to another branch of business. So micro-credentials can facilitate this by retraining people. In closing, my contribution here is that we see also that the university alliances are picking this up, universities in general are picking up the open education for continued education. And these new developments in open education will lead to further innovation of new educational formats and pedagogies, as well as new ways of collaboration, improving the quality and relevance of the offerings for better coverage of European wide labor market. The recognition of continued education by micro-credentials is needed to further formalize these new offerings of short programs and integrate them in the educational system. So you see really a connection there of open education becoming part of the educational system by making the labor market parties aware of the role open education can play in continued education. That is what we as ED2 and as co-ordinators of European consortium are currently promoting. Thank you so much, Joachim Ubers from EADTU. I will now give the floor to Michael Gabel from the European University Association. So the floor is yours. Thank you, Ebar. And probably I follow up on what George just outlined with a slightly different twist, probably also due to the perspective. EUA is representing more than 800 universities across Europe, very diverse. The majority are universities, some are open universities. We also have university colleges among our members. And we just conducted a larger survey on the state of play of digitally enhanced learning, and I will post the link afterwards. So looking at that, so I think I can confirm that we have made some progress when it comes to MOOCs, but also to short courses. George pointed to that. I can't really see it in the number of institutions that provide MOOCs or short courses, but probably in the quantity that they provided, and in particular in the way how they are used. So compared to 2014 when we conducted a similar study, we can see that the recognition of, for example, MOOC learning has been improved. It's much more recognized nowadays. And I think also the use has become clearer. I mean, what George just said about lifelong learning, I wouldn't say that it is everywhere there, but at least the intention is there. And the opportunities are, there's much more awareness for the opportunities and also for the need, I think for the pressure to provide, for example, to the labor market, but that's of course only one way of understanding open education, but also, and that's at least equally important, outreach to society, the so-called third mission. If we look then on how institutions do that, and I think that's then an interesting story. I mean, what are the structures within the institutions that bring that forward? How central is, for example, the lifelong learning mission to the institution? And that's, I think, where we might not be yet fully there. Looking then also on how open education and open educational resources are used within the institution, we know from our survey that 80% have a repository that was already the case in 2014. So a repository for learning materials, but how they are exactly used within the institution or beyond the institution, I actually don't know. How good are they? How much benefit do they actually bring for the members for the institution, of the institution, the teachers, those responsible for teaching? We had actually, actually expect that the COVID crisis, where everybody was forced to pivot to go online without much mourning time, that this would have boosted the use and reuse of open education resources. But I'm not sure that we have really seen that. And so I just wonder whether we are still actually in a situation where you have a faculty culture also where sharing is not necessarily the norm. A colleague said, expressed that by saying, well, faculty members rather share a toothbrush than a course. Well, I don't know if that is true, but I know that from various calls where you look at proposals for institutions which provide, they all agree to provide educational resources and to share them with others. But what you actually find very rarely is that an institution or an individual teacher says, I'm not developing this myself. I'm using something which has already existed. So I think that's what I try to say here is how far is that actually mainstreamed the open education and the open educational resources? How far has that become a strategy of the institution? And there, I think we are not quite there. And I think as a proof, I would see that it doesn't play a major role in my work. So I'm working with the university leadership, and we are not discussing a lot about open educational resources. There's a lot of discussion on open science and on access to research. But I can't see a similar discussion on open education or open educational resources. So I would say for how it looks from my side, it's much more popular than it was some years ago. We made some progress on certain formats of open education provision. But we may not have found a seed change yet in the open education in that it is not really part of the institutional strategy. Thanks. Thank you so much, Michael, from EUA. So next, I would like to invite Professor Eva Sundam, she is the Vice President from Jürgen, the European University Continuing Education Network. The floor is yours. Thank you, Eva. And many greetings from Berlin. I was just seeing voices or like writings from around the world. So I'm grateful to be here. And also, while picking up actually the idea from Michael of University Life Long Learning, which is the core of the International Association I'm here today. And I would maybe start with this idea that University Life Long Learning is something that goes beyond what we call maybe continuing education or like professional programs like a small part of universities, but more than the idea of having structures for lifelong learning for opening up for different learners who come back in different phases of their lives. So I think that is something that you can try to enhance and to look at. So I think that what we look at is the learning opportunities, the services and the research that we have for the personal and the professional development of a wide range of individuals and also for communities in the region. So with a very broad understanding, knowing across Europe and beyond the understanding of lifelong learning at university is quite broad. What for us is important. And I think that is also the these are also the focuses we have at Jürgen and without which I would like to share is that we have both this, I would say, policy level. And while we talk about open educational resources or also open educational practices on European level, when it's about going on policies, I think that's one part. But the other hand is the other part is how we promote and advance lifelong learning within higher education institutions within Europe. So what we try to do is mostly to work on open education and open education resources via projects. I think that's something that Eden does also and also and also EADTU. So we tried to do a lot of projects where we try to work with different universities across Europe. And I think we have two parts. One is the issue of providing open educational resources, which is one central part of our work with universities. But the other way is the open education practices we share. That means the way how we work together. And this is something that is a bit against the grain, what Michael was saying, like saying, we can learn from each other, especially on international level, we can see together what is the problem, how we work with it, how we act and how we reflect together, and how we collaboratively develop designs, topics, toolboxes, repositories and things like that. So I would say this is something very central to us. With regard to the last year and actually the developments we can see, I think one issue that we at the moment are very concerned about is how we can open up also in our way we have our conferences, our webinars, how we can work together virtually. I think this is something that has very much to do on European projects where mostly you you work together face-to-face meeting in different countries, which we can't do. And one of our projects we have at the moment is called One. It's about having one face-to-face meeting and let's see if we have this in these two years. We're going to have that, where we're really trying out how we can use open educational resources for working together virtually, how we share platforms, which tools we use, how we can find ways to work together in a sense, not missing this emotional face-to-face and cultural part, but also how we can share together, also work in a European way together. So I think this is something I would like to share, so how open educational practices and also the way of virtual collaboration. Thanks. Thank you so much Eva and Juppgen. It's very good. So I would now invite Enid Fazina from the ICDE, the International Council for Open and Distance Education. So the floor is yours. All right, thank you. Thank you Eva. Good evening, good afternoon, good morning, depending on where you are in the world today and greetings from ICDE. Needless to say, looking at the introductions in the chat line it's incredibly humbling to be here with so many esteemed colleagues literally from around the world. And so while I am in Western Canada working on my morning coffee for those of you that are at the end of your day and for the secretariat and the home of ICDE in Norway, just an acknowledgement that ICDE is truly a global organization with a proud history of promoting inclusive, affordable access, pardon me, to quality education. And needless to say when it's part of your title as the International Council for Open and Distance Education, it's fair to say that the concept of open is core to who we are. And I say that because we've got 190 institutional members from over 70 countries, 40 different languages. So you can imagine the number of variations of open education, open research, open resources, open research that we start to see among many of our members. And so many of those members have come to understand the power of open in creating social, cultural and economic change, not only in their specific region, but in regions around the world. In some cases, our members are working on the absolute forefront of digital and using digital technologies to be able to create that open experience. And yet in others, we've got members that are working on pen and paper and acknowledging that reliability of electricity and connectivity just isn't there. And yet in others, we've got hybrid or blended or so many different forms. And as many that are tuned in today will recognize, I mean, COVID has highlighted the many divides that we've been tackling or trying to tackle through open education, open research, open resources. But it's also highlighted some of our blind spots, some of those pieces that we didn't know, those pieces that we weren't aware of in our own knowledge, even for those that were in our minds kind of at that forefront of trying to create open environments. And so like many others, we've witnessed the word open, adapt over time from a focus on access to elements that include open educational resources, practices, research, and so many other facets of open education. And the global pandemic has really forced us to question some of our assumptions that we end up working with. But nevertheless, this concept of open remains a core theme for ICDE and it's a core element of where we're heading here in our 21 to 24 strategy through things. As Eva had mentioned, she's on the ICDE OER advocacy committee, which has moved from recommendation now towards implementation and trying to make sure that we're actually able to share those practices. As an international council, our hope is to bring people together to share those best practices, create networks and enable and empower our members to be able to develop, utilize and grow the education. And I think what I want to be able to potentially focus on a little bit this morning is what a couple of the other panelists have alluded to. And that is a deep seated culture and kind of tackling the question of if people have a hard time arguing against the concept of open and whether or not it be open access, open educational resources, open research, open practice, anything related to the openness of education. If it's socially progressive, if it's acceptable, then why are we still having a challenge? Why are we still struggling? Why are we still having to advocate on a global scale for it? And one of the things that I want to highlight is actually in part we're actually going against a couple of thousand years of cultural history, right? Where over time the higher education environment has created almost a supply curve based on scarcity. We've created this perception that elitism is based on the fact that you manage to get in. And I think the COVID pandemic crisis has actually highlighted the fact that we actually need to culturally shift to a new race. It's not a race to elitism. It's not a race to scarcity. It has to be a race to quality. It has to be a race to openness. It has to be a race to bringing education to anyone that needs it, wants it, and desires it. But as I mentioned just in, you know, Michael mentioned it a little bit as did Eva. And it's how do we tackle that culture? How do we make it so, Michael, how do we make it so people want to share more than their toothbrush? You know, we need to move to the environment where that cultural piece is there. And I've got some ideas, but we'll get to those during questions. So with that, how about I'm going to turn it back over to you and we can keep going on introductions. Yes. Thank you so much, Nidh Pasina from ICBE. Wonderful. So our next contribution comes from OE Global. That is Lena Patterson. She is the Vice President of the Board of Directors at Open Education Global. The floor is yours, Lena. Thank you so much, Eva. Thank you. And thank you. I really appreciate being at this point in the row of speakers because there have been just so many wonderful ideas shared that have really gotten me excited. So I want to thank all of my colleagues who are on the panel as well and to you, Eva, for organizing this and Sandra. So thank you so much. I'm coming to you from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. So while Neil is in the West, I am in the Eastern Time Zone here and I'm on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit and reconciliation with our Indigenous communities is very important to us here in Canada. And so recognizing the land which I'm on, the traditional territory is a part of my practice. So OE Global, though, is a member-based global nonprofit organization supporting development and use of open education around the world. And it is in my capacity as Vice President of the Board of Directors for OE Global that I'm here with you today. OE Global has hundreds of member organizations from a variety of different sectors, primary, secondary, nonprofit, consortia, government, cultural organizations, corporate enterprise, technical, vocational colleges, universities. So we have a really wonderful diversity of membership, all convening around this idea of open education. And it is actually OE Global's convening power, which is one of the most incredible parts of working with this organization. It's actually one of the reasons why we're here today. Open Education Week is an initiative of OE Global and is just a great way to kind of convene and build up energy around the idea of open education. So I'm really pleased to be here to kick off Open Education Week with you as part of OE Global. We also, as part of that convening work, have Open Education Awards for Excellence. We support regional nodes in California and Central America, which allow for that energy to build around open education. And because of our global scope as an organization, we also make significant contributions to advocacy efforts, most recently around support for the UNESCO recommendation for open education. So while we have lots of challenges, I think, together as an open education community from an advocacy perspective, we should also be really proud of what we've managed to accomplish from a global perspective last year with that work. So I just want to make a quick note, and I'm going to share a link in the chat, because OE Global is about to embark on, or is embarking on, a new strategic plan. And so I want to just, before I move into my content, just quickly invite everybody here to contribute to the open education global strategic planning process. It's a community-based process, and we're really looking for your feedback. So just put that plug in there. I promised Paul I would do that. So the things that I kind of want to circle back to you that I heard from my colleagues are specifically about your first question about collaboration and exchange of experience and how that contributes to our understanding of the benefits of open education. And as associations that deal with, that convene people and deal with conversations and getting people together around those conversations and building momentum, I think collaboration, especially on an international stage is absolutely critical to the global open education movement, because it is a model of sustainability and connection, which provides the foundation on which we can begin to address problems that are global in scope and global in impact. And I love what George was talking about, about the potential to explore connections between the emerging skills-based economy and the future of open education and the role of lifelong learning as it connects into that conversation, and not just as it pertains to the demographic that we traditionally think of as students. A couple of the other panelists have pointed to lifelong learning for people who are currently working. I really want to focus our attention on lifelong learning for educators and lifelong learning just in support of open education for educators. As Michael said, the toothbrush analogy that really, I've never heard that before, but that's a good one because it really crystallizes for us what we're up against in terms of the culture, the many generations of culture that Neil referred to that the open education community is kind of shoving up against and sometimes has conflict with. So I really think that training and support of lifelong learning of our educators in open education and open pedagogy and open practice is a key linchpin to success and future sustainability for us. And if we think about that on a global perspective, from a collaborative perspective, we have so much to contribute. So I'm just going to end on that and hand it back over to you, Eva. So thank you so much, Elena Patterson from OE Global. Wonderful. And yes, it was good that you mentioned that OE Global is really the host and the initiator for the OE Week. It started many years ago. So thanks for the opportunity. Thank you, Elena. Our next contributor is from UNESCO, Senep Varaglou. And she is especially responsible for the UNESCO OER Dynamic Coalition. So the floor is yours, Senep. And I think you would share some slides with us. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll just start sharing. I think you can see me on the slides at the same time. Thank you very much for the floor and thank you very much for inviting me to speak at this event. It's really fascinating to hear the different perspectives from the panelists that came before. I will just be speaking now from the perspective of an intergovernmental organization and a normative instrument that's been established for OER in 2019. And I have slides and I'll go through them, but I think it'll just kind of maybe provide some images to go with the words. So a lot of you already know what UNESCO is, but just in case, it was established over in 1945. We have 193 member states and we are based in Paris and we have field offices in over 50 countries in all world regions. Looks like this, our building. And this is where we work. So basically everywhere except on the Antarctic. And so our reach is global and we actually do how we work with the member states on this. The reason or everything we do is based on two commitments, one to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in that article 19, which outlines the right to receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers and of course 26, which is the right to education. And then UNESCO's Constitution, which is a commitment to the free exchange of ideas and knowledge and support sharing of knowledge using technologies. Now, I'd just like to point out something. Those statements were written in the 40s before there was Internet, before there was anything really in terms of technology aside from the telephone and maybe some other similar technologies. And I think it is really the beginning of open education, if you like, because it was really very forward thinking and it's still relevant. So it's when you think about it, I find it quite surprising anyway. So what is the UNESCO recommendation? What am I talking about? Why are we making such a big deal about this? Well, because there aren't that many and because they are soft law but effective law. UNESCO has three types of normative instruments, standard setting instruments. Instruments basically loss. So you have conventions, which some of you may know very well because I think everybody is from the higher education field for the most part. And you've heard of the convention on the recognition of qualifications, which allows for students to have their qualifications from one country recognized hopefully in another country. And a recommendation is the second level, which is not as stiff as a convention. It doesn't require countries to actually sign or ratify, but it is still something. And then there are declarations. A recommendation is semantically what it says. It recommends countries to do something. So you're thinking what's the big deal? I recommend some, I recommend cheese with your bread big deal. It works much, it's a bit more than that if you like, because it actually is a recommendation that countries take into account a certain subject and put it into the vocabulary of their policy talks. And they do it forever because recommendations don't go away. So every four years there is a reporting on this. So this is the process that went through. It was painful. Every time you see like a little golden halo, it means that 193 member states said yes to the idea that was presented and to go forward twice. They said yes. And the third time, the second time they did that, they actually agreed to every single word and comma on that document. In the May 2019, we had all the member states come together officially with people who were in the room that said that they were representing their country. So whatever they said is what the country said basically to be just outright with it. And they agreed to every single word. And then this was adopted and agreed upon in the general conference. So this is a document which has member state backing, government backing. What does it look like? Looks like this. You can look it up, go in to look up legal instruments. When you search for legal instruments, UNESCO OER recommendation 2019. Here you have a slide which you can't see and it's kind of on purpose. But you have here one, two, about 12, one, two, three, about 12 instruments. And the first one is in 1989. And those are about the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, about the 10 or 12 instruments that have been agreed upon since 1989. So you see that this is not a very common thing. And so it's there, it's available in all UN languages. And what does it say? This is the part that's really interesting. It defines OER. And defining OER was a really big deal. It took a lot of discussion, debate, a lot of work. And it come in this definition we can now use as what is OER. And what's really interesting now is in the COVID crisis, everybody's talking about free. But it's not free as in free pizza. It's it's not about being free. It's about open being open, openly licensed. And here you have something and it's really important. And when we did this, of course, we didn't know what was going to happen within six months. But I think it's something that can be used by the community quite a bit to just clarify things. Because there has been a little bit of fuzz that's floated in during this COVID time between free and open. And free is free, open is open, it's not the same thing. And I would invite you to use this as a tool, because everybody agreed to this. So might as well use it. What's also interesting is the next thing, the stakeholders. You see how long that list is? It has usually when you have an educational, educational discussion or document, you have about five, six stakeholders, governments, institutions, students, associations, etc. Here we have everybody. We have also cultural institutions. We have libraries, archives, we have internet providers, infrastructure providers, because online learning really doesn't go very far if you don't have the internet, which is what we've also learned over the last couple of years more than anything. And by the way, this infrastructure business, we've even learned that within a household and in a country perhaps in the Europe region, even has problems because you have only so much bandwidth. So this is something that affects everyone. We have media broadcasting groups. We have copyright holders, which is basically anyone who's produced something. And this is what the inside looks like. And I think it leads to a lot of the discussions we had earlier. We have, there are five areas. The first one is about capacity to create access, use, adapt, and redistribute OER. And what came out of the discussions is that OER is a great idea. And if we're going to go back to the toothpaste analogy, toothbrush analogy, we can of course go back to the fact that it's so great, it'll make your teeth brighter, it'll make your teeth brighter, you'll smell better, everything is great. But in fact, the problem is a lot of people really have a lot of trouble actually finding them, accessing them, using them, reusing them, sharing them. It's a fact. After all of this time, it's still a challenge. So that was the first part. The second is on supportive policy. How can we, what can we do in this area? The third one is loaded that those five, six words in that box are loaded. Inclusive refers to persons with disabilities, ensuring that it's equitable to vulnerable groups, access again to, to, also to disability issues, quality. I know we're with higher education people, so you'll be happy. I'll say the word quality assurance. So George, I remember that the first time we met, it was about quality assurance. Everybody is there, so it's there. And sustainability. What can you do to ensure the sustainability of all of the, the processes that are going through, since in fact it's supposed to be available for no profit? So the dynamic we've put in place a dynamic coalition, which responds to the fifth one, which is facilitating international cooperation. And the objective of this dynamic coalition is to leverage inter-regional collaboration, to create peer networks and to identify partnerships and mechanisms to promote and strengthen OER efforts. And what we found, we had two large meetings and we've had a number of events. And what we found is that there is a huge community out there. It's everywhere and it's, it's, it's really large, but there's a lot of people doing a lot of the similar stuff and they need to sort of kind of connect to one another in order to do it, to be able to see. So I have some examples of some of the work that we're looking at here. I'm almost finished, so I know my time is tight. My last point is this. And it applies to what are we doing, how can the collaboration be useful? What can this all feed into? And it's the fact that we put out a joint call for action. And basically we called four people to remember for governments to remember that OER is out there and it should be used and it should be harnessed and it should be a mainstay of the response to the educational crisis that came out of the COVID crisis. So I think we're going to address the three questions, two questions after. So I won't go too much into it, but the collaboration and exchange, I think, is at the heart of the OER. And in terms of supporting learners, well, it's contextualization. That's the point of OER. And I think that's the point that has to be really put forward in a manner which is going to really be effective in order for it to work. So with that, thank you. You have my email there if you'd like more information. And I'll get out of here. Thank you so much, Seineb from UNESCO, did you know that OER, Condition for OER? Wonderful. I think this recommendation is really, really helpful and really, really support our job very, very much. And I saw in the chat as well that Catherine, for example, she's always using that when she is working on the disseminating and the work on OER and it's really helpful. Let me just see. I wonder if we have Ashka Kanba with us. You do, Eba, can you hear me? Yes, wonderful. I'll just take five minutes. You just came right in time, Ashka and you're so much welcome. Ashka Kanba is coming from the Commonwealth of Learning where she is the president. So the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. I was just listening to the last bit. I'm sorry, you know, my office seems to have got the time wrong, but it's lovely to see everyone and looking well and safe. Just to share with you, you know, five initiatives that we, the Commonwealth of Learning took under the COVID crisis to support our stakeholders. And then I'll end with five lessons. So it shouldn't take more than four or five minutes. The first is the OER for COVID. And in fact, it links very well with what Zaynab was just saying because it complements, you know, the higher level policy making that UNESCO does with actual work on the ground. So one of them was OER for COVID. This was promoting OER based online learning. This we started last April, you know, when COVID had just started with the OER foundation in New Zealand. And this was achieving three objectives. It was a support network for educators. It was sharing online courses, providing open IT tools and building the capacity of educators. And there were people from about 89 countries who joined this network, and the platform is still going very strong. So this has been a very practical way of supporting people almost immediately. But you know, in some regions of the Commonwealth where we work in 54 member states in the Pacific, the connectivity is really a problem. So the ministers asked us to develop a video on demand, a video on demand facility, which requires low bandwidth. So we've done this for four countries, Fiji, Nauru, Samoa and Tonga. And over 800 videos were curated, which were aligned to their curriculum. So this they found very useful because it's sort of linked with what the teachers really needed. We've also done a lot of capacity building that Zena was talking about, you know, using MOOCs. For example, we've done technology, this was the biggest thing that teachers needed, you know, technology integration, the ability to use OER for online learning and so on. And the government of Trinidad and Tobago asked us to run a MOOC and they've got 17,000 teachers. Half the number of teachers in the country were trained through that MOOC. We've also been doing MOOCs on cyber security training for teachers, which is very popular. So it's happening again and again. And the point to say is that all the content is available as OER, which means anybody can run with it, you know, you can adapt it to your context and you can use it. We also developed a lot of OER resources during this time, for example, you know, teaching in a digital age with Tony Bates, you know, these are videos which in just 12 videos give you a full, and this is for policymakers and practitioners, give you a full idea of what you need to do in terms of quality, in terms of student support, in terms of delivery, in terms of assessment and so on. And there were several other resources which were created for this time, you know, which are all OER strategies for blended TVET, for gender, for distance education, for assistive technologies and so on. So all those resources are available as OER on our website. Plus we also initiated a partnership called Open Door, where 60 plus organizations, universities mostly, and associations and networks have joined. And they have shared all the partners and MIT is one of them, have all shared about 200 online courses as OER for any other partner to use. So I mean, these are very sort of useful resources, which actually complement the bigger initiatives being taken by our partners and stakeholders elsewhere. So I think the five lessons that we've learned in this time is that we are all interdependent and interconnected, that the COVID has shown us. And I think this builds a very strong foundation for further collaboration and sharing. We already have a lot of collaboration with each other as you know. But this is the foundation to strengthen it further. The second lesson we've learned is that there are declining investments in education, especially in two thirds of the developing low income and middle income countries in the world. So I think OER becomes a very important and viable option for governments as they take this forward with lower resources. And so there would be a need for increased advocacy for OER and of course evidence based. The other momentum that we've seen during this pandemic is self directed learning. You know that the number of MOOCs people have done during this time. So self directed learning has come up and this actually lays the foundation for lifelong learning. So more OER for lifelong learning going forward. The digital divides have become as we've seen wider than ever social inequalities have increased and especially women and persons with disabilities are going to be further disadvantaged. So how do we sort of invest in more accessible and affordable OER? And then finally if we are talking about you know building back better which everybody's talking about capacity in OER developing using and sharing OER will be something which will be very very important going forward. So with that thanks a lot. Eba back to you. Thank you so much Asha Kabbar from Commonwealth of Learning. Wow, this is really wonderful. It has been a wonderful hour to listen to all of you in the distinguished panel. It's wonderful. It's also wonderful to hear what each of you and each of the organizations are doing but also what and how we can work together and that is one of the aim for this session as well. I mean we work together in different kind of issues of course but it is so great to have everyone on board today all together. There has been so thank you very very much all contributors in the panel. It was wonderful and also thanks a lot. It has been a really lovely discussion and sharing in the chat I have seen. I have tried to follow and I also have my colleague Diana following it so we will keep on track. I will start off with by the way Asha I know that you have to leave rather soon so please just do it when you find it possible when you need to do it. So thanks for being with us. Anyway there have been some questions and the discussions and sharing a lot of links in the chat so far nor some questions in the question and answers. So I will start off with that and then we also have some common questions for you or for us from Ida but I will start with a discussion in the in the chat and I will start with Sir John Daniel who is together with us today and it's really really an honor that you are here today. Sir John Daniel was also the founder of Eda. So thank you for the time for being with us. One of his questions is about how are the commercial publishers adapting to the success of OER and are their adaptations helpful or harmful? That was a very tricky question so he will get started with this one. Yes I don't hello Sir John it's a great honor to be here with you and he was also our big boss at UNESCO and Sir John was the assistant director general for education at UNESCO also. I don't know exactly how all commercial publishers are doing I don't I'm not sure but I do know that they're interested in discussion because when we organized the first meeting of the OER Dynamic Coalition we invited the Association of Publishers and they came and it was the it was the NGO and it was also the regional some of their European publishing associations and to be to be just concise there were a lot of very constructive and open movements towards dialogue and to see how we can work together and how there was a desire that was actually quite clear that to cooperate and to collaborate so I think it's a promising point. Thank you Sena. Someone else would like to take that question? So Ebba I can take it a little bit if you'd like. Yes please. So thanks Sir John for the question and I think if you're amenable I'm gonna pull it back just half a level to suggest that the question actually needs to be able to tackle not only the commercial publishers but also it has to involve a conversation with the content creators right so for those for those people that are involved in the creation of open educational resources they willingly create an environment where they're publishing it in a common domain they're willing for other people to use reuse etc and yet in in other context some content creators are also involved in the conversation around copyright right so whether or not you know institutions are using materials for learning purposes under under certain jurisdictional regulations and so there has to actually be a larger conversation between the learner the institution the content creator and the publishers that are involved in this and I think you know to Zaneb's point a number of those commercial publishers will come to the table because they're looking for the solution on the on the tail end as well right I mean they have a commercial enterprise they're trying to protect they are responsible to a group of people and so if they're able to work into that conversation and we can find that path to be able to create an environment where people are willing to create use reuse and and obviously not commercialize when it comes to open the environment it becomes much more problem solving and solution creation as compared to ending up in what is an inevitable potential regulatory or legal contest as the gray line between OER copyright commercial publishing and the creator start to play out all with the students sitting at the center right so it becomes it's it's it's an awesome question because the complexities that sit within that question are immense and actually have to be one of those cultural things that we we look to be able to dismantle if we want to find ultimate success and open thank you anyone else okay I have here a question from Anna Torren dear panelists do we use research showing that the use of OER in higher education is successful is this research perhaps showing that if university staff reuse learning objects for the course they might free up time that they can use for the students learning what I'm after is the question teachers mainly mainly ask themselves why should I care about OER although I think each of you have answered that question in your in your talks but I also know that all of us used to get at this question on the floor why should I care who would like to take that one I can start Ava um yes I I just I want to start just by saying that I think that the answer to that question is as individual as every educator you know that that comes to that question so I don't think that there is a universal answer to that question and it will really depend on the circumstances in which that educator finds themselves however I do think that there is um in general a a universal concern for the well-being of the student and I think that is a I think that could be a common denominator that is really important to answering that question if there was one across the board and one of the ways that I was just putting this in the chat one of the ways that we we can achieve that is through focus on research that continually tries to investigate and center inquiry around the connection between an open educational resource and the well-being or social mobility of our students no matter where they find themselves and I think that that we need there's lots of great work that's been done in that space but it needs to continue and it needs to continue to be the main question that that we ask because every time there's a there's a global shift like the one we just experienced with COVID we need to be able to produce that research again and it needs to be relevant based on those shifts that we're seeing that that happen so quickly and so building up a community a strong community a strong baseline of research that that centers around that question and continues to to probe in that direction as you know every year as an as an annual cycle as a matter of course I think will be really really important so there might be people in the chat or in on the other panels too will be able to direct the the person who asked the question to such a place I don't know off the top of my head where that would be but I just wanted to make that general call for the for the importance of continued inquiry around that around that question and continued inquiry from all corners of the globe around that question thank you so much Lena Sandra yeah I would I would like to just I agree with Lena but I would like to say why we get such questions why teachers need to ask such questions I would say that it is obligation of the institution but also of the ministry of dedication to provide all necessary information and training of teachers so that they do not come with such questions it is the same if they ask why do should I use digital technologies why should I use open education I'm happy that we had even work as a community of practice and for those teachers who who want to to learn new things we are here with our activities to provide the floor to get the information as edit value to already basic information as they have but I think it's a pity that teachers do have to ask such questions because they should get the already training and answers at their own institution before even asking was it what is it for me thank you so much Sandra for this this answer that brings me of course to you Michael sorry that I direct you so so in that way but you said in your initial speech about that actually this is not really concerned for higher education maybe that is why we get this question all the time exactly what yeah yeah no and I would have anyhow asked for responding to Sandra because I do not fully agree with with what she said and I think there is indeed if you look at the results that we get to surveys you can see that there is some uncertainty about some of the advantages you brought the example of digitally enhanced learning for example so if if we follow the responses that we get from institutions throughout the years so there are some acknowledged benefits everybody agrees across Europe that it helps to trigger a discussion on learning and teaching in institutions but if you raise the question does it help to enhance students and at learning does it help teachers to have more time at hands to support students individually the answers are less certain sometimes it's something that is solved by time when we raise the question on the flipped classroom in 2014 people were very uncertain about it probably also due to a lack of definition what that actually would be yeah where some years down the road then we see it's it's it's used it's embraced and people see it works and it might bring some benefits but I think in particular now post in the post-covid situation somebody asked before I think it was under us what have we learned from the crisis you know and what will be the push in the future because when when it started I mean nobody was happy about the crisis but some people said it's actually a good crisis to get out into new ways of working it pushed for digitally enhanced learning and an end and some even said we might leapfrog a few stages and might make a huge a huge progress that's actually true but at the same time and the longer this takes there is also considerable pressure to go back to campus and to the old ways of teaching being in the classroom with the students and and and yeah so we will have a very mixed picture within your institution and I think you have to become you have to be ready to stand the argument and a discussion is that really better learning online and of course nobody can say yes or no and it's not so easy to prove so I think we will have to find good arguments and it needs this kind of research and I think particularly at institutions where where you have this scholarship of learning and teaching and people understand more and reflect more on the ways on how you teach at your institution I mean if you look into the academic literature there are all kinds of case studies yeah what somebody taught a class somewhere but you never understand fully all conditions and there might be different conditions and yours and your learners might also have different needs so I think it's really important that we keep on asking these questions and probably also try to answer them at the institutions governments might not be of much help there they can probably fund it or support it in other ways but the work has to be done at the institutions but I think it also goes back to one of the slides that you showed saying that there are so many stakeholders involved and each of us each of them need to be involved it's not it's not just a one-man show and not just a question for teachers I think if I just may add that there has been growing awareness on this now but I mean you still find policy discussions where there's talk about student teachers and solving a problem of quality of learning and teaching is usually get the teachers trained nobody looks at what it would actually take for teaching it's you you can run an analogy of a hospital if you just think that you need a surgeon to perform surgery a very dangerous approach yeah and I think in education it's quite similar you know it needs all these colleagues who are in student services who are in the administration who plan and support it and in the end it will need the institutional leadership as well to make the point that this is important and that goes I think for digitally enhanced learning as well and certainly also for open education you need to see the whole ecosystem of educational learning true I think we have time for one question more and that is one from Catherine Conan in your experiences what are effective ways of leveraging the broader understanding of open science open access to further awareness of open education or we are or we be particularly among higher education policy makers and leaders it was also a nice question anyone who would like to take that one well maybe I can connect also to the formal question because the formal topic in how much are the universities open for change and having their training change and so on the policy level is important here as well and I just want to point out that we are looking at the institutional level the changes is maybe not that that quick as Michael Gabriel is indicating on the other hand there are a lot of drivers in society that would ask for for this change looking at the the change in the economy and digitalization of the economy longer careers of people ask for continued education upscaling and rescaling but for that you need to have flexible scalable accessible offerings which are online online offerings and the knowledge contained in this online offerings are part of the knowledge centers the universities are so it is actually kind of a you could see it as a task of making that knowledge available by the universities by bringing them also in an online and online modes this is going to take time for to develop for the coming years and therefore open education at this moment there are many resources available online resources which are not taken because they are not known well or they are not categorized well they have to be brought into what is the the current demand for continued education are short programs and building from the existing MOOCs and new MOOCs are other open education resources building programs that are fit for the for the economy for the companies and the sectors in a dialogue to make them fit is actually a task that has to be has to be taken up to deliver on the demand which is currently there thank you so much George so we're almost coming to the end of this session and webinar so I will share my screen again it has really been a wonderful discussion and debate and a lot of questions and reflections during this webinar with all our great distinguished panelists from those eight global associations and I will really say that to my mind I mean the message from all of you are in the same kind of directions with some kind of different kind of pathways but the messages messages is very very clear from all of you and maybe that will come to a position that if we really take the position that education is common good and should be reachable and available to all it is our obligation to join efforts and work in these directions and thus we have been discussed and what very much Sena pointed out and all of you are actually OER and the wide meaning of OER I don't mean just the resources but if we really take the recommendation and really take the recommendation seriously can help in achieving inclusive education aiming to ensure that learners with diverse needs and preferences even with disabilities have equal opportunities in accessing learning resources services and learning experiences in general so maybe some kind of statement and final conclusion is about that international association support open as an education research and in life as it is a culture that will enable us all to equally participate in life we were given and I think all of you have really approached those dimensions and I know that we are more or less running out of time but maybe a question to reflect on is about so in short what are the actions which are needed to really achieve this at governmental level at institutional level and at member level and I know that we all and you all within your organizations are working on this so maybe I would like to give the floor to you Sandra as the president of Eden in your opinion and in your statements how do you think we can proceed forward with this after this very very exciting and very unique opportunity that we all have met together for this webinar sharing our experiences and resources and knowledge thank you Eva well time has passed really really quite quickly and it was really interesting to see and hear the opinions from the others and really questions have been great we could talk for hours about this topic definitely and there is a need for for much more talking about this issue I think that the association has important voice and we have behind us a number of members we have behind us knowledge and expertise of other members and by joining our efforts we can push stronger messages stronger results and stronger initiatives towards making open education more visible and more present we have seen today that still open education and open education resources are an issue because we still have questions what is it for what is it in it for me and definitely the crisis have enhanced the the the need that everyone has accessibility for education and what we want is that we enrich our society with people which are educated because only educated people can enhance the social and economic impact of their countries and if we want our students our people to be skilled to be able to make changes in the future then we have to make everything in our efforts to provide possibility that they get all possible education they get whether it's the information they will find on the internet there whether it will be some discussion in which they will participate whether it will be some research they will participate or just read it or the whether is it the formal education where they have some diploma or as we see now the short courses have become much more present and needed because especially I would say of this online way of working so there's definitely a need that we enhance that and I think that by promoting but by disseminating information and pushing the information much stronger we can influence in our country on our country level the visibility of importance of open education but also we can influence the associations like UNESCO like European Commission like European Universities Association and others to put on the agenda the issue of open education and to much stronger advocate the need for that and definitely in Eden we will foster these activities and we'll come back to you and ask you to join us in our further efforts to make open education an openness as a way of culture of in our life in our society not just as a trend perhaps in education and research so thank you thank you so much Sandra I think this is really important that you mentioned and stressed the culture of openness that each of us need to advocate about that and also to be an influencer and to advocate in each of our contexts or these all activities we are working on because and also this webinar really has shown very obviously that we are on the same kind of track and together we are very strong and that's I shall come back to Sandra mentioned their campaign has been open doors and I know that many of the organizations have had their own campaigns not at least during the COVID-19 in 2020 like Eden we had opened together where we had a series of webinars both in spring and in autumn and of course we will continue and we really hope that you're also saying Sandra that we can do some more work in collaboration together with all of you to move things forward so by that I think it is time to first of all thank all the panelists all the distinguished panelists and their and your contributions for taking your time and for your interest and being together with us for today and as I said in the beginning it really showed also the importance because when I approached you all of you more or less said yes thank you more or less with a returning email so it's very very fantastic that we can manage to do this together I would also like to thank all the participants and this webinar is recorded so you will get the link afterwards of course and we will continue the dialogue continue the discussion and continue our advocacy about the role of openness in shaping the the future the future we want and that goes very much hand in hand with UNESCO's initiative for for 2050 the futures of education learning to become although it is maybe some 30 years to 2050 we have to start more or less now or yesterday preferable so we have more sessions with the EDEN open educational week it continues already tomorrow and then it goes each of the days and some days there are even two webinars and you can of course find those at EDEN webpage and you can register for all at one time if you like so please continue to be together with us not just for this week but also for the future but this week is very very much of interest and I know there is a lot of interesting other sessions as well at the open education week so please join and please learn together and our next conference from EDEN EDEN 2021 would be a virtual annual conference and it will be hosted by UNED in Madrid in Spain the call is out and you can find more information here as well at our webpage so by that I would like to thank you all again very much for your time of your contribution and for your interest and please stay in touch and also please stay safe and take care and stay healthy and we'll be in touch have a nice evening morning afternoon bye bye thanks bye bye thank you