 All right, welcome everybody. Thank you for coming back and I hope you're having a good morning or evening wherever you are. I'm just going to provide an introduction again. Today, the afternoon session is on policy and we're very fortunate to have with us Maria Saldidad Ramirez Montoyo from who's the OER chair in Mexico and Jane Frances Obiageli Agbu who is the OER chair in Nigeria. They will be addressing the topic of policy today and right now I'm just going to give an introduction for those of you who've heard me give this introduction several times, please bear with me for those of you who haven't, please enjoy. Here we go, next slide please. Okay, the objectives, the reason we're having these meetings and the objectives of this session and as are the objectives of each of the sessions is to further clarify the priority areas of action per working group. So what we're talking about here is drilling down. We've had three, this is our third consultation as a group since March, which is not bad at all actually. The first consultation was the launch meeting in which there was a survey and we identified the main areas of action per working group and the working groups are based of course on the first four areas of the recommendation. Then we had the survey in which we tried to drill down further into what are the main points that this coalition could work on both collectively and what are the areas that the members of this coalition are working on individually in their own organizations that could eventually be linked together for further collaboration. The point of this discussion is to have a better idea of the results of the survey to flesh it out to understand better what are the main parts on the topic of policy that would be of value to concentrate on in terms of an action from the dynamic coalition and what are its parameters? What are the dimensions of these activities? And in this case for this afternoon, we'll be looking at the area of policy. The second objective is to understand the parameters of an electronic tool for information sharing and collaboration on the activities of the dynamic coalition, both what's being done within the dynamic coalition and what's being done individually outside by the different organizations that could perhaps be linked together to establish collaborative links and to perhaps move forward even more as in the future when further partnerships. This is in line of course with the objectives of the dynamic coalition, which is to support international cooperation. The question here is about user needs and in terms of what would be useful to share this information. This is a question we've been asking in each of the workshops and it of course is transversal and we'd just like to get your feedback on this. The next thing I'm going to look at is the framework in which we're working. Could we go? Okay, those of you who have been in the previous chats, previous sessions, you know all this, but if you're new to it, basically, I just want to bring your attention to the format of the discussions. We are using Zoom and there are, as you can see, there are 16 participants right now in the room of the 16 participants, 17 now. We do not have a means to show the other participants, for you to see the other participants because of the way this tool is made, but we will be sharing with you after this discussion the list of participants and we will be sharing also the breakdown in terms of gender, region and institution type. If you want to participate and we would like you very much to participate, we'd like you to raise your hand and we will give you the floor or to put your question in the Q&A box. As you can see on the screen, it's the one in the middle, it says Q&A and it's there that we would like you to put your, what we will do when you put the question in the Q&A box is we will read it so that it will be interpreted into the other language from which it is written. The chat function is not functioning in this framework, so it is functioning, but we will not be able to take questions there because it's too complicated and too difficult to manage the discussions if there are questions in the Q&A and questions in the chat as well as the other information that goes through the chat. Chats, so there you have everything. Oh, this session is being recorded and we will send out an address, very shortly, where the recordings of this session and the previous sessions are available for you to listen to again if you want to or to send further comments. The reporter for this meeting is Neil Butcher, who from OER Africa, and he's joined here as one of the panelists with his colleague Mohini Bajnath, who is also assisting him. There is interpretation. What you have to do is put your cursor down to the button that says interpretation, which I don't seem to have for some reason, on my screen right now, but I'm sure you have it, and you have to go to the language that you want the interpretation to be in when there's English or French, so if someone's speaking French, if you go to English, you'll hear what they said in English. If you say disable, you will hear what's being said in the language that it's being said. Oh, if you've registered for one session, you've registered for all in principle, and the link is good for all the sessions. So with that, I will give the floor to our panelists, Jane and Maria, and thank you very much. Thank you. Jane, would you like to start? Okay, Maria? Yes? I think what we drew up, how to start with the objectives from our earlier discussion, yes. So we'll just quickly introduce ourselves. Yes, of course. I'm going to share the presentation. Yes. I'm sharing the presentation already, Maria. Just wondering when you want me to advance the slides. Yes, thank you so much. Welcome all for the session, and thank you for staying here with us, with my partner, Jane Friends, from the Open University in Nigeria, and me, Maria Solerad Ramirez, from Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico. We are here with you, and thank you for your collaboration for the session for policy. In the next slide, we can see the objective for this meeting. It's about the forward clarification of priority areas and identify activities and uses relating to electronic tools to develop and sustain to support the policy of OIA. In this session, it's very important your collaboration with your comment and application for the construction, the ideas for the policy, for the recommendation for OIA. In the next slide, Jane can share the main point for this policy. Yes, thank you, Maria. By way of introduction of this slide, I want us to recall that the Second World OER Congress, which was concluded in Ljubljana in 2017, stipulated action plans for OER, and these reflected the recommendations from the six regional consultation meetings, as well as the open consultation and the deliberations and recommendations on the Congress itself. The action plan basically tried to identify concrete actions to mainstream OER, and which will ultimately support governments achieve the SDG for goal of quality education. And we are here today to deliberate on one of the strategic areas, which is supportive policy for open educational resources. So let us not assume that we know what that section is all about. So for the benefit of maybe a new entrance in this area, we have five subsections under the policy area, the action plan. And in the first section, it's about trying to encourage government to develop... that is developing and implementing policies or regulatory... basically is to encourage government to open up and develop educational materials that are publicly funded material, as well as... dedicate to public domain and also dedicate them to public domain, as well as to financial and human resources to be coordinated for the implementation of this policy. And the other one is... tries to encourage the government to support institutions or to develop and update legal or policy framework in order to stimulate, decrease and adaptation, as well as redistribution of quality OER for educators and learners. And in addition to develop and integrate quality assurance mechanisms for open educational resources into the existing quality assurance strategies for teaching and learning basically. And the third one is to develop mechanisms to support and incentivize all stakeholders to publish source files and accessible OER using standard open file format in public repository. Then the fourth one is to align OER policies with other open policies and guiding principles, such as those for the open access, open data, open pedagogy, open source software, open science. And finally, adjusting or reforming the curriculum and assessment in accordance with the needs of the use of OER and to motivate the active use, creation, sharing of OER by teachers and students and recognize the learning outcomes of OER-based programs of study. So this is just a refresher of where we are coming from and where we need to be because this meeting basically is to take it off from here. It is part of the way forward is a synthesis of the survey that was conducted in March 2020. And I think, Maria, I think you're supposed to briefly talk in this area. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Jane. Yes, we have 22 points in this synthesis and the main idea is about the different topics for one hand is about the government and the Oden Heart Society and the universities. And the ideas is about the high-level dialogue with minister, director for the benefits for supporting OER. Another is about that we need a periodic, interactive, regional and inter-regional with forums in education and working about OER policies should be aligned with the prevailing educational copyright publishing IP policies. Regional and inter-regional government should develop and regulate frameworks. This is very important that they encourage and ban open lease licensing in public funds. Advice or support in the development of open policies, sharing experience and documents on OER in regional and inter-regional levels. A portal, this is very important too. A portal to share documents should be initiative across region should be maintained. Collaboration with commercial publisher in OER is net. Aligning of OER policies with open data is needed review and revision of existence policies and recommendation to remove barriers to OER. In the next slide, finally, the other point is about educational institution across region should enable policies that encourage recognize for OER and collaborative platform to enable region identify tabs. Region should encourage and support institution to develop legal framework to stimulate OER activities. Get line, the same quantity as source, research, this is very important too. Reset network in OER and open education should be encourage across and within region with correspondency policy guidelines. Continue support and capacity building amongst the UNESCO member states to develop OER policies. Regional and inter-regional collaboration mechanisms towards inclusion of OER, transforming education, encourage and support institution to develop or update legal or policy framework to stimulate the creation, access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation and redistribution of quality OER. Develop and integrate a quality assurance mechanisms for OER. Encourage research in OER. Annual meeting with donors and potential donors should be encouraged. With this idea, we have another meeting in March, in July. And Jane, can you share the point for the other survey please? In the next slide. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Maria. Thank you so much. Yes, it is actually important to know that from these 22 points, the committee, hello. Yes. Okay, it's actually important to note that from these 22 points, the committee was able to compress them into three main points, three main areas, which are identification and sharing of information and support. Then the other one is to incorporate collaborative mechanisms. And the third information is research. Okay? So under the first one, which were kind of a roadmap that was compressed from the 22 initial points from the March survey, we have the first one, the sharing of information and support. And how do we plan to do that? The committee noted that it should be true development and implementation of institutional policies, both standalone and or integrated. Then also the committee suggested that it should be true aligning OER-related policies to open education, open access and prevailing ID policies. Then the third one is regional and inter-regional frameworks that encourage embedding open licensing to public funded educational materials, mechanisms and tools to share best practices in policy issues, inter and intra-regionally. Then the last one under sharing of information is encourage international and multilateral frameworks that reinforce open access to information, data and transparency in this area. Then under the encouragement of collaborative mechanisms, it was suggested that to achieve this, there is the need to develop and implement tools to support copyright and IP policies and laws. Then collectively develop templates based on analysis of good practices. Then the third one is encourage research, encourage development of policies that recognize OER users and creators. Then the fourth one is to encourage and develop policies that stimulate creation, access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation and redistribution of quality OER by educators and learners. Then the last one under this section is to develop and integrate policies that identify and address barriers for OER integration in education. Then the third section is research. Basically, this section is about establishing research networks to provide evidence-based for policy development in OER. It's important to note that this synthesis and roadmap was presented or collated by 1100 experts from 28 countries. And then furthermore to the continuation of this exercise. In July this month, a survey was sent out basically to provide insights on these three important areas for policy in OER. That's sharing of information and support, encourage collaborative mechanisms and their research in this area. Next slide, please. Next slide. Hello, can I have the next slide? Hello. Jane, I'm on the slide called Further Clarification of Priority Areas, Electronic Tools now. Are you wanting me to go past that? Because I've advanced quite a few slides already. No, I want to know the next slide. I want to know the next slide on the results of the July. Yes, yes, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so this is the result of the July survey on the three priority areas, sharing of information. And you can see from the results, there is a consensus that's actually, we're supposed to look at or focus on these three areas. Okay, can you go back a bit? Yes, and yes, so that is that. There is an overwhelming support for identification and sharing of information and correct collaborative mechanisms and research. Okay, so the next slide, please. Then down, we're going to ask the question, is there any other area of action to be addressed as priority in future work for policy recommendation? I think, Maria, if you can take this section, I'll be fine. Yes, here, the question is about the, we have different ideas now about research, about the shared information. And which of these do you think about is priority to do work? And any other areas that do, can you recommend us for policy recommendation? This is the question, and now it's open for the participant to share the ideas, please. So please feel free to raise your hands if you'd like to make any inputs or comments about other, about priority action areas that haven't been included in the slides that you've seen so far. And I will unmute you to talk. Maybe we can share the slide, two slides before, the roadmap or three, this one. Yes, thank you so much. This is the ideas. And what do you think about the priority for these ideas or if you have another ideas? So we have an input on the Q&A from Cable Green who says, Creative Commons is ready to work with others to create a model and template open policies for all kinds of education policy, including but not limited to, one, open licensing policies on publicly funded educational resources. For example, open licenses required on publicly funded educational resources. Two, open licensing policies on publicly funded research resources. For example, a zero embargo period, open license on articles and data in the public domain. And three, promotion and tenure policies that support instructors who openly license and actively share their educational resources as OER. Thank you for that input Cable. Alexis, I will unmute you now if you'd like to make or you can unmute yourself I think as a panelist if you'd like to make a contribution now. Sure, thank you very much, Neil. Yeah, I just wanted to say under the first point, we do have from 2019 the guidelines on the development of open educational resources policies that was developed by our Commonwealth of Learning in Moscow. And so that outlines pretty much a step-by-step approach for designing and implementing OER policy. So that can be a very useful document I think in moving forward with some of the policy work and having a common framework in the approach for this as well. Thank you, Alexis. That is supported by a comment from Igor, I think, who says, I think that the availability and creation of various templates, toolkits, guidelines on the creation of OER policies is important. But the first step here should be to consolidate and review existing resources that have already been developed in this regard as a starting point, including Col and UNESCO as well as various NGOs and associations. I'll come on to some more comments in the Q&A, but first I have a hand from Jan Neumann. So Jan, I've opened up. You should be able to unmute yourself and talk now. Yes, I just unmuted me. Can you hear me? We can. Perfectly. Yes. I'm Jan Neumann. I'm the project manager of the OER Worldmap project. And I just wanted to notify you on the activities we are currently taking. And we have a focus on policymaking at the moment. And we have started collecting policies based on the collection which was done by Creative Commons in the past. And so we have currently already 222 policies registered on the OER Worldmap. I will share a link in a second. And we are also building a new page which will focus on policymaking especially. So this might be one first step to address this topic of sharing experiences from policymaking and fostering global mainstreaming of OER. And while we have this collection of policies already at place, we think that additional activities have to be taken to support sharing of knowledge and experience. And therefore, we already started to write an article on collective policymaking and participative policymaking. And also just recently triggered by this discussion, partly triggered by this discussion, we have an idea to create a course on policymaking. So there are three ongoing activities at the moment to summarize. The first will be to launch a site which includes the collection of policies which is already available on the OER Worldmap. Second, provide additional information on how to make participative policymaking. And third one, an idea for future collaboration creating a course on policymaking. Thank you, Jan. I'm going to read out next an input from Genron Wetzler at Creative Commons regarding the development and implementation of institutional policies. It will be important to assist government lawyers who are, A, almost always involved in policy conversations and, B, not familiar with open licensing or OER. Creative Commons legal and open education teams regularly talk with and answer questions from lawyers at large institutions and governments. Lawyers in national ministries and departments of education have legal questions about copyright and open licensing. She suggests that contact the CC Open Education team. So thank you for that information and suggestion as well, Genron. I'm going next to move on to Igor, who has raised his hand. Igor Lesko from OER Global. Igor, over to you. And maybe you can also outline what you said in your last chat comment. You can unmute yourself now. Igor, would you like to unmute yourself? I'm unfortunately unable to unmute you on my side. I think Igor might be struggling to unmute himself. I'm going to just try to grant him the right to talk again. While he's dealing with that, I'll read out his comment, which is also contained in the Q&A. He has a comment related to mechanisms and tools to share information and best practices on policy issues inter and intra-regionally. At the moment, there is no real or tangible way for people advocating for policies or policymakers and administrators to connect, to share information about practices, challenges, to learn, to network, et cetera. In other words, where is the entry point for someone interested in affecting OER slash OE policy changes? The UNESCO portal could be one such avenue. There are other possibilities such as the OE policy hub. So thank you for that input. Do I have any other hands of people who'd like to make contributions at this point? So next I have Lisa Petridis. Lisa, please go ahead. Hi, Lisa Petridis from ISKME. I just really want to reiterate what Igor said around the entry point and the way for people to actually connect and share information about those practices. I think we've been working as a field and many of you who've been doing policy in other countries have made your policies freely available, the tools you've used to make them, there's been good consult with lawyers across countries, but the actual sharing of the day-to-day practices and challenges is I think one of the key pieces now that we need to find some mechanism and structure for as the OER recommendation is implemented across the member states. Drawing on the session on sustainability, yesterday I think the piece around continuous improvement, I'd like to reiterate that this is where I think it needs to be because if we don't, not every implementation of policy, even if you follow the framework that was very successful in another country is simply not going to work in the same way. So if we understand what those challenges were, what those impediments were, what those solutions were to there, I think that would be so useful as an entry point for those who are just beginning this process. Thank you. So maybe back to you, Jane and Maria. I'm still trying to work out how to get Igor unmuted. We'll see what we can do. Okay, thank you. Okay, Maria. Yes, I would like to know more ideas about what do you think about the research in this topic because we need improved in the knowledge and the policy is one area very important for the OER. What do you think to establish a research network to provide evidence based for policy development in OER which is the possibility in the different region which are the practice that we have? We have Igor unmuted now as well. So Igor, let's go ahead. Thank you, Neil. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay, sorry about the mix up. I actually had to share my link with one of my colleague, Paul Stacey, who was unable to log in and I think that's where the confusion is happening because he was trying to raise his hand too. The one thing that I wanted to also mention in terms of the priorities, I think that it's really important to figure out some effective communication strategy or a set of strategies. And I believe, Neil, I think you've got some views on this too. So in other words, also what kind of arguments with respect to OER or open education resonate with different policy makers either at the institutional or at governmental levels because policy arguments in this regard that are effective in some countries do not necessarily resonate with policy makers in other countries. So this really points to a more sort of nuanced approach to policy advocacy or advice. And so I think that it's important to focus on effective communication strategy in this context too. Thank you. Thank you, Igor. Next, we have Lea Harverman. So Lea, you are able to talk now. Hi, everyone. Thanks, Neil. I just wanted to respond to Maria's question about the importance of research and establishing research networks and really say I strongly agree with that point. I'm here as a member of the OER Policy Hub group working with Jan and Javier and Fabio but also another of my roles is I'm a doctoral researcher at the Open University and I'm looking at institutional policy making on open education issues. And I think it would be great to be in a bigger network of people who are also researching these issues and be able to kind of pool our knowledge and perhaps our data as well. Thank you, Leo. And in the other side, we have a theme about different ideas to policy too to share the best practice for the policy because the different region have a characteristic as very special. And maybe this is another point, another way to work together in this side. Okay, thank you for your comments and reflection. And Jane, can you? One more hand, Maria, from Cable Green. So Cable, you're talking, you'll just need to unmute yourself. Yes. Okay, thank you, Neil. And Maria, I think that's a very important question that you asked about what policy questions should we be working on. I would respond with, we talked about this in an earlier session as well. I think one of the things that would be useful here would be to have a mechanism where multiple countries could come together and discuss where they're having challenges, thinking about how to implement open policy, where they lack evidence, where they might. So for example, if the argument is made that it's a more effective use of public funds, if I was a policymaker, I would want to see evidence that that's actually true, which would very likely call for a research study. And if I need that in my government, odds are that many other governments also require that same research. And so maybe something like the UNESCO Dynamic OER Coalition could be a mechanism or a portal or a convening where governments could come together with the various questions they had, research challenges and coordinate activities. You can imagine 10, 15 countries together designing a research study that would answer many of the questions that they had, but we could run one or a few studies across those countries to get them the answers. And if we do it in an organized way, we can not only get the answers to countries, but most important, we can do what Lisa was talking about, which is to find out what's working and what's not working. Thank you, Kebel. Yes, and it's very important to continue and review what happened with this policy when it's the implementation in the different countries and which improve for more policy, maybe in the inter-regional and global. Thank you for your reportation. We can move for the other question. Where do you think, Jane? Do we still have questions? If not, we can move to the electronic tools and collaboration because I can see that most of the discussions are already responding towards that section. Yes. I will just, just before we move on to that section, Jane and Maria will quickly read out two additional inputs into the Q&A so that the translators can translate for people. The first is from Alexis Carr. He says, regarding Maria's question on research and linking to Paul's comment above, it will be important. Sorry, let me go to the first comment. I missed that because it's under Igor's name, but this is actually Paul Stacey commenting. I think a critical need is to generate demand and requests from the member state governments. Lots of offers to help with policy but to date, little to no demand or requests. So he's suggesting we need to generate that demand. And then Alexis, building on that, regarding Maria's question on research and linking to Paul's comment above, it will be important for research to examine the impact of policy and cost effectiveness which can help provide an evidence-based and fermented demand from member state governments and institutions. And then lastly, Igor adds, I agree with Cable's comment. In terms of research, more is needed to one, have a better understanding about the different policy approaches taken by different institutions or governments. Two, related to that, have a better understanding why certain policy approaches have been successful or worked while others have not. And three, look at which policy frameworks are impeding OER slash OE and therefore should be dismantled or revised. So I think with that, let's wrap up on this section and move on to the electronic tools, Jane and Maria. Sorry, I'm just reading those out for the purposes of translation. Thank you so much, Maria. Okay, so can I take it from there here, Maria? Yes, thank you. Thank you for the application. Yes, it's very important and I'm happy with your comment. Igor, Alexis and all the participants, because we need to work in these ideas and looking for the best practice and continue improve in the knowledge for the policy and research. Thank you. Okay, Jane, thank you. Go ahead. So thank you so much and thank you to everybody that's put in clarifications, observations, questions into all get what's improving this document and also more insightful conversation. And thank you, Kevin Green, for that observation on the policy questions to be addressed. It's very important. Thanks, Maria, for raising that question. Igor, thank you so much and thanks to everyone that asked questions. So recall, we have two objectives for this presentation. The first one was to clarify areas of priority starting from the 22 points identified in March to this year to the roadmap that was compressed to three areas of priority. And with this discussion, we've been able to elaborate more on possible areas to look for or work towards in future. So we're going to the second objective of this presentation, which is to identify activities and issues related to electronic tools for the development and sustainance of OER policy. So let's go to the next slide, please. The next slide on electronic tools. Hello. The next slide on electronic tools. This one. No, the next one. Yes, thank you. So from the survey, we had two surveys, the one for March and the July. Participants were able to suggest electronic tools and the sites that could, please go back, that could help enrich the policy, developing policy in OER. And we've been able to collect them in tabular form. Back to slides. We have a... Can you go back twice? Yes, please, stop there, yes. So we have this sites and tools and possible collaborations were collated by the respondents that took part in the March and the July survey. And we have the open government partnership. We have the OER map and open education policy network. Then the common way of learning OASIS and the repository, the institutional OER policy template. Then we have the ICD-E, then the SNAP, then open education policy lab, then open policy development tool kit. Then the next slide, we have the, then open ed consult, OER info, then European Institute for Learning, Innovation and Cooperation, the ICOR, the International Community for Open Research and Education. Then open up education by learning innovation, that's from a Christian strike. Then they learn STEM, then the Zenodo, and the Hivos and so on. So these are tools that were suggested by the respondents in this survey. Okay, the next slide, please. It's also important to note that there were some comments that were not really tied to the specific tools. For example, in the survey for July, we were able to extract the comment from the Open Education Global that they suggested that many activities related to open education and OER policy making are done in collaboration with partnerships, with other organizations, and they're also through the work of Open Education Global member. And some of the activities, most of them, some of them you could find them in the Open Education Global Annual Conference. There's one coming up very soon by the end of the year. And also other relevant activities are done in partnership with other organizations like the Open Education Policy Forum, the OER map, the OER Go GN Global OER Graduate Network, Open Education for a Better World. So these are suggestions from the Open Education Global Network. The last one is also is a suggestion from the Creative Common, which Cable Green has also noted earlier that it's heartwarming that the Creative Common is ready to create model policies for all kinds of education policy, including but not limited to open licensing and sharing policies on publicly funded educational resources, open licensing and sharing policies on publicly funded research resources, then promotion and tenure policy that supports instructors who openly license and actively share their educational resources as OER. And also Creative Common is ready to assist in the legal open licensing training for ministry, departments of education, lawyers and so on. And this brings us to our last question, the thinking about the platform, okay? So we have to also throw it back so we can get insight, although the conversation is already ongoing in this area. So what are the users need for the electronic tool for policy in OER? How would, how, who would use it? How and what functionalities are necessary for sharing of information? So we will really be really appreciate if we can throw more insight in this area. So thank you so much, Nel, please, over to you. Thank you. So if we have any further comments or inputs, we already got quite good inputs, I think from the survey results that Jane and Maria shared with us. Are there any additional comments that people would like to make on this? And this is a recurring question across the working groups. So I think we've heard some of the answers already. You've got unsurprising young human from world map. I thought you'd have some comments, Jan. So I'm unmuting you now, off you go. Or you'll have to unmute yourself, I think. Yes, I'm just unmuted them. Yes, I mean, we have seen already quite a lot of examples. And we had touched this question of electronic tools yesterday already. And for sure, the OER world map is one tool which provides information. But out of the experience, we have running this project for some years. I'm sure you're already aware of it, but I would like to mention it anyway, to say that especially if it comes to networking and collaboration and communication, we shouldn't focus only on the electronic tools, but also on human resources to support this community development. So it's not only a tool which is needed, but also editors or people who are developing the community doing comments and triggering the communication and the discussion. So this is one thing to be kept in mind. And I mean, apart from just collecting data, I'm still wondering, and this is something, I'm still missing something like a wiki on policymaking because there are so many open questions and terms which have to be defined. So something like this should be implemented in a platform as well. So thank you, Jan. We have someone that's creating a Zenip, who I think is Virginia Rhodes, Rhodes, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. But let me unmute you and then you can introduce yourself properly. Hi, y'all. I'm with the Zenip link because mine couldn't manage earlier. So I'm showing in the meeting now, sorry. I would like to contribute with the second... Could you just introduce yourself and where you're from? Yes, I'm Virginia Rhodes. I'm from Uruguay. I'm from Universidad de la República, I'm professor. And I'm the coordinator of the O-Year Center in my university. And also we have an open education UNESCO chair just in the process of signing. Go ahead. Okay, well, I was thinking about the question that Marisol sent me last night. And I think such a tool could be useful to have a policy benchmark that can be consulted by the holder. I think a group of experts that can show in and make some advice to anybody that is going to develop a policy in their country. And I think some functionalities should support all phases of the policy creation. I think we have to model these various phases through the construction of all the already developed policy-making processes. And also the possibility to reuse policy documents for adaptation to countries could also be useful. I think it has to be a tool that can hold the whole process of the policy-making. Excellent, thank you, Virginia. Do we have any other comments that people would like to make? Inputs they'd like to make on this topic. It looks to me, I think Jane and Maria like quite a lot of comments that have been in prior sessions. And so I think that this topic's been covered a couple of times already. So maybe I can hand back to you and we can wrap up the conversation now, unless Zinnip is the other thing that you're talking about. I think Werner has a comment that he might want to input. Werner, would you like to take the floor? Thank you, Zinnip. And sorry for all these technical inconveniences. I just wanted just to highlight a major tool that was delivered just after the OER recommendation was approved. It's related to the guidelines for developing OER policies. I think the distinct value of this tool in comparison of others previous that you have registered is that I think it's very much appealing to national governments or statewide governments. And I think it's very different from... Werner, you seem to have muted yourself. So you'll need to unmute again. Do you hear me? We hear you now. Okay. Oh, just to highlight that too, I think it's a game changer for anyone that wants to think a national or a statewide policy. Thank you, Neil. And thank you, Zinnip. Thank you, Werner. So, Jane and Maria, back to you. Thank you. Thank you, Jan, Virginia and Werner for your comments and apportation. And we have here a big tax together because in this platform, we can dream in different possibilities for the policy in OER, dreams and action, of course. We have to work in the user experience. We have to work in design center on user and the architecture information is very important in the platform, you know, and the user profile. And then in this way, we have to work together with multidisciplinary vision. What do you think about this and about the importance for the platform for policy OER? Well, I'm waiting for some responses to that question that you've posed, Maria. I'll just read out for the purposes of interpretation an input from Lisa in the Q&A, Lisa Petridis. She's just made one comment about electronic tools, I think is important, specifically with regard to sharing challenges in policymaking, et cetera. Is that some people may not want to do this in an open or public format or rather might not be as helpful to others since they will not be able to be as candid as they might want to be in terms of strategies, et cetera. And I think that's a very important observation that particularly in the area of policymaking, if people are expected to speak openly, it's often difficult for them to speak. So any other observations or comments that people would like to make in response to Maria's last question that you posed? I've got Jan's hand again. So Jan Newman, back to you. Yes, very quickly, combining Maria's question about dreaming with what I said before. I think if we are aiming at sharing experiences made in policymaking, we should aim at setting up a global network of observers. And maybe the first step would be to implement five continental nodes so that we have one observer at each continent looking out for new policies and making sure that there are case studies and being written down and shared to the other continents. And later on, I think we can put it down and implement a second level addressing country nodes. We had an approach in Germany with OER Info, which was the central information site on OER, which works quite good. And I think if we really want to set up a global network, each country should have one information site like this. And this reports to continental node and the continental globe then puts everything together and shares the information globally. So it's three levels of networking, I think, which are needed. Thank you very much, Jan. Leo's then added picking up on Lisa's and Jan's comments. This is one of the challenges we are thinking about in the context of the OER policy hub. We can capture finished policies in inverted commas, but it's harder to register policy making processes in progress. But being able to share and discuss this would have enormous value. So this is maybe something that we can consider adding. And it looks like Leo is going to add to his comments. So Leo, I've opened up for you if you'd like to unmute. Hi. It's Javier, I said Leo, because I'm using Leo's link. Sorry. I'm a Javier also from the OER education policy hub. My reflection about this trying to understand and putting policies, processes together, Jan just briefly mentioned that we're working on a set of recommendations for co-creation of policy making. We have had the input from Jen Brain and Igor and other colleagues around the OER policy world. But also I think it's good to start looking at the way in which open government commitments are being made around not only open education, but anything regarding transparency, open data, and open governance. Because this is a good way to map a process of openly making policies not only at government level, but also with the input from the civil society and other organizations that are quite relevant for specific commitments. So maybe it's a conversation that we need to have, and this is something that I've been discussing also with Jen Brain, to have with, and Verner, it's also been quite involving this process to talk about the involvement or the practices from open government into developing a sort of a policy or a commitment or a strategic document. So that's it. That's great. Thank you very much. Any other comments or inputs from people? Please feel free to raise your hands. Igor, I've answered your question about next steps, which I think we're covering in the closing session tomorrow. We have Virginia back again. So Virginia, I'm opening up for you. You should be able to unmute now, Virginia, if you'd like to. Yes. Now? It's OK? OK. OK. Well, I was thinking about the subject of sharing, sharing instead of what about thinking on a tool that can support and guide an entire development process. It's different than sharing information. Because sharing information is a need that we have as a community of open education in the whole world. But for every country or every community that wants to develop a policy, there are no guidance. So what about thinking on a tool that instead of sharing information can guide the development process? I think if we can collect some information, for example, in a demographic way to reconstruct the way that every policy that has been made in each part that could manage to, we can develop a tool that can guide the process and generate the ways to support the process. Also offering experts because I'm thinking about the way we can spread. I think sharing information is one step, but guiding is different. And I think policy can be a subject where each step can be guided better than, for example, capacity building or it's different, like OER development or something like that. Policy is there are some steps that are common. But for example, in Latin America, countries that know the way to develop the policy. So a tool that can guide this process is different than a tool that can collect or share information. I don't know if I can be clear on that because my English. That's very clear. Thank you. And Leah has responded by indicating that they are preparing a guide for co-creating a policy which they will launch in September or October. So that would certainly be one resource that we can feed into the process. I think Igor also mentioned the important point earlier of first checking what's already been done before we create anything new and then working from there. So that would make sense. That's all I have from my side so far, Maria and Jane. If you'd like to move forward, I think, unless I'm not receiving any other hands or comments, so maybe we could move on. Hang on, as I say that. Alexis has pointed out that Verna also mentioned the call UNESCO OER guidelines as an example of such a tool. So we've got lots of those links. We've harvested them all from the chat and from the Q&A. And so I will make sure that they're all contained also in the final working group reports. So all of that information will be shared with you when we compile our final reports from these sessions. And that can provide a start for the information sharing process. Back to you, Jane and Maria. OK, thank you, Nell. Yes. And thank you, everyone, for the questions and suggestions. And Jan, I really appreciate your point on the need to also focus on human resources to support this initiative, not just electronic tools. And also your second point on setting up a network of observers in order to identify the policies out there so that we don't replicate what has already been done. And also that ties to Igor's observation that we need to check out the policies out there before creating a new one. And Virginia, thank you also for your point on the need to do the possibility of reusing the policy in this area in open educational resources. And when now, you also mentioned the major tool out there for guidelines for developing OER policy. And you also stressed on the highlight for that tool as a game changer. And we are really grateful for that insight. Virginia, yes, you're talking about two kids out there. I think Lumen learning, the two kids for OER policy development is very detailed and helpful. And also, I'm aware that the common way of learning has a tool kit for higher education institutions, which actually helped us in Nigeria when we drafted the OER policy for higher education in Nigeria. It was quite very helpful. So with that, I say thank you all for your observations, your questions. Maria, do you have anything to add? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Jane. And thank you, everyone, for your comments and application for this important topic. The policy, we have a very sensible topic because the policy, why? The policy for OER and how we can improve best practice. We have to remember that the policy is for the society and for best society. And in this way, we have to work in this term, in social appropriation. Appropriation social in Spanish. Social appropriation to impact in the people, in the best life, in the best way. And in this sense, the electronic and the policy and our effort is in this way. Thank you for this session and have a good holiday, if you can, and take care. Thank you for all. Thank you very much, Maria Sonadad. Thank you, Jane. I'm having some identity crisis now because I'm all over the place, but I am nowhere. So thank you for everybody, for your participation and for your inputs. I think Neil has put on the chat that the materials, the resources are accessible on a website, which I'll be sending out to the entire dynamic coalition. And you can send him additional inputs that could be taken into account for the report of this session. And I'd like to thank you once again and just let you know that we will be having our next session tomorrow morning at 10. It's our last session. I know it seems like it's just nonstop, but it's really actually our last one. And it's on capacity building. It's tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock at CET. Same place on Zoom. For those of you who had some difficulties getting into the Zoom room, I apologize though I have no control over it, except for giving you my password and finding you other passwords. But we hope it'll be worked out, but we have no guarantees. So if you do come, you have a problem, let us know and we'll try to fix it. Zoom is a capricious animal, so we'll have to see that everything works out the best that it can. Thank you very much and see you tomorrow, hopefully. And tomorrow afternoon, we're having the closing session. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye. Yeah. Goodbye. Bye. Bye-bye. Adios. Bye-bye. Adios. Bye. Jane. Jane. Yeah? And Mary Soul, I'm going to send you an invitation in one second for a debriefing. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.