EduArc: Meeting of International Working Group on Digital Infrastructures for OER

After the inaugural opening of the Center for Open Education Research (COER) of University Oldenburg at the 1st of October, COER-members participated at the 1. International EduArc workshop on "Educational Architectures for the dissemination and re-use of (open) educational resources". The participants gave a short presentation of the current state of digital learning in their countries with an emphasis on (national) infrastructures for the provisioning of (reusable) open learning materials. The lively discussion demonstrated the broad diversity of solutions pursued in the different countries and how general concepts of education in a country directly can be related to the layout of the digital infrastructure. Some countries have a strong top down approach, driven by political demands. Other countries prefer a more decentralized approach that relies on the initiative of the single institution. In some countries - where universities own the teaching materials produced by professors -  these universities tend to restrict an open dissemination of materials, whereas in other countries - where education is seen as a public good - the open proliferation of these materials is regarded with favor. In the following step, several COER members will develop a more elaborated dossier on national infrastructures for the provisioning of educational resources. These dossiers will help the EduArc project to conceptualize such a infrastructure for universities in Germany. It will, essentially, be based on a mechanism of federation that connects repositories of educational resources in universities and other institutions.  

EduArc is a joint project of University Duisburg-Essen, University Oldenburg, DIPF Frankfurt, ZBW Kiel, and funded by the federal ministery of education (BMBF, Berlin). 

Participants: 

• Cengiz Hakan Aydin, Anadolu U, Turkey
• Aras Bozkurt, Anadolu U, Turkey
• Dianne Conrad, Athabascau U, Canada 
• Insung Jung, International Christian U, Japan 
• Marco Kalz, Open U, NL 
• Som Naudi, U South Pacific, AU 
• Paul Prinsloo, UNISA, South Africa
• Adnan Quayyum, Penn State U, USA
• Jennifer Roberts, UNISA, South Africa
• George Veletsianos, Royal Roads U,  Canada
• Junhong Xiao, Shantou Open U, China 
• Jingjing Zhang, Beijing Normal U, China
• Olaf Zawacki-Richter, U Oldenburg
• Michael Kerres, U Duisburg-Essen 
• Patricia Slagter Van Tryon, East Carolina U, USA 
• Carina Dolch, U Oldenburg 
• Martine Schophuizen, Open U, NL 
• Frank Senyo Loglo, U Oldenburg
• Melissa Bond, U Oldenburg
• Svenja Bedenlier, U Oldenburg 
• Lisa Marie Blaschke, U Oldenburg 
• Elisa Bruhn, U Oldenburg 
• Tobias Hölterhof, U Duisburg-Essen
• Katja Buntins, U Duisburg-Essen