On Oct. 30-31, members of the global open educational resources (OER) community will present their research into the challenges of sustaining and facilitating the movement at the OpenLearn 2007 conference in Milton Keynes, UK. Hosted by the Open University UK, the conference has four main themes: research agenda, sustainability, user experience, and software and tools. The overreaching aim of the conference is to “help establish the importance of research for this growing area and bring together the community of researchers,” specifically shedding light on the research agenda, tools, research results and models that are emerging from the OER movement.

Cynthia Jimes will present the case study of Free High School Science Texts (FHSST), a South African-based open content initiative that facilitates the collaborative creation of high-school level science and math textbooks online. The presentation will also discuss the iCommons iCurriculum project more generally, and address the issue of assessing project successes and challenges and creating a framework and knowledge-base among open content projects toward continuous learning and OER sustainability.

Other presenters at the conference include, for example, Peter Batemen of Open University UK, who will discuss how a participatory architecture can make OER more accessible for African universities, and Susan D’Antoni of UNESCO, who will discuss a community-developed research agenda for OER. In drawing together OER community members from across the globe, the conference has the potential to provide a good venue for sharing and insights that can impact the iCommons iCurriculum Case Study Project.

For more information about the FHSST presentation, contact Cynthia Jimes at cynthia@iskme.org. For more about the Open Learn conference, visit the conference website.

tags: education

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