This document defines open educational resources (OERs) as learning materials that can be freely used, modified, and shared. It notes that OERs were created through a 2002 UNESCO forum and outlines their benefits, including expanding access to education. The document then describes UNESCO's OER program, which includes guidelines, research, and a 2012 world conference on OERs held in Paris. The conference aimed to release an OER declaration and showcase best practices.

1. http://bit.ly/OERPoland
CC BY Jonathas Mello

2. UNESCO Open Educational
Resources (OER) Programme
ICT in Education, Science and Culture Section
Knowledge Societies Division
Communication and Information (CI) Sector
www.unesco.org/webworld/en/oer
www.unesco.org/webworld/fr/oer

3. Introduction
 Defining open educational resources (OERs)
 Benefits of OERs
 From Copyright to Creative Commons to Public Domain
 UNESCO OER Programme
 2012 World OER Congress

4. What are Open Educational Resources (OERs)?
Created at 2002 UNESCO Forum
UNESCO defines Open Educational Resources
(OERs) as:
 Learning especially eLearning resources and tools
 Released under an open intellectual property licence or in
the public domain, allowing free use, re-use, and re-sharing

5. What are the benefits of OERs?
“Benefits and challenges of OER for higher education institutions”, Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

6. What is the UNESCO OER Programme
 OER Platform
 OER Policy Guidelines for Higher Education
 OER Community on the WSIS Platform
 OER Research Chairs: AU Canada, OU Netherlands
 UNESCO IITE OER Gateway
 Publications
 Large OER projects - UEMOA
 Partnerships: Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
 Large OER events –
2012 World OER Conference, UNESCO HQ Paris

7. What is the World OER Congress?
 20 – 22 June
 UNESCO HQ, Paris
 Organized with the Commonwealth of Learning
 Supported by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (USA)
3 Objectives
 Release the Paris OER Declaration
 Showcase the world’s best OER
 Celebrate the 10th anniversary of 2002 UNESCO Forum
 Governments, civil society, academia
 Open Seminar & Exhibition
 6 worldwide regional Forums
www.unesco.org/oercongress

8. http://bit.ly/DigitalSchoolsPoland

9. Achieving universal access to information
Polski Deutsch Nederlands
Íslenska Sinhala
Italiano
Català Maltese
Română
Bangla
Kiswahili Greek
Bahasa മലയാളം
Suomi
Türkçe
http://bit.ly/OERlogo
CC BY Jonathas Mello

10. Contact
Abel Caine
OER Programme Specialist
ICT in Education, Science and Culture Section
Knowledge Societies Division
Communication and Information (CI) Sector
UNESCO
1, rue Miollis
Paris, 75015
France
E-mail: a.caine@unesco.org
Phone: +33 (0)1 45 68 42 37
Twitter: abelcaine This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License