SPARC Europe Plans to Launch Large-Scale Open Education Initiative

From a SPARC Europe Statement:

SPARC Europe is poised to embark on a new, two-and-a-half-year programme to grow Open Education capacity among libraries of higher education in Europe. The project will allow us to gain a better understanding of the European Higher Education library community’s needs and progress in OE, to share knowledge across countries, and to advocate for more OER, OE policy and open infrastructure. This work will contribute to the implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation.

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SPARC Europe will lead a research effort that will identify which European academic HE libraries are offering OE services and how; this will grow our understanding of how libraries can deliver on UNESCO OER Recommendation objectives and reveal where there is more work to be done. Who has established OE policies and strategies? What do they include? These are among the issues that will be explored through our research. What we learn will be used to inform the new SPARC Europe OE program and to help guide the community manager.

We will seek to develop the European Network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) into a thriving Community of Practice and we will also work to grow the network itself. The grant will enable the creation of a new position—a community manager, who will be immersed in the network, working to ensure we are tapping into and sharing the individual knowledge of members on OE, OER policy and practice.

Direct to Complete Statement

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