WSIS Knowledge Communities: All site announcements

5th World Information Technology Forum focuses on ICT for sustainable development

Mika — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:33:15 -0400

The 5th World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) is being held on 17 and 18 April 2012 in New Delhi, India, under the overall theme “ICT for Sustainable Human Development”. India was selected to host WITFOR 2012 because it presents enormous development challenges, as well as models of innovation and globally competitive IT capabilities. The use of ICT in areas like education is opening up new avenues for reaching out to remote and marginalized populations, while offering affordable and accessible solutions to persistent challenges of development.

Open Access policy at the World Bank

Sanjaya Mishra — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 04:15:47 -0400

The Open Access Policy will be effective at the World Bank from 1 July 2012. The Bank has also launched the Open Knowledge Repository to share its publications. Congratulations to those behind these initiatives!

Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Open Access

Sanjaya Mishra — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 06:01:23 -0400

Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Open Access, written by Dr. Alma Swan has now been published.

You can download it here.

Article about OER in Romanian

Stefania Druga — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:24:25 -0400

Dear WSIS colleagues,

I just wrote an article about OERs in Romanian: http://www.drugastefania.com/2012/04/edukratos-sau-educatie-in-acces-liber/

Recently I was invited as a mentor to a conference for innovation in education organized by Romanian students in Bucharest, Restart Edu. I realized then that people know very little about Open Education in Romania and that there is no repository in this language therefore I decided to write this article for all the attending students and to encourage them to find translation solutions for existing ressources.

How do we create a critical mass of OER actors in an emerging country? What translation tools do you use? What other startegies would you recommend for diffusion of oer usage?

Thank you very much for your feedback and for your answers!

Stefania

Looking for an OER expert for International MIL Conference

Abel Caine — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:42:00 -0400

Looking for an OER expert with proven knowledge and experience in Information, Media and ICTs literacy to speak at the international conference on media and information literacy (MIL) in Moscow, Russia from 24 - 28 June, 2012.

The speaker would need to present on building the skills of information professionals (e.g. librarians) to be aware of and how to develop and promote OERs.

Please directly contact Ms Irmgarda Kasinskaite I.Kasinskaite

"WSIS KC and me" video campaign

Jonathas Mello — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:25:17 -0400

This is a call for your contribution to the WSIS KC video campaign “WSIS KC and me”. We would like to promote the WSIS KC by showcasing your experiences on how the platform is contributing to your daily communications, work, research and learning.

If you have a successful story, found a group of practitioners with similar interests, learned about new publications and opportunities, please share with the world! Record a video with the maximum length of 3 minutes, telling how WSIS KC platform helps you.

You can upload it at WSIS community video page adding the tag "WSIS KC and me"until 13th of May, or send an email to wsisplatform@unesco.org if you need some assistance. The videos will be presented at the WSIS KC briefing session to be held on 16 May at the WSIS Forum 2012.

As an example, check the video below:

PS: We used a very nice feature called Universal Subtitles, where anyone can contribute on subtitling and translating videos. If you need help, check their support page.

OER Policy Registry: Request for Help

Cable Green — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:07:43 -0400

Greetings Open Colleagues,

The open community shares a need for more information to help us with our work. We know, for example, there are many policies supporting open education at institutions and governments throughout the world. Many of us know some of these policies, but it would be extremely helpful if we had a single database of open education policies, from around the world, that the entire community could access and update.

To meet this goal, Creative Commons (CC) has received a small grant to create an “OER Policy Registry.” The Open Education Resources (OER) Policy Registry will be a place for policy makers and open advocates to easily share and update OER legislation, OER institutional policies and supporting OER policy resources. We have begun to enter OER policies into the registry, but we need your help to make it a truly useful global resource.

The open movement is reaching a stage where we've had some real, concrete OER policy victories and there is the potential to achieve many more. Sharing our collective knowledge of existing OER policies, in the same way we believe in sharing educational resources, will help advocates and policymakers worldwide be more successful.

Will you please:

(1) Contribute any OER policies you know about on this form.

We are collecting both legislative AND institutional (non-legislative) OER policies from around the world. Your form submissions will be added to this draft list of OER policies.

(2) Review the draft list of OER policies.

If any entries need to be fixed, please email us at oer@creativecommons.org

(3) Forward this message to your colleagues, to your lists, blogs, and other channels, to ensure that we get as much input as possible. As the OER movement is global, it is critical that we capture OER policies from around the world.

Everyone can add OER policies to the google form for the next month. Beginning on May 1, the OER Policy Registry will move to the Creative Commons (CC) Wiki. Anyone will be able to edit the OER Policy Registry on the CC Wiki, and all wiki text will be licensed under CC BY.

We're starting with a google form because (a) it's easy and (b) wikis require you to create an account before editing, and that may be a barrier to participation.

CC is in contact with other projects that started to collect similar information, including UNESCO, CoL, the Florida Distance Learning Consortium, EU OCW and a project in New Zealand. We will add OER policy data they gather as it becomes available. If anyone knows of other efforts to gather OER policies, please send them to Anna Daniel: anna@creativecommons.org and we will reach out to them too.

If you have any suggestions or feedback on the content and/or framework, please let us know.

Warmest regards and thank you!

Cable

PS: CC Blog post: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/32072

Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org

Interesting analysis on Latin America and digital solutions for social problems

Mika — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:13:05 -0400

An article form Euresia Review

"(---) the digital divide is not a problem that can be fixed by having more desktop computers in homes, or telephones, computers, and television sets in neighborhoods; instead, it is a problem of knowledge and sustainable innovation. Essentially, then, it can be summarized as a problem of penetration into the daily spheres of work and life.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/21032012-digital-divide-closing-gap-between-access-and-innovation-in-latin-america/

EC Study on Future options for Science in Society

Sanjaya Mishra — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:16:37 -0400

You are hereby invited to participate in the public consultation process within the study “Interim evaluation and assessment of the future options for Science in Society (SiS) Actions”. This study has been assigned by the DG Research & Innovation of the European Commission and is being jointly conducted by Technopolis Group, Fraunhofer ISI and Science-Metrix. You may find a letter of introduction from the EC here.

The link to the survey is here.

Netexplo Forum 2012 is taking place in UNESCO HQ

Mika — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 07:45:18 -0400

Follow the meeting via Web-streaming.
15-16 March

The Netexplo Forum 2012 will feature contributions from Netexplo award winners, as well as insights of international experts into key events of the digital world. The Forum will be opened by Jānis Kārkliņš, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, and Catherine Morin-Desailly, Vice-president of the Culture, Education and Communication Commission of the French Senate.