Hello Abel & all,

First of all a thanks of taking on such an active role on this!

Some observation though that I have from reading through this document.

1.    The structure of the document might still be re-mixed. Like a changed structure towards something like 1. What problem do we currently face, 2. How could open licensing and collaboration help to overcome this, 3. What are the key actions to be taken in this regard, 4 which new problems or challenges might arise through the use of open licenses and the resulting increase in user/peer created resources and what should be considered in this regard, 5. what does this mean for the different stakeholders (aka guides)? As by now this is in my opinion still mixed throughout the document.
2.    In line with this, at the moment there is much of repetition in the section 4 of the guides for the different stakeholders. Reading section 4 it seems to me that by the end those guides come down to a few and simple points: 1. provide a supportive (legal/policy/organizational/etc) framework, 2. engage at awareness raising / evangelism actions, and 3 engage at capacity building and training actions.
3.    I think that there is quite some "general validity” and "random selection" feeling once reading through this document. For example, the points at the Appendix are in the majority generally valid recommendations and considerations that could be applied to any type of education setting. Another example, section 4.1.a recommends to “set up a dedicated government-level OER programme.” Would this then also imply that we might want to recommend in the future to set up a dedicated government-level Open Access programme”, “a dedicated government-level Open Source Software programme”, “a dedicated government-level Open Science programme”, “a dedicated government-level Open Schools programme”, “a dedicated government-level Open Government programme”, etc. Why not alternatively recommending that open licensing and collaborative production should be a part of educational policies, or in the case of existing "open licensing/access" governmental programmes that those also should include education? Another example of general validity from 4.3.h “While it is likely that some institutions will prefer to host content on their own institutional servers, it may be more cost-effective to establish shared repositories of OER that can be accessed by all higher education providers and can connect to global networks.” Now, this well also could be said for “While it is likely that some institutions will prefer to deploy their own institutional servers, it may be more cost-effective to establish shared ICT infrastructure that can be accessed by all higher education providers and can connect to global networks.” Overall the points 4.1.a to 4.1.h appear to have a lack of consistence and structure and to be rather randomly selected (which might be a result of the structure thing mentioned at point 1 above). I am not sure if such general and/or random recommendations would ultimately provide the support that this document would want to provide.

Just some thoughts…

All the best,
Andreas

andreasmeiszner 259 days ago