Saudi Arabia’s National Open Education Strategy, Master Plan & Policy
1. Saudi Arabia’s National Open
Education Strategy, Master Plan
& Policy
Abdullah Almegren, Cable Green, & Paul Stacey
Except where otherwise noted presentation licensed using Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
3. OER Exchange Program
Promoting Open
Educational Resources
Middle East & North
Africa
1- 21-March-2014
Algeria, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Morocco,
Palestine, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, Somalia, Sudan,
Tunisia, Yemen, USA
Sponsored by: US State
Department, Arab
League, ALECSOOER Exchange Participants photo by Ismail Mekkaoui Alaoui CC BY 4.0
4. MENA Site Visits
Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar
Paul Stacey
Mary Lou Forward
James Glapa-Grossklag
October 2014
United States Central Intelligence Agency. Northern Africa and the Middle East. [Washington, D.C.:
Central Intelligence Agency, 2009] Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2010585096/. (Accessed February 24, 2017.)
6. National OER Initiative
Presented By
Dr. Abullah Al-Megren
General Manager Manager
National Center for e-Learning and Distance Learning
Saudi Arabia
7. Vision
Establish the National level consortium for OERs, enriching teaching and learning,
resulting in empowering the knowledge economy.
OER – Open Educational Resources
Mission
• Propose the national level initiative for OER Consortium.
• Invite institutions to form the OER Consortium.
• Constitute a team for formulating strategies and policies for the management
and sustainable development of the OER consortium.
• Develop high quality OERs, meeting the demands of stakeholders, and facilitate
them to produce SPOOCs and MOOCs
8. Proposed OER Initiative’s EcosystemSupportive
Policy
Educator
Demand
Quality
Supply
User friendly policies for
developing, reusing and
sharing OERs.
Training and Awareness
programs to revise,
reuse, remix and
redistribute OERs.
Develop high quality easy
to adapt OERs as per
ISCED Classifications.
Developer / Contributor IP PolicyUsability Rights
Communities
of Practices
Existing Content
Sharing
Content curation
New Content
Development
Quality
Assurance
OER
RepositoryReviseReuse
Remix
Redistribute
9. As an OER policy quick start we
provided:
an open policy rationale &
open policy text for grant making
These provide model language
and text can be incorporated
into grant programs
10.
11. Multi dimensional
approach in embracing
e-Learning.
Our effort is in
progress to utilize the
set of services and
digital content in
strengthening our OER
movement.
12.
13.
14. Dr. Fengchun Miao
Chief of the Unit for ICT in
Education
UNESCO
Workshops & Seminars 2011-2015
Dr. Stephen Downs
National Research
Council, Canada
Dr. Mike Smith
OER Advocate
16. Supportive
Policy
Educator
Demand
Quality
Supply
User friendly policies for
developing, reusing and
sharing OERs.
Training and Awareness
programs to revise,
reuse, remix and
redistribute OERs.
Develop high quality easy
to adapt OERs as per
ISCED Classifications.
Developer / Contributor IP PolicyUsability Rights
Communities
of Practices
Existing Content
Sharing
Content curation
New Content
Development
Quality
Assurance
OER
Repository
ReviseReuse
Remix
Redistribute
Adapted from
: http://www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/The%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20Ecosystem_1.pdf
17. Universities have
started to share
their existing
e-Content
About 1000 OER
Champions are
being trained from
PE/HE/LLL across
the country
OER Policy is
Being Developed
Our OER Platform
is in Beta Testing
18.
19.
20. “To remain human and livable, knowledge
societies will have to be societies of
shared knowledge.”
– Koïchiro Matsuura Former Director-General of
UNESCO
21. National Open Education Strategy, Master Plan & Policy
General Points
• Next step in the process…
• Collaborative project with Creative Commons.
• All three documents are DRAFT. NCeL is reviewing now.
• All documents will be published under a CC BY 4.0 license by
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
– so other nations may reuse / revise / remix.
• OER Team and University OER Teams to be created.
22. National Open Education Strategy
• Saudi Arabia OER Strategy Key Points
• Vision / Mission
• Foundations, Guidelines and Principles
• Open Education Goals
• Scope
• Implementation
• Appendix A: OER Frequently Asked Questions
• Appendix B: Ex. of Culture Impacting National Open Edu Strategy
23. National Open Education Strategy
Vision
• To enable creation, innovative use and sharing of quality Open
Educational Resources that will ensure education is accessible
for every citizen in the Kingdom, contribute to equitable
lifelong learning opportunities, the creation of a knowledge
society, and the efficient utilization of government
educational funds, public services, infrastructure and
resources in education.
24. National Open Education Strategy
Open Education Goals
• Access
– Ensure all Saudi citizens, in every sector of society, have universal, accessible, free, and legal
access to effective open education resources and learning opportunities.
• Quality
– Saudi teachers and learners have access to, use, create and iteratively improve quality OER.
• Efficiency
– Ensure all government funded education resources are openly licensed, and efficient
utilization of other government provided education resources, services and infrastructure.
• Sharing
– Support collaboration and engagement of communities of educators and learners around
OER to cultivate a culture of openness and sharing in education.
25. National Open Education Master Plan
• OER Master Plan Framework
– Funding
– Open Education Goals, Actions, Outcomes and Timeline
– Capacity Building
– Monitoring and Evaluation
– Advocacy and Awareness Raising
– Incentives & OER Champions
• National OER Team & University OER Teams
• Appendix A: OER Policy Reports
• Appendix B: OER Research
• Appendix C: Resources to Teach People about Open Education
• Appendix D: Definitions and Abbreviations
26. National Open Education Licensing Policy
• Open Education Licensing Policies Explained
• Saudi Arabia Copyright Law
• Reason to Require Open Licenses on Government Funded Education Resources
• IGO Support National-Level Adoption of Open Education Licensing Policies
• Use Standard Open Licenses
• Open Licensing Respects Copyright and Authors
• Open Education Licensing Policies Adopted Globally
• Appendix A: Open Policy Resources
• Appendix B: Resources for Implementing an Open Education Licensing Policy
• Appendix C: Definitions and Abbreviations
• Appendix D: Playbook for Implementing Open Licensing Policies
• Appendix E: DRAFT Ministry Level Open Education Licensing Policy
• Appendix F: DRAFT Grant / Contract Level Open Education Licensing Policy
27. Come to the Creative Commons Summit!
• summit.creativecommons.org
• Toronto, Canada
• April 28-30, 2017
28. Saudi Arabia’s National Open
Education Strategy, Master Plan
& Policy
Abdullah Almegren, Cable Green, & Paul Stacey
Except where otherwise noted presentation licensed using Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Editor's Notes
Welcome and Introductions to panel.
Paul leads off.
Started with Open Book Project initiated by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.
Educational diplomacy seeking to enhance US MENA relations.
Open Book Project Objectives
Build partnerships between the US and MENA region to make more learning materials open, free, and connected to Arab educators, students, and classrooms
Lower geographic, economic, and gender-based barriers to learning
Expand access to free, high-quality, open education materials in Arabic, with a focus on science and technology
Implement open licensing in the MENA region that enables anyone to use, adapt, and share these education materials
Deliver the benefits of open education to the Arab world
Help Arab professors and intellectuals create their own open courses
Explore the benefits of OER for governments, institutions, faculty, students and the public, specifically examining how OER affects teaching and learning practices including the inter-relationships and synergy of OER with open access, open data, open policy, open science
Evaluate the impact of OER on education
Organized as exchange program with selected participants from MENA region.
Participants from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen came to USA for 3 week OER orientation and internships in March of 2014. Here they all are!
Over the three weeks participants received help in crafting an OER initiative plan they would implement on return home.
Second phase involved OER Exchange organizers going to MENA to do site visits with some of the participants.
Assess progress, provide further assistance, and report out to State Department a set of recommendations.
After going to Tunisia we travelled to Riyadh Saudi Arabia where we were hosted by Dr. Abdullah Almegren.
Visited universities and gave OER Workshop to Directors of teaching and learning units from across Saudi Arabias higher education system.
Workshop included Dr. Almegren’s plan for an OER Initiative in Saudi Arabia
By 2018 the Saudi Arabian OER initiative seeks to:
Create a sustainable and productive environment that supports emerging Open Educational Practices (OEP) for design, development and improvement of OER
Translate and use the Creative Commons licenses for education (CC just released official Arabic translation of 4.0 license)
Create opportunities to exchange of best practices, including collection of examples from different initiatives and using them to develop comprehensive guidelines
Create a consortium of Arab Universities for OER, where all resources in every discipline will be in Arabic
Engage faculty members and specialized content providers in use and production of OER
Enhance credibility and reliability of OER produced through OEP by fulfilling needs of participating institutions
Establish standards and a quality assurance process for OER
Put in place a national repository for OER
Create a dynamic, easy to use platform and framework that lays the basis of a real sustainable partnership
Support and conduct research studies that improve overall OER system
Create an award for best Arab or local OER initiative
Form an OER initiative organizational structure with a board of directors, departments of different disciplines, and a logistics administration group.
As an OER policy quick start we provided:
an open policy rationale and
open policy text for grant making
These provide model language and text can be incorporated into grant programs
The National Center for e-Learning and Distance Learning (NCeL) has emerged, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education, as a leader, supervisor, and supporter of e-Learning at the higher education level. We aspire to become a melting pot of Saudi Educational Systems experience in the field of e-Learning, and to pave the way for a promising future through honest competition and widened horizons.
NCeL has launched several programs/services related to e-Learning and Distance in Saudi Arabia. Now we see these programs/services contributing to our OER movement.
With the launch of Vision 2030 Saudi Arabia(http://vision2030.gov.sa/en) ,NCeL under the patronage of Ministry of Education,is leading the e-Learning transformation under the National transformation plan 2020.Here we see the scope of e-Learning and OER movement making a major contribution.
We see them as both,
Evolution in terms of practicing openness.
Revolution in terms of efficiency of sharing cost and resources.
NCeL conducted regular seminars, workshops and international conferences between 2011-15,and lead international experts in the field of OER laid the foundation for OER movement.
Our OER initiative which was started in early 2014,has now transformed into a complete program "SHMS" - Saudi OER Network. Organizations such has UNESCO, ISKME,and Creatives Commons are supporting us in this program. We intend to have more global strategic partnerships.
Currently work is in progress to address Demand, Supply and Policy aspect of our OER program.
As we speak,
OER platform (shms.sa to be launched soon) is in Beta testing, we are piloting with 13 universities and few public education institutions.
OER policy development is in final stages.
About 1000 OER champions are being trained across Saudi Arabia.
Universities have started sharing their existing e-content as OER.
These are the common challenges we are facing and NCeL is geared up to address them through international and local support.
Moving forward, we see that SHMS being the largest Arabic OER HUB, supporting the Arabic educational resources development.
Welcome and Introductions to panel.
Paul leads off.