Open Education Policy Forum 2019 – summary

Empowering advocates for change

In October 2019, the Open Education Policy Forum was held for the fourth time. Together with our partners, the Open Education Consortium and SPARC, we introduced a new formula for the event – one that focused on the incubation of policy projects.

Our goal, like in the previous years, was to create a space, in which advocates and activists working on open education policies can meet, exchange knowledge, provide mutual support and empowerment.

The Forum grows out of our experience with organizing events, big and small, and out of our belief in fundamental principles that make our movement strong: collaboration, peer to peer support and fostering strong connections. It is an event that is on purpose small and bespoke, tailored to the needs of advocates working on open education policies and co-created by them. We believe that in this manner participants from all around the world can meet in a meaningful way and share their varied experiences and expertise.

We have been designing our Forum in an iterative manner, making an effort to learn from each year’s event. In previous years, we understood that it is extremely hard to engage policymakers in such grassroots events – although we are proud that we do have representatives of governmental ministries and agencies participating in our event. We have also shifted over the years from a focus on Open Educational Resources to a vision of Open Education that encompasses a variety of focal points and policy goals. Furthermore, we believe in an interdisciplinary approach that seeks connections with other forms of openness, in particular, Open Access and Open Data movements.

While the previous editions focused on European advocates, in 2019 we decided to make the event international – and with the help of our partners brought to the Forum 29 participants from the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Most importantly, we listened to suggestions of our participants, who suggested that a policy incubation lab would be a good addition to the Forum, which in previous years focused on general debates about open policies and capacity building. As a result, we introduced significant changes to our event:

we invited participants to become fellows of the Forum by bringing with them policy projects that they want to start or develop – 12 fellows was developing 10 different policy projects.
other community members participating in the event were asked to focus on providing advice and support for these specific policy projects
the Forum was the start of a policy incubation process that last until Open Education Week in March 2020, and some of these projects are still continue.

During the Forum our fellows were developing their project according to the guidelines from Open Education Policy Project Roadmap. More information aboutOpen Education Policy Project Roadmap you finde here. You can use it freely to develop your own policy projects.

We would like share summary of some projects our fellows.

How OE Policy Forum inspired work is playing a role in building a policy agenda here in Colorado? Learn more from presentation Spencer Ellis.

What open education has to do with energy lieracy?
Energy, Society and Open Education is an interactive motivational presentation to join the global energy literacy movement. The author of this presentation – Mojca
Drevensek was one of participants of the Open Education Policy Forum 2019. The presentation consists of three main sections: 1. it defines the concept of energy literacy and the benefits of being energy literate 2. it looks at what has been done so far to strengthen energy literacy through open educational activities (related to the a. Open Education for a Better World / OE4BW global mentoring program and b. the 2019 Open Education Policy Forum in Warsaw). 3. it presents the future plans and ambitions of the part of the open education community interested in strengthening energy literacy and supporting the achievement of the UN SDG No. 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy).

Creation of canvas to paint the shades of openness in education in VIVA Institution – it is presentation about project run by Rohan Gavankar and Deepa Verma from India. They share their expierience in self-learning about OERs and promoting them on institutional level. Learn more about their journey into open education world.

Our Forum was organised just ahead of the approval of UNESCO OER recommendations. We believe that the policy incubation model, which we are testing during this year’s edition of the Forum, will be an important tool for implementing the recommendations across the world. We hope that during next year’s Fifth Open Education Policy Forum we will use this method tu support the recommendations.

“Cooperation changes everything” is the motto of our work on open education policymaking. The Forum would not be possible without collaboration. We are grateful to Nicole Allen from SPARC and to Paul Stacey and Igor Lesko from the Open Education Consortium for accepting our invitation to join the team that builds the Forum. We are also thankful for the collaboration of partner organisations from Open Education networks, including Creative Commons, OER World Map and SPARC Europe. And to the various national coalitions, organisations and institutions represented by participants in our event, with whom we’re building the Open Education Policy Network.