Revolutionizing education:
2012 World Open Educational Resources Congress

Open educational resources are quietly revolutionizing higher education. Education Ministers, senior policy makers and renowned academics from the world’s leading universities will look at how this movement can be developed and accelerated at the 2012 World Open Education Resources Congress to be held at UNESCO Headquarters from 20-22 June.

Open educational resources (OER) are any type of teaching materiel freely available and accessible to the public. Teachers are encouraged to use, copy, adapt and re-share open resources to suit their needs and the needs of their students.

Organized by UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) with support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the World OER Congress will kick off a broad conversation on the benefits of open, unfettered access to education. Pedagogues from the University of Oxford, MIT, Harvard University, the London School of Economics and a host of United Nations schools will relay their respective experiences with OER, its achievements and how best to implement the policies elsewhere.

Among the many objectives of the Congress is the release of the 2012 Paris OER Declaration , which will call on governments to support the development and proliferation of OERs.

The 2012 World OER Congress will also take the opportunity to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 UNESCO Forum, during which the term ‘Open Educational Resources’ was first coined and its foundations established.

More information and programme
Media contac: Sue Williams
Tel + 33 (0) 1 45 68 17 06
s.williams@unesco.org.

• 18-06-2012