This week is the annual Open Education Week, OEW2109. Open education encompasses resources, tools, and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide. Founded in 2013 by the Open Education Consortium, the goal of Open Education Week is to raise awareness and showcase the impact of open education on teaching and learning worldwide. Open Education Week has become one of the most foremost global events recognizing high achievement and excellence in open education. The week-long event spotlights amazing work from over a dozen categories including live, face-to-face events, webinars, projects, and resources. The Best-of-the-Best participate in Open Education Week.

 I myself contributed with two presentations, one on the 6th March on behalf of the ICDE OER Advocacy Committee on OER and the SDG4 for access, equity, equality, inclusiveness, quality, and lifelong learning and OER and the SDG4 for access, equity, equality, inclusiveness, quality, and lifelong learning. Slides on SlideShare here. The other one was on behalf of EDEN SIG TEL QE, and the theme of OER Quality Assessment and the topic  of Quality Assurance Guidelines for Open Educational Resources and the TIPS Framework

EDEN, which I am working for and in the EDEN EC, EDEN Fellow, EDEN Council of Fellows and chair of The Special Interest Group on TEL and QE, was offering 5 webinars as part of the Open Education Week:

Education 2030 – Open knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in Europe and the world – Monday, 4 March 2019, 13:00 CET
The story of the Open University in Europe and the world – Tuesday, 5 March 2019, 13:00 CET
Ongoing initiatives for Open Education in Europe – Wednesday, 6 March 2019, 13:00 CET
OER quality assessment – Thursday, 7 March 2019, 13:00 CET
Researching openness – evidence-based approach – Friday, 8 March 2019, 13:00 CET

Why is Open Education important?

People want to learn. By providing free and open access to education and knowledge, open education helps create a world to support learning. Students can get additional information, viewpoints and materials to help them succeed. Workers can learn things that will help them on the job. Faculty can draw on resources from all around the world. Researchers can share data and develop new networks. Teachers can find new ways to help students learn. People can connect with others they wouldn’t otherwise meet to share ideas and information. Materials can be translated, mixed together, broken apart and openly shared again, increasing access and inviting fresh approaches. Anyone can access educational materials, scholarly articles, and supportive learning communities anytime they want to. Education is available, accessible, modifiable and free.oew

Open Education combines the traditions of knowledge sharing and creation with 21st-century technology to create a vast pool of openly shared educational resources while harnessing today’s collaborative spirit to develop educational approaches that are more responsive to learner’s needs.

The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new. In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights, and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas, and understanding can be built.

Open Education seeks to scale up educational opportunities by taking advantage of the power of the internet, allowing rapid and essentially free dissemination, and enabling people around the world to access knowledge, connect and collaborate.

Open is key; open allows not just access, but the freedom to modify and use materials, information, and networks so education can be personalized to individual users or woven together in new ways for diverse audiences, large and small.

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