By Clint Lalonde, director, Open Education, BCcampus
The 3rd UNESCO World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress, held November 19–20, 2024, in Dubai, united global thought leaders in open education to explore how digital public goods and generative AI can transform access to knowledge.
Under the theme “Digital Public Goods: Open Solutions and AI for Inclusive Access to Knowledge”, the event focused on leveraging open solutions to bridge educational gaps and create a more equitable learning environment.
Building on the momentum of UNESCO’s 2012 Paris Declaration on OER and 2019 Recommendation on OER, the Congress spotlighted progress in five critical areas of open education: capacity building, supportive policies, inclusivity, sustainability, and international cooperation.
The event emphasized the transformative potential of openly licensed content in addressing challenges posed by emerging technologies, such as generative AI, while adhering to principles of openness, equity, and human rights.
Key themes included the role of OER in fostering global collaboration, the legal and ethical implications of AI in education, and strategies to make digital knowledge accessible to vulnerable communities.
For British Columbia post-secondary institutions embracing OER, the event underscored the importance of policy innovation and capacity-building to adapt to emerging challenges. At a time when higher education is navigating a technology-driven transformation, the UNESCO Congress reaffirmed OER’s role as a cornerstone for inclusive, sustainable, and accessible education.
The important work of UNESCO in open education has been a guiding light for open education work at BCcampus for several years. The first Congress in Paris in 2012 led to the release of the UNESCO 2012 Paris OER Declaration, which became a foundational document that led directly to the British Columbia provincial government launching and funding the British Columbia Open Textbook Initiative. This project, managed by BCcampus, has saved British Columbia post-secondary students more than $40 million in textbook costs since its launch. It continues to serve the B.C. higher education system with an open textbook collection of close to 400 free and openly licensed textbooks available for instructors to adopt and use in their courses.
A new guiding document based on the work from the 3rd UNESCO World OER Congress titled “The Dubai Declaration on OER” is expected to be released in the coming weeks.