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Panel discussion

Making education more accessible and affordable

Part of the Webinar Series: OER in Vocational Education and Training

In this edition of the webinar series, we will focus on the role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in improving access by reducing costs for students.

After an introduction to OER, the session will particularly highlight an impressive initiative by the Milwaukee Area Technical College in the USA. During COVID, the college formed an Open Access Team that has been very successful in expanding low-cost and no-cost textbook options across the college.

Furthermore, Susanne Grimm of OERinfo Germany will present the relaunched OER World Map. This interactive map can be used to expand knowledge, share information and experiences and it can help collect data on OER initiatives.

Finally, ICDE’s Secretary General Torunn Gjelsvik will provide an update on the organization’s new OER strategy and its Open Education Network.

About the webinar series

The objective of this webinar series is to build the capacity of TVET leaders and practitioners on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER), as a way to increase the innovation potential of their educational offer and become more inclusive. OER are teaching and learning materials intentionally released with open licenses, that give users the right to own, share, and in most cases, modify them. Within Higher Education, the use of OER has shown the potential to reduce accessibility barriers and at the same time to support co-creation practices, but in the vocational education and training the use of these approaches is still limited.

The webinar series is organized by the European Training Foundation (ETF), the International Council of Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and UNESCO’s International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO-UNEVOC).