On April 26, 2016, within Educational Center PRO DIDACTICA, was held an important event dedicated to a new concept for the Moldovan context: open educational resources (OER). This event was attended by decision makers from the Ministry of Education, members of the Coalition for Open Educational Resources in Moldova (13 institutions, NGOs), representatives from the General Departments of Education, Youth and Sport, trainers of the center, didactical staff from schools and universities,  interested in the issue. The experts from Romania, Ovidiu Voicu, director of the Department of Public Policy of the  Open Society Foundation from Romania and Nicolae Constantinescu (kosson.ro), one of the authors and implementers of the introduction course in OER and free licenses for didactical staff in Romania, have presented the international experience and Romanian practice both at the secondary and higher education levels.

Participants have discussed the following: the relevance of the OER for different stakeholders in education, the project activities have been updated, continuing a campaign to promote OER, inclusively by presenting the Policy brief and launching a competition of the best open educational resources, thus determining a better access to open education. The expected impact is to develop practices of using and producing OER in Moldova, in order to include OER in existing and future educational policies.
According to the definition proposed by UNESCO in 2002, OER are educational resources that are freely available for use and reuse by anyone, without technological and legal restrictions, as well costs.
Their use in the development of the public programs constitutes one of the basic principles of good governance: what is produced with public money should be publicly available free of charge. In Moldova, the activity of producing OER is in its early stages, but there are significant opportunities for the future. The current reform in education, including with international support, emphasizes the relevance of digital competences and ICT in the field (the National Strategy “Education 2020”, Objective 5: To increase the efficiency of the education system, expansion and diversification of educational services by developing opportunities, provided by information and communications technology).
In this context, the Educational Center PRO DIDACTICA, with the financial support of the Foundation Open Society Institute, in cooperation with the Support Program in Education of the Open Society Foundations, is implementing the Open Education Project: Here and Now, during the period November 2015 – July 2016.The aim of the project is to promote access to to the interested public (didactical staff, researchers, etc.) to the transparent funding for development of OER and the concept of open educational resources through awareness raising, advocacy, partnership building, which may lead to ensuring more access to quality education for all. The project beneficiaries are pupils, teachers, schools, parents, students, political actors, public institutions, NGOs etc.

Viorica GORAŞ-POSTICĂ, project expert, dr.hab., conf.univ.
Valeriu GORINCIOI, coordinator, director of the Lyceum M. Sadoveanu from Călăraşi
Contacts: vpostica@prodidactica.md
Mobile: 069366848