WE ANNOUNCE THE FORMATION OF THE COALITION FOR OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN MOLDOVA

258_1_copThe founding meeting of the Coalition for Open Educational Resources in Moldova took place on 3rd March 2016, within Educational Center PRO DIDACTICA. During this workshop, Ms. Rima BEZEDE, President of Center welcomed the audience and introduced the international context of the project, and the experts Viorica GORAŞ-POSTICĂ and Valeriu GORINCIOI have exposed the activities of the project “Open Education in Moldova: Here and Now!” .

The Educational Center PRO DIDACTICA initiated a coalition OER – Moldova that includes several interested education institutions. In order to formalize this partnership, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed, which stipulates that the parties share the same beliefs on the need to support the process of forming an open society in the Republic of Moldova; recognize that educational materials play an important role in ensuring education quality, relevance and access to education, considering the National Strategy for the development of information society „Digital Moldova 2020”, the National Strategy “Education 2020”, and European initiative of  “openness” in education and skills development  through the application of new technologies, in the context of developing the concept of the digital textbooks and increased use of information and communication technologies. This partnership envisages cooperation of the parties to support open access to educational resources and allocate open licenses to materials created in this way.
Members of the coalition will cooperate in order to carrying out of some activities of information and promoting the development and use of educational materials under an open license, that allows the use, distribution and adaptation, carrying out their activities in the spirit of public policies concerning access to open education. Implementation of the memorandum is achieved by any manner agreed upon by the parties, inclusive through the common development of programs, events and projects. Open educational resources include teaching materials and other educational materials distributed under a license that allows using, sharing and adapting them.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the following institutions: Ministry of Education of the Republic of Moldova; Institute for Public Policy; Educational Program Step by Step; AO IREX Novateca; Institute for Training and Development “MillenniuM”; LED Moldova; AGIRo Moldova; Information and Communication Technologies Center in Education; Department of Educational Sciences, Moldova State University; Faculty of Pedagogy, “Ion Creangă” State Pedagogical University; International Study Centre for Educational Opportunities (ISCEO); Alliance of Access to Information and Training Community Centers in Moldova; Agency for Innovation and Technology Transfer (AITT) and AO Resources Centre for Education (Drochia).
Members of the workshop discussed a pioneering document in our context – Policy Brief, in the field of Open Educational Resources in Moldova that propose an essential analysis of the local policies and practices on this chapter. In the near future, the project team will announce a competition for teachers in order to develop open educational resources that will be placed for unlimited access on a specialized website, created within the same project.

 

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