"Single-Entry Window" as a Platform for an OpenCourseWare Repository

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"Single-Entry Window" as a Platform for an
OpenCourseWare Repository

• Alexey ABRAMOV, Maria BULAKINA, Alexey
  SIGALOV,State Institute of Information
  Technologies and Telecommunications "INFORMIKA",
  Russian Federation,
• Svetlana KNYAZEVA, UNESCO IITE

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Joint Pilot Project ofINFORMIKA and UNESCO IITE
UNESCO IITE Project "Open Educational Resources"
INFORMIKA Portal "Single-Entry Window"


OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository Teaching
Materials with Open Licenses for Higher Education
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UNESCO IITE OER Project
Since 2010 IITE has been implementing a project
on Open Educational Resources in
non-English-speaking countries. Objectives Advocat
ing the OER movement and building the capacity in
production, sharing and use of OER in UNESCO
Member States, in particular, in the countries of
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),
Baltic States and other non-English-speaking
countries. Approach The project activities build
on the results of examination of the needs,
capacities, opportunities and challenges for the
production and use of OER in the selected
countries. Emphasis is placed on the exploration
and dissemination of best practices, raising
awareness of open licenses and development of
recommendations for a wider use of OER in
educational practice.
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OER in Non-English-Speaking Countries
At its initial stage the project was focused on
educational content in the Russian language and
in national languages and involved most CIS and
Baltic States. The state-of-the-art, challenges
and prospects for the development of OER were
studied in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Moldova, the Russian Federation,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan, as well as in Latvia and
Lithuania. .
The surveys covered national policy for ICTs in
education with a focus on OER-related issues, the
current state of advancement of educational
content, major achievements, challenges, and
obstacles, including technological and IPR
aspects.
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OER in Non-English-Speaking Countries
The scope of the project expanded to include
Japan, Peoples Republic of China, Brazil, Turkey
and Vietnam. The surveys provided a further
insight into the OER-related patterns in various
non-English-speaking countries. Case studies on
OER in Brazil, China, Lithuania and Russia were
published. Several other case studies are being
prepared for publication. In total, surveys in 16
non-English speaking countries have been
completed, several more are in progress.
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Publications
Information brochure "Open Educational Resources
in Non-English-Speaking Countries".
Analytical report "The Use of Creative Commons
Licenses in the Russian Federation".
Policy briefs "Global trends in the development
and use of open educational resources to reform
educational practices" "Open educational
resources and intellectual property rights".
Survey "Educational Portals and Open Educational
Resources in the Russian Federation".
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Online training course"Open Educational
Resources"
IITE has launched a new training course on the
creation and use of open educational resources
for teachers of higher and secondary schools.
http//lms.iite.unesco.org
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IITE and INFORMIKA at UNESCO World Open
Educational Resources Congress
The 2012 World Open Educational Resources
Congress was held on June 20-22, 2012 at the
UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France. IITE and
INFORMIKA delegations took part in the Congress
and the Open Seminar and Exhibition.
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Portal "Single Entry Windowto Educational
Resouces"

• Project commissioned by the Ministry of Education
  and Science of the Russian Federation (2005 - ).
• Goal - integration of educational resources in a
  single information system.
• Main components
• - Catalogue of Internet resources metadata of
  over 56 000 resources.
• - Digital Library more than 30 000 resources.

http//window.edu.ru
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"Single-Entry Window" Digital Library

• Digital library includes over 30 thousand
  full-text electronic versions of educational and
  instructional materials
• textbooks and manuals
• lecture notes
• laboratory courses
• problem books
• instructional guidelines
• curricula
• tests
• monographs
• reference books.

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"Single-Entry Window" Digital Library
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Sources of electronic library materials

• Universities and higher education institutions
• Faculties, departments, research centers of
  universities
• Institutes of the Academy of Sciences
• Publishers, journal editors
• Non-profit organizations.
• In total more than 300 organizations.

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Rules of publication in the Digital Library
Single-Entry Window

• Authors submit their materials to the Portal
  Editorial Board for publication in open access.
• Electronic materials published in open access at
  the websites of their authors/owners can be
  included in the Digital Library upon receiving a
  consent of the authors/owners.
• The materials should be designed for educational
  purposes (not for commercial purposes).
• Printed books are not converted to the digital
  format by Portal Editorial Board.
• The Library does not contain printed books
  digitized and published in open access without
  receiving the consent of their authors/owners.
• The relations with the organizations providing
  their materials are regulated by the agreements
  on transfer of non-exclusive rights.
• Permission for publication of materials are
  requested by e-mail from authors and officials
  (chairs, heads of departments, project
  coordinators).

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Open Digital Libraries of Higher Education
Institutions

• Content digital versions of textbooks published
  at the institutions (pdf, doc)
• Textbooks and instructional guidelines
• Collections of problems, assignments and tests
  learning activities
• Instructional guidelines for laboratory courses,
  term papers and graduation theses
• Educational and instructional complexes of
  disciplines
• Monographs
• Collections of papers and proceedings
• Types of digital libraries
• Databases with options of attribute-context
  search using the descriptions of resources.
• Static lists with links to full-text documents.
• Several dozens of large-scale digital libraries.

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Examples of open digital libraries of higher
education institutes
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Open resources at the websites of chairs and
personal pages of tutors

• Static web pages with collection of links to
  resources (pdf, doc, zip, etc.).
• Various forms of presentation even within one web
  page.
• Descriptions of resources are often unavailable.
• Digital versions of printed books and sometimes
  unpublished materials presentation of lecture
  materials, course curricula, assignments, tests
  and examination questions.

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Examples of materials at the web sites of
chairs, departments, teachers
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Agreements with the organizationsproviding their
materials
Agreements on transfer of non-exclusive rights.
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Single-Entry Window statistics
Dynamics of visits to the portal 40-70 thousand
users per day.
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Single-Entry Window Portal Lessons Learnt

• The information system containing resources for
  all levels of education commissioned by the
  Ministry of Education had been designed and
  successfully functioning.
• State Institute of Information Technologies
  INFORMIKA is the head organization that is in
  charge of portal design, hosting, technical
  maintenance, information support.
• Information is provided by hundreds of
  organizations (higher education institutions,
  research institutes, further training
  institutions, publishing houses, noncommercial
  and commercial organizations) and thousands of
  individual educators.
• The portal integrates resources designed for
  various purposes developed both purposefully
  for the portal and published in open access on
  the Internet.
• Portal resources are in high demand - about
  40-70 thousand visitors per day - total
  digital circulation of the portal materials
  above 5 million copies per year.
• 2008 RF Government Prize in the field of
  education.

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Digital Library of the Single-Entry Window
Portal problems and challenges

• Approaches to content management of the Library
  are not in full compliance with the Russian
  legislation in force (Civil Code, Part IV).
• Drafting and signing of individual contracts with
  each author is not feasible for the Editorial
  Board of the Portal, as the Library includes over
  30 thousand resources.
• There is no certainty about the ways of use of
  the resources by the users.
• The Library cannot be positioned as a digital
  library system that should be used by higher
  education institutions in accordance with the
  federal education standards.

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HEIs and digital libraries Presidents opinion
(2010)

• Dmitry Medvedev Digital libraries of
  universities should be open for everybody

As to digital libraries, every university locks
its library. If I am not a student or a teacher
of a particular university, I often cannot have
access to it. These libraries are our national
asset, and it is unfair that universities do not
allow access to them Presidents speech at
the joint meeting of the State Council of the
Russian Federation and the Commission for
Modernization and Technological Development of
the Economy on the development of professional
education in the Russian Federation (August 2010)
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OER in Russia conclusions

• Are the Russian resources available in open
  access the proper Open Educational Resources
  that comply with UNESCO definition? The answer in
  many cases is NOT.
• The quality of Russian educational resources
  available in open access is at the level of world
  standards of OER and those designed for general
  education are probably even of higher quality
  than average world level.
• Russian higher education institutions are lagging
  behind their foreign counterparts in promoting
  open access to their educational resources
  (educational courses).
• Most Russian repositories of open educational
  resources were set up under state order.
• The open licenses that are widely used worldwide
  are not taken into account by the acting Russian
  legislation on author rights and are merely used
  in education.

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International practice Open Educational
Resources and Creative Commons licenses
http//creativecommons.org ????,
http//creativecommons.ru
UNESCO OER Project, http//unesco.org, UNESCO
IITE, http//iite.unesco.org/
MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), http//ocw.mit.edu Massa
chusetts Institute of Technology, 2001
OpenCourseWare Consortium, http//www.ocwconsortiu
m.org
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Creative Commons (CC) licenses
BY - Attribution SA - Share Alike NC - Non
Commercial use ND - No Derivatives The most
permissible license CC BY The most prohibitive
license ?? BY-NC-ND
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Joint Pilot Project ofINFORMIKA and UNESCO IITE
UNESCO IITE Project "Open Educational Resources"
INFORMIKA Portal "Single-Entry Window"


OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository Teaching
Materials with Open Licenses for Higher Education
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OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository

• Setting up a repository of open-licensed
  educational materials on the basis of the
  Single-Entry Window Portal
• Using the system and software components of
  Single-Entry Window Portal, hosting at
  INFORMIKA datacentre.
• Extended functions of the Portal modification
  of the structure of the database, metada, user
  and administrator interfaces upgrading of the
  application program software.
• Development of instructional materials for
  authors, uploading demonstration and training
  materials for repository users, advise to users.
• Disseminating information about the project to
  the research and education community in Russia
  and CIS, promotion of the OER movement.

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OpenCourseWare (OCW) Repository
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Content management and maintenance of the
repository

• Ways of acquisition of educational materials for
  the repository
• Bulk download of the materials provided by
  higher education institutions, chairs and
  departments - xml-conversion.
• Uploading the resources and metadata in online
  mode using the web interface.
• Licensing the resources already uploaded to
  the Single-Entry Window Portal (contacting
  authors/owners of the resources).
• Information support
• Authors content management, amendments and
  updates through the web interface.
• Editorial Board checking metadata and uploaded
  materials moderating forums advice to users.
• Launch of the repository September 2013.

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Thank you for your attention!
Contacts State Institute of Information
Technologies and Telecommunications "INFORMIKA".
St. Petersburg Branch Alexey SIGALOV,
sigalov_at_run.net UNESCO Institute for Information
Technologies in Education Svetlana KNYAZEVA,
s.knyazeva_at_unesco.org
http//ru.iite.unesco.org