TU Delft: Open Education can’t be stopped

On Wednesday 7 March, TU Delft, SURF and the Open University have jointly organised an event in Delft on the subject of Open Education: the free online availability of course materials. The aim of the event, targeting policymakers in European higher education, was to increase awareness of what has been achieved to date in this field. The programme in Delft is part of the International Open Education Week from 5 to 10 March.

“The Open Education movement’s vision is a world in which everyone, everywhere and at all time can satisfy their need to learn,” says Anka Mulder, director of Education and Student Affairs and Secretary General of TU Delft. “We are trying to realise that vision with Open Educational Resources (OER), high-quality open course materials that can be freely shared, used and reused by people all over the world.”

“OER are proliferating at an unstoppable pace since MIT began making its course material available online for free in 2001. In 2007, the OpenCourseWare Consortium was set up, which quickly grew to a community of more than 250 universities and associated organisations worldwide.” Mulder is also President of this OpenCourseWare Consortium.

Open Education week

This year for the first time, the OpenCourseWare Consortium is organising a worldwide International Open Education Week. The objective of the week, to be held from 5 to 10 March, is to create greater awareness of Open Education in different places in the world. At different times during the Open Education Week, more than 120 organisations from all corners of the world will show, online and offline, what has been achieved in this field.

No threat

“Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences have no reason to see OER as a threat,” says Mulder. “On the contrary, OER can help them offer higher education to a growing number of students and lifelong learners. Traditional education institutions with their experience and reputation are in fact in an ideal position to develop, test and certify online education. Those who produce knowledge, education and students of a high quality have little to fear and a lot to win with Open Educational Resources.”