CEMCA participated in the International Conference on Distance Learning: Research and Innovation for a Digital Society


New Delhi, 05 August, 2019: CEMCA participated in the International Conference on Distance Learning: Research and Innovation for a Digital Society from 1-3 August 2019 organised by Sukhotai Thammathirat Open University Bangkok in collaboration with UNESCO. Around 200 Participants from 20 countries participated and presented the papers. 

Dr. Manas Ranjan Panigrahi participated in the Panel Discussion organised by ICDE on the theme “Being Open about Open Education: Building OER Repositories the challenges faced and the solutions to overcome". In this panel discussion Dr. Chularat Tanprasert, National Science and Technology Development Agency, Thailand; Prof. Zhang Xiangyang, Open University of Jiangsu, China; Prof. Jean-Marc Meunier, Universitas Paris 8/FIED; Prof. Tian Belawati, Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia were the panellists. Prof. Paul Stacey, Executive Director, Open Education Consortium delivered a lead talk on Open Education: Where are we now? What Next for panel discussion. Dr. Wesley Teter from UNESCO Bangkok was the moderator for the session. 

Dr. Panigrahi spoke about COL-CEMCA interventions and experiences on OER and its Implementation at Commonwealth Asia. He also shared that the Open Education Resources are a strategic opportunity to improve knowledge sharing, build capacity and promote universal access to quality learning and teaching resources. He also informed that, with the support of CEMCA, in India, 8 Open Universities adopted OER policy however only three OUs like NSOU, OSOU and UOU come out with OER Repository with CEMCA-COL support. In Bangladesh, BOU adopted OER policy and National OER policy in progress with the support of COL. He also mentioned the following challenges and proposed the solutions to overcome. 

Major Challenges:

  • Lack of users’ capacity to access, reuse and share OER
  • Lack of appropriate policy solutions
  • Insufficient inclusive and equitable access to quality content

Possible Solutions:

  • Strengthen capacity building for OER to assist key stakeholders in retaining, reusing, revising, remixing and redistributing OER. 
  • Focus on teacher integration of OER in teaching and learning. Keeping the learner at the centre is essential.
  • Invest significantly in policy development both at the national and institutional levels.