Abstract:

Open Education is gaining ground globally, at the same time raising enthusiasm and being perceived as a possible solution to the need to educate an increasing Higher Education population within the existing financial constrains; with Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) being increasingly being considered as an option by universities around the world. Policy makers are starting to embrace this “movement”: in its Communication “Opening Up Education”, the European Commission is stating that “technology offers unprecedented opportunities to improve quality, access and equity in education and training” and calls for “scaling up the use of ICT-supported learning and access to high quality OER”. Further, promoting the creation and use of OER is high on the agenda of international organizations, e.g. the OECD, the UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning (COL), while some governments have started to make large investments in developing Open Educational Resources. The paper will present a reflection on the state of the art of the Open Education movement, together with a specific insight on BRICS countries. The case of Brazil is paradigmatic, since due to a number of factors such as the young population, the rate of economic growth and the policy receptivity towards OER, the country could represent an example for other emerging economies along the path of Open Education. The most recent developments and the challenges that the Open Education community in the country is facing will be presented and discussed. The paper will end with an anticipation of the first results of the eMundus project, an effort by a rather global consortium to foster open approaches to international Higher Education collaboration, run with the support of the European Commission, that is tackling the issue of Open Education dynamics between the local/national and the international level. The thesis of the paper is that, since problems and challenges are global, we should work out common solutions together.

Keywords:

Open Education, ICT for learning, OER, OEP, Brazil, eMundus, international collaboration.