Author: Katherine Wimpenny 6th May 2016
On the 3 - 4 th May, here in the DMLL, we hosted the first interim partner meeting for OpenMed, an international cooperation project co-funded by the Erasmus + Capacity Building in Higher Education programme involving five partners from Europe and nine from the Arab Mediterranean Countries (Morocco, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan).
The overarching goal of OpenMed is to raise awareness and facilitate the adoption of Open Educational Practices (OEP), with a particular emphasis on the use and production of Open Educational Resources (OER), at universities in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine and other countries in the Arab Mediterranean (A-M) region.
OpenMed fosters the role of Universities as knowledge providers not only to their on-campus students, but also beyond the walls of institutions, especially towards disadvantaged groups (e.g. low income peoples, disabled students, people living in rural areas, learners at risk of low achievement, refugees).
Over the two-day event we presented our work to date on work package one, which research staff in the DMLL are leading. This involves producing a compendium of relevant initiatives and interviews with experts about the adoption of open educational practices in the A-M region, Europe, and more globally, to help partners achieve the objectives of OpenMed by generating a reliable and evidence-based body of knowledge.
On the afternoon of 3rd May we held an Open Symposium event, with keynote speakers Martin Weller from the OU, Jacqui Speculand and Gemma Tombs from DMLL, and Sana El Harbi, from the University of Sousse, who shared initiatives and practices about open practices and the challenges and opportunities experienced.
As well as important time for reviewing the other work packages and discussing the more technical aspects of the project, we made time to network and socialise. Our partners expressed how welcome they were made to feel, and how inspired they felt about being on campus and hearing more about the innovation in teaching and learning practices here at Coventry.
It was a very positive two days and we look forward to the next partner events in the A-R region and progressing the valuable work of the OpenMed Project.