Overview

OpenMed is an international project funded under the EU Erasmus + Capacity Building in Higher Education (HE) programme. The overarching goal of OpenMed is to facilitate the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) in the South Mediterranean region (S-M), with a particular focus on HE in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine. The partners on the project are:

• Mediterranean Universities Union, Italy
• Politecnico di Torino, Italy
• Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Spain
• University of Seville, Spain
• Coventry University, UK
• Cairo University, Egypt
• Alexandria University, Egypt
• Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco
• Université Ibn Zohr, Morocco
• Birzeit University, Palestine
• An-Najah National University, Palestine
• Association of Arab Universities, Jordan
• German Jordanian University, Jordan
• Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Jordan

Other universities from Morocco, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan or any other South Mediterranean country are welcome to join the project as community partners.

Coventry University is responsible for the delivery of work package 1 and bringing together a compendium of OEP and OER. The compendium will identify and analyse relevant OEP and OER initiatives, and inform the subsequent stages of the project by generating a reliable and evidence-based body of knowledge that will help achieve the objectives of OpenMed. It will use the following methods:

• Case studies of excellent practice in OER and OEP across partner countries
• Interviews with experts in the OER and OEP fields, particularly those working in the South Mediterranean

The full project details for OpenMed can be found here.
See the project website here: openmedproject.eu

Goals

1. Raise awareness and widen HE participation in OER and OEP
2. Define the OER agenda for the re-use of OER at HE institutional level
3. Define mid-term strategic roadmaps for the implementation of the OER agenda at local-institutional level according to the local, cultural and institutional needs and strategies
4. Teach university teachers how to use and reuse OER in a pedagogically-rich context and improve their digital competencies
5. Pilot start-up open educational practices and offer to students flexible and up to date open contests and learning paths, with a linkage to the international community and the needs of the job market

Technology Application

There is no particular technology application for this project. Instead, the OpenMed project will use a variety of open applications and resources which can best support the aims of the project.

Milestones & Timeline

1. Jan 13-15, 2016:
   Katherine Wimpenny and Daniel Villar-Onrubia attended the OpenMed kickoff meeting at the Mediterranean Universities Union, Rome, in January 2016. During this three-day event, participants discussed how to raise awareness and widen higher education participation in open education, through the adoption of OER and OEP.Download the press release for the OpenMed Kickoff Meeting in Rome.

2. First Part Meeting, DMLL, May 2016

3. Development of the Compendium Jan 2016 - September 2016

4. Attendance at the partner National Forum Meetings

• Egypt, October 2016
• Morocco, December 2016
• Jordan, February 2017
• Palestine, April 2017

Project work to date

Following the kick-off meeting in January 2016, we developed a concept paper to outline the process of the data collection for the compendium

We conducted a webometric analysis of the website of 215 universities in the region to provide an indication of the level of awareness in the region as indicated by the websites of higher education institutions

Partners were asked to nominate case studies which could be used to help to advance OEP in the region.

We interviewed a range of experts in the field of OER/OEP, whose comments are included in the Compendium, and their comments together with the results of the survey and the case studies were put together into our recommendations.

Key Findings

The main findings from across the case study initiatives have been considered under the following five themes:

• Top-Down and Bottom-Up Implementation
• Supporting Staff in Using and Integrating Open Practices and Open Resources
• Collaborative Creation in Communities of Practice
• Enhancing the Quality of Student Learning
• Licensing of OER content.

Download the Compendium http://openmedproject.eu/results/compendium
Look at the expert interview videos http://openmedproject.eu/category/experts

Next Stages

Katherine and Daniel attended the National Partner forum in Morocco, December 2016

Sarah Merry and Daniel Villar-Onrubia recently returned from a National Partner Forum meeting in Jordan. This was an extremely fruitful meeting, with attendees from Europe and from Egypt, Morocco and Palestine as well as Jordan. Sarah and Daniel presented on the work completed by the Coventry team so far, which includes the Compendium of Case Studies and Interviews with Experts about Open Education Practices and Resources which focuses on the current state of international open education, particularly in the South Mediterranean region.

Sarah and Katherine will attend the next OpenMed National Forum hosted at Birzeit University, near Ramallah in Palestine in April 2017.

A paper showcasing the work on the Compendium will be shared at the ALT Conference, OER2017, London, April 2017.

Wimpenny, K., Villar-Onrubia, D., Merry, S.K., Steffanilli, C. (2017) OpenMed: Opening up Education in South-Mediterranean countries, ALT Conference, OER2017, London, April 2017.

Project Timeline: