Open Education (GR0050)

Context Open Education aims at unburdening learning of obstacles, enabling at the same time pupils and students to have access to an education system which focuses on their specialized learning needs, deploying multiple learning activities. The characteristics of open education are: accessibility, flexibility and the appointment of the student to the center of the learning process. Regarding the characteristics of flexibility and accessibility, open education refers to underlying or currently evolving knowledge and information, which is deployed by students and teachers at all levels of the learning process. For instance, books, manuscripts, scientific articles and any other available material printed or digital. More precisely, there is a large amount of content such as educational material, studies, publications, e-learning etc in the sector of education, research and development in the Academic field. The publication of this content to the wide public is frequently quite complicated even for the experts of the academic society. Issues referring to copyright and publication license as well as technical issues put barriers to the openness of data and these barriers must be eliminated. In any case, the largest amount of educational material available in public institutions is financed in whole by public resources and for this reason, it must be reusable, as exactly it is the case with open data (Public Sector license, Public Domain, total openness). The openly licensed educational material can substantially contribute to the improvement of the quality and efficiency of education. According to the recommendations of strategy for the “Redesigning of Education” (EC, 2013): “Schools, universities and technical institutions must increase the access to education via open educational resources”. Commitment Description Within the context of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs for open education, respective actions/projects are proposed: Create an inventory of available digital educational resources, so as to track down which of these could be provided with Creative Commons license. Create a platform, via which the educational resources in question will be available to the wide public to deploy. This platform will merge underlying systems. Suggest a new procurement process for school manuscripts and other educational resources at all levels of education, which will allow the publication of educational resources with Creative Commons License. Organize actions to inform students and teachers in all levels of education in open education issues6 . OGP Values Participation Implementing bodies Implementation: Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs and supervised bodies Contact Points: General Director of the Directorate of Strategic Planning and Design of Electronic Governance Kalomira Marouga. Telephone +30 2103442012. Email t11kalma@minedu.gov.gr Involved Stakeholders: Public Administration Pupils Students Teachers University Professors, University Assistant Researchers Objective Open Education Means for the implementation: Study for the inventory of available digital educational resources Platform to provide the educational content Legal assistance for procurement process which will cover openness issues Educational actions for information and sensibilization in open licenses, open educational resources, in conferences, one day summits etc Participation in educational conferences Organization of conference or one day summits focusing on open education

Commitment 17, 18, 19 and 20: Commitments on Education

Commitment 17: Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams

Provision for friendly and handy interface that will allow citizens to access the information. Statistical information will be extended to as many years as possible. All the above will be integrated, with the use of modern electronic forms and the introduction of an electronic searching mechanism. This way, value-added data of high demand that are not currently available to the public, will become open and accessible to all citizens.

Commitment 18: Protocol Digitization

The Ministry aims to digitizing entirely the aforementioned service, so as citizens to be able to submit their application electronically. Moreover, Citizens will be also able to be informed electronically about the final result of their request, through electronic channels such as SMS or email, thus making the overall process more accessible and easier.

Commitment 19: Informative Actions on open data for young people in

Secondary and higher Education

As part of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs to inform young people about the usability of open data, respective actions/projects can be organized in Secondary and Higher Education. The interventions proposed through actions/projects aim at making citizens aware of the open data and their reusability benefits, focusing mainly on young people, using as information channel Schools and Universities. 

Commitment 20: Open Education

Within the context of the effort of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs for open education, respective actions/projects are proposed: Create an inventory of available digital educational resources, so as to track down which of these could be provided with Creative Commons license; Create a platform, via which the educational resources in question will be available to the wide public to deploy. This platform will merge underlying systems; Suggest a new procurement process for school manuscripts and other educational resources at all levels of education, which will allow the publication of educational resources with Creative Commons License; Organize actions to inform students and teachers in all levels of education in open education issues.

Responsible institution: Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: July 2016 End date: December 2017

Editorial Note: All three commitments in this cluster have the same implementing agency and the same start and end dates. The action plan text has been abridged by the IRM. For the full version, please see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-national-action-plan-2016-2018/

Commitment Aim:

The commitments for education outlined in the third national action plan aim to provide educational information in a more accessible way. This includes the release of data for national exams and public institution resources, the digitalization of logging correspondence among public institutions and the establishment of open educational resources. 

Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams

Every year, young students and their families, as well as public and private educators, need to access various statistical information about the Panhellenic examinations. The Ministry of Education conducts these examinations to explain acceptance processes to Greek higher education institutions. The commitment aims to improve the historic records of examination data as well as making it easier for public access.

Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization

This commitment aims to improve the response of the Ministry of Education to incoming requests and applications, mainly from ministry employees and teachers. As a solution, the Ministry of Education proposes to fully digitize the relevant service for logging correspondence between the ministry and other entities. It also proposes to provide automated SMS and email updates for all incoming requests.

Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in

Secondary and higher Education

The open data agenda is a novel one for Greek society. Knowledge about open data is currently restricted to individual experts within the open government community. Such knowledge has not been diffused to the wider population, especially young people. The Ministry of Education committed to closing this gap by using its existing human network in public schools and in higher education institutions. This commitment aims to spread knowledge regarding the value, the benefits, and the uses of open data to pupils in high school as well as young students in higher education.

Commitment 20. Open Education

This commitment reflects a first attempt from the Ministry of Education to approach the issue of open education in Greece. Currently, the education community can hardly access educational resources and content produced with public money. Therefore, this commitment aims to produce a list of all digitally available educational resources on a new web-based platform. Also, the Ministry of Education will seek legal assistance to allow open licensing in the procurement of new educational content via Creative Commons.

Status

Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams

Midterm: Limited

The goal of this commitment was to improve historic records of past exam data and make them easier to access. Teachers would have access to exam materials and good practices, while students and parents could be more informed on the popularity of certain courses.

End of term: Limited

The website offering exam topics^{[Note 163: Archive of university entry exams, http://www.minedu.gov.gr/anazitisi-archive/anazitisi-thematon-panelliniwn-eksetaseon (accessed in September 2018).]} is not accessible online. Some statistical information on school exam performance was released in July 2018 but was limited and available only as a link within a press release on the Ministry’s website.^{[Note 164: Exam performance data for Greek schools, Ministry of Education (in Greek), https://www.minedu.gov.gr/news/35674-29-06-18-anakoinosi-statistikon-stoixeion-gia-tis-vathmologikes-epidoseis-gel-kai-epal-2019]} Despite repeated efforts^{[Note 165: IRM researcher emails to the Ministry of Education General Secretary, 13 September 2018, with a follow-up on 21 September 2018 and a telephone call to the office of the General Secretary, 25 September 2018.]} by the IRM researchers, the Ministry did not respond to any enquiries regarding commitment implementation. The same stands for all commitments in the third action plan by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs.

Did It Open Government?

Commitment 17. Data and Statistics for Greek National Exams

Access to Information: Did Not Change

The commitment has not changed government practice as the website offering exam topics is not available online and there is not enough evidence to justify whether the limited statistical information released by the Ministry was useful to the education community.

Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization

Midterm: Complete

The Ministry of Education lacked a comprehensive digital system to track incoming and outgoing mail and requests by citizens and other government departments. By the midterm evaluation the Ministry had completed the digitization of the registry dealing with such mail and requests. Citizens can use mydocs.minedu.gov.gr to electronically submit and track any requests or issues they have concerning the Ministry of Education.^{[Note 166: Online application management service for citizens website, Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs (in Greek), https://mydocs.minedu.gov.gr/]}

End of term: Complete

No new actions apart from the ones stated in the midterm report could be discerned at the end-of-term assessment. Also, no usage statistics or user feedback relating to the existing platform were made publicly available by the Ministry of Education.^{[Note 167: Ibid.]}

Did It Open Government?

Commitment 18. Protocol Digitization

Civic participation: Marginal

Although this commitment had no direct relevance to OGP values, its implementation resulted in a marginal improvement with respect to civic participation. In the past, citizens faced considerable difficulties in accessing information on their applications or other requests to the Ministry.^{[Note 168: Diakologitika, “Ministry of Education: The electronic applications for technical schools begin”  (in Greek), https://www.dikaiologitika.gr/eidhseis/paideia/160905/ypourgeio-paideias-ksekinoyn-oi-ilektronikes-diloseis-protimisis-sta-epal]} Despite initial problems in the operation of the system,^{[Note 169: Stefanos Cherouvis, Senior Researcher at the private school Ellinogermaniki Agogi for Greece, in “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, Open Government Partnership, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment]} the platform now provides a more efficient way to communicate with the Ministry. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS)^{[Note 170: Despina Mitropoulou, General Director of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), telephone interview with IRM researcher, 12 September 2018.]} suggests that, as a future step forward, the Ministry could openly provide statistical information on the system’s use that would allow for the redesign and streamlining of the most popular requests, utilizing the experience gathered by the diadikasies.gr initiative.^{[Note 171: See commitment 33. ]}

Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in

Secondary and higher Education

Midterm: Not Started

The Ministry of Education aimed to close what it perceived as a gap in open data education and awareness. It would use its existing human network in public schools and in higher education institutions to inform students in high school and higher education about the value, benefits and uses of open data. However, the commitment text did not mention specific informational actions or a concrete timeframe. No actions had been taken towards the stated goal by the midterm evaluation.

End of term: Not Started

No actions have taken place in implementing the commitment following the midterm evaluation. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) were also not aware of any steps taken by the Ministry of Education to complete the commitment.^{[Note 172: Despina Mitropoulou, General Director of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), telephone interview with IRM researcher, 12 September 2018.]}

Did It Open Government?

Commitment 19. Informative Actions on open data for young people in

Secondary and higher Education

Access to Information: Did Not Change

The commitment did not start and, thus, there was no change in practice in providing students with awareness on open data practices and policies.

Commitment 20. Open Education

Midterm: Not Started

The Ministry aimed to create an inventory of available digital educational resources and examine which of these could be provided for reuse using the appropriate licenses (for example, Creative Commons). The Ministry of Education already maintains existing repositories for educational content provided by teachers that license all the content with Creative Commons licenses.^{[Note 173: Fotodendro, National Educational Content repository (in Greek), http://photodentro.edu.gr/aggregator/]} This commitment tried to expand this considerably by changing the procurement process for education materials^{[Note 174: Law 3966/2011 – Institutional Framework of the Model Experimental Schools, Establishment of the Institute for Educational Policy, Organization of the Institute of Computer Technology and Publications "DIOFANTOS" and Other Provisions (in Greek), https://www.kodiko.gr/nomologia/document_navigation/125088/nomos-3966-2011]} to allow for open availability of manuscripts and other educational resources for all levels of education.

There was no evidence to indicate that this commitment had started by the midterm review. Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS) noted that the commitment was withdrawn by the Ministry of Education.^{[Note 175: Dr. Prodromos Tsiavos, Member of the Board of Open Technologies Alliance (GFOSS), interview with IRM researchers, Athens, 13 October 2018.]} For more details see the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece.^{[Note 176: OGP, “Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Progress Report 2016–2018: Greece”, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/greece-mid-term-report-2016-2018-public-comment]}

End of term: Not Started

There is no evidence that the implementation of this commitment started following the midterm review. Dr. George Papanikolaou, a member of the Greek chapter of the P2P Foundation pointed out^{[Note 177: Dr. Giorgos Papanikolaou, Lecturer at Harokopio University of Athens, Fellow at P2P Foundation Greece, telephone interview with IRM researchers, 9 September 2018.]} that a new Open Educational Resource (OER) repository has been created as part of an EU-funded project, carried out by Greek Universities and University Libraries, the "Kallipos" Repository.^{[Note 178: Project Kallipos, the first comprehensive effort to introduce electronic interactive, multimedia textbooks in Higher Education (in Greek), https://www.kallipos.gr/en/]} Although this initiative is a relevant step forward in opening data in the education field, it is unrelated to the implementation of this commitment and therefore has no impact on the completion level.  

Did It Open Government?

Commitment 20. Open Education

Access to Information: Did Not Change

The commitment did not start and as a result had no influence in changing the status quo.

Carried Forward?

The next action plan is not available at the time of writing this report. Part of the mandate of the Ministry of Education, namely the life-long development of skills, has now been transferred to the Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction, under the same directorate that is responsible for Open Government.^{[Note 179: Ministry of Administrative Reform press release, “We are implementing the National Digital Skills Plan for the benefit of the citizen” (in Greek), http://www.minadmin.gov.gr/?p=27454]} If the government were to prioritize open education, the IRM researchers suggest bringing together and building on the experiences from the Ministry of Education and the EU-funded project, to co-create a new commitment.