Virtual School Library and Open Educational Resources (RO0045)

Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment Open educational resources (OER) are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. These materials can be found in any medium, digital or otherwise, and reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. Using OER can, at low costs, bring significant advantages to the public education system, especially in the secondary education sector: improvement of access to quality education, increasing citizens’ interest in education, improving the quality of education through peer assessment and innovation. Through the Law on national education no. 1/2011, Romania has created the legal framework for the use of OER: the Virtual School Library. However, the provisions of the law have not yet been implemented. Main objective Creation of the Virtual School Library and its population with open educational resources Brief description of commitment By creating the Virtual School Library and defining a national policy regarding open educational resources, the commitment aims to increase access to quality education and foster innovation. The sources for these materials will be: - documents produced by the MENCS and subordinate agencies, particularly curricula and textbooks that the ministry buys directly; - resources produced in EU funded programs, regardless of the beneficiary. The financing contracts will included clauses stating that the produces resources will be published under an open license and will be uploaded on the national portal; - new resources created by teaches and used for teaching activities, including school inspections. It is well known that teachers are permanently creating a host of teaching materials, and these materials can also be uploaded to the portal; - resources that are already developed by teachers and are distributed to other communities. The users of these communities will be encouraged to to transfer the most valuable resources to the national portal; - educational resources that resulted from the implementation of EU funded projects will be part of this library; - starting a public consultation process regarding the acquisition of textbooks, so that the content of the textbooks is also bought and becomes the property of MENCS; The implementation terms will be discussed and agreed within the MENCS. OPG challenge addressed by the commitment More effectively managing public resources; Improving public services Relevance The commitment improves the quality of education through open access to educational resources that are created with public funds, increases public accountability of the decision-making authorities and makes use of new technologies. Ambition Improve student performance by facilitating access to educational resources for teachers.

16. Virtual School Library and Open Educational Resources

By creating the Virtual School Library and defining a national policy regarding open educational resources, the commitment aims to increase access to quality education and foster innovation. The sources for these materials will be: (1) documents produced by the MENCS and subordinate agencies, particularly curricula and textbooks that the ministry buys directly; (2) resources produced in EU funded programs, regardless of the beneficiary. The financing contracts will include clauses stating that the produces resources will be published under an open license and will be uploaded on the national portal; (3) new resources created by teaches and used for teaching activities, including school inspections. It is well known that teachers are permanently creating a host of teaching materials, and these materials can also be uploaded to the portal; (4) resources that are already developed by teachers and are distributed to other communities. The users of these communities will be encouraged to transfer the most valuable resources to the national portal; (5) educational resources that resulted from the implementation of EU funded projects will be part of this library; (6) starting a public consultation process regarding the acquisition of textbooks, so that the content of the textbooks is also bought and becomes the property of MENCS. The implementation terms will be discussed and agreed within the MENCS.

Main Objective:

Create a Virtual School Library and populate it with open educational resources.

Milestones:

6. • Create the technical support for the Virtual School Library
   • Collect, from public and private sources, and publish the initial repository for the Library
   • Select an open license for the Library
   • Introduction in all operational programs funded from the EU of a contractual clause stating that any educational resource that is created will be published under an open license and uploaded to the Library
   • Regulation of the way in which educational resources will be entered in the Library, a mandatory clause for projects developed with public funds and on demand for private projects
   • Review, following public debates, of the procedures for buying school textbooks, so that they are available to the public under an open license
   • Draft and adopt a national strategy for the development of the Virtual School Library and the use of OER in the public education system

Responsible institution: Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research (MENCS)

Supporting institution(s): National Centre for Assessment and Examination Education Sciences Institute, Open Educational Resources Coalition Romania

Start date: 2016                                                                     End date: September 2017

Editorial Note: The commitment text is abridged. The full text can be found in the OGP 2016–2018 national action plan.

Commitment Aim

Already part of the 2014–2016 national action plan, this commitment aimed to create a Virtual School Library online environment (Milestone 1), and to populate it with educational resources (Milestone 2) under open license (Milestone 3). The commitment also aimed to mandate that publicly-funded educational resources be published under open licensing and uploaded to the Library (Milestones 4 and 5), and that MENCS can buy the author rights of school textbooks to then publish the content under open licensing (Milestone 6). Finally, it planned to mandate the use of open resources in the public education system (Milestone 7).

STATUS

Midterm: Limited

A repository for the Virtual Library [107] has been set up and populated with data gathered at the level of the School Inspectorates. Moreover, public debates were organized to review the procedures for buying school textbooks to then publish them under open license. These discussions resulted in the government submitting a law proposal [108] to Parliament to regulate the statute of basic school manuals as public goods, [109] thereby making them available on the MENCS’s website, afterwards on the Virtual School Library portal.

End-of-term: Limited

According to a civil society representative, MENCS has written the project to create the necessary infrastructure for the Virtual Library in consultation with the civil society (Milestone 1), but the allocations of funds has been delayed. [110] The Virtual Library repository collects open educational resources that were published on the websites of the MENCS subordinate institutions. [111] According to the government’s self-assessment report, choices that would give the Virtual Library open license, as well as the insertion of a clause mandating open license for all EU-funded projects where educational resources are funded this way, were not yet made. [112] Furthermore, the government’s self-assessment report states that MENCS has approved the procedure to certify the open educational materials that will enter the Virtual Library, and that uploading sections were put in place in all the County School Inspectorates. [113] Finally, following discussions with civil society, MENCS initiated a draft law of the School textbook [114] in September 2017 that reached Parliament in December 2017, and was adopted in June 2018, only to be rejected by the Constitutional Court, because the Parliament did not adopt it following the correct administrative procedure. The law returned to Parliament in September 2018. [115]

Did it Open Government?

Access to information: Did not change

The only finalized milestone of this commitment was the creation of the Virtual Library repository, where information that was already open to the public (as it was published under open licensing) is collected.

Carried forward?

This commitment will be continued in the 2018–2020 national action plan as Commitment 16: “Open Education.”

[107] “Resurse Educationale Deschise”, Virtual Library, available at https://goo.gl/AQ5oYo.

[108] Draft law “Legea Manualului Scolar” is available [in Romanian] at https://goo.gl/667R3Q.

[109] According to Mr. Nicoara, this would place the manuals under open licensing, such that teachers could build on the basis of these open licenses their manuals and course materials. See Andrei Nicoara, Open Data Coalition, interview with IRM researcher, on 15 November 2018.

[110] Ovidiu Voicu, Centre for Public Integrity, interview by IRM researcher on 8 November 2018.

[111] Ovidiu Voicu, Centre for Public Integrity, interview by IRM researcher on 8 November 2018.

[112] “National Action Plan 2016–2018: Self-assessment report”, Open Government Partnership, 2018, page 62, available [in Romanian] at https://bit.ly/2vv2yw7.

[113] “National Action Plan 2016–2018: Self-assessment report”, Open Government Partnership, 2018, page 62, available [in Romanian] at https://bit.ly/2vv2yw7.

[114] Draft law “Legea Manualului Scolar” is available [in Romanian] at https://goo.gl/667R3Q.

[115] Ovidiu Voicu, Centre for Public Integrity, interview by IRM researcher on 8 November 2018.