The problem:

The use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in Vocational and Educational Training is a central goal in developing life long learning. There are, however, major barriers to progress, including the sustainability of e-learning provision, the cost of infrastructure, and in particular the provision and quality of e-learning materials and effective pedagogies for e-learning. It is widely recognised that Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) can address many of these issues, and provide higher quality, reduced costs and increased availability of platforms, and there is now an extensive range of FOSS Learning Management Systems and other educational applications available. The economic and social benefits of FOSS cannot, however, be effective if educational materials are not available for use with these systems. At present these materials are largely produced in-house, or are purchased from commercial providers. Both these options are expensive, and dramatically reduce the benefits gained from the use of FOSS educational software.

The opportunity

Three recent developments have provide an opportunity to address this problem.

1. The Creative Commons license provides a legal framework for Open Content within which individuals and institutions can share and adapt educational materials without fear of losing control of their own work, or of infringing the copyright of others. This license is the equivalent for content of the FOSS licenses for software. It enables authors to specify what users can do with the content, and to explicitly give specified rights to users. Open Content allows a sustainable approach to the development of a critical mass of compelling multimedia materials available for a broad range of vocational subjects in different languages and localised for different European cultures.
2. The Edusource project in Canada, and the LionShare project in the USA both draw attention to the potential of networks of repositories in linking together communities of practitioners who are empowered to exchange learning materials. The MIT Open Knowledge Initiative is also a relevant precedent, demonstrating that sharing of high value educational resources for no charge is viable.
3. eLearning standards are in place to facilitate the exchange of resources. These include both the established SCORM profile, and the recent IMS Learning Design specification, which enables teachers’ pedagogic use of materials to be represented in a database.

The solution

The proposal is for a pilot project to support the use of Open Content in vocational education and training (VET). The key actions of the project are to:

• • establish a repository of learning resources, building on current best practice and existing Open Source repository implementations and eLearning standards
• • populate the repository with learning materials from different sectors of VET from different languages and cultures. These will be compliant with open eLearning standards and published under the Creative Commons license.
• • establish a system for peer review of the quality of materials
• • evaluate the results, disseminate the outcomes, and plan for sustainability

Partners will add materials to the repository in English and their local language. They will then be trialled in a wide variety of contexts, including work based and informal learning. Social partners will have a key and natural role in the project through participation in the review and quality procedures for evaluating the use of the learning materials. This will ensure that the effectiveness of the OpenDock solution is brought to the attention of the whole range of target groups.