Polytech signs Cape Town Open Education Deed

Otago Polytechnic signs Cape Town Open Education Declaration

Chief Executive Phil Ker today signed the Cape Town Open Education Declaration on behalf of Otago Polytechnic making the institution the first in Australia or New Zealand to do so.

The Declaration is a statement of principle, strategy and commitment to the development of open education including open access resources, open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues

"This emerging open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint" states the declaration.
"Educators, learners and others who share this belief are gathering together as part of a worldwide effort to make education both more accessible and more effective." (http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration)

"This signing is about ¦reaffirming our commitment to open education formally set in place by our Intellectual Property policy (2007)," explains Leigh Blackall, Programme Developer in the Polytechnic's Educational Development Centre.

"Otago Polytechnic has been at the fore of almost every recent step in the international effort for Open Education including significant work on the Wikieducator platform; use of popular and internationally recognised media and communication platforms; developing an Intellectual Property Policy in line with open educational practices; adopting a NZ Creative Commons Attribution copyright license; and ensuring that its spokespeople are very much a part of the dialogue on educational media and communications nationally.

"Our joining in the Capetown Declaration will see that Otago Polytechnic remains in this spotlight to confirm our commitment to Open Education and leading New Zealand towards a progressive and appropriate future for its educational institutions in our local and global society.

Otago Polytechnic joins 157 other institutions in the Declaration since it was penned September 2007.
ENDS

© Scoop Media