The Netherlands has a new UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER). The Dutch Ministry of Education continues to focus on and support open and online education. The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) will celebrate 10-year anniversary of OpenCourseWare at their institution in 2017 and will be launching new projects.

Robert Schuwer appointed UNESCO Chair in OER

Last month, UNESCO granted Fontys University of Applied Sciences a UNESCO Chair in OER. Robert Schuwer is the Chair holder. The focus of his research is on OER and their adoption by teachers, learners and institutions. More info: http://robertschuwer.nl/blog/?p=1383.

Fred Mulder from the Open University Netherlands was the previous Chair holder.

Open Initiatives by the Government

The Dutch Ministry of Education continues to focus on and support open and online education with guaranteed yearly tenders until 2025. Yearly, there is 0.8M€ available for open and online projects with a maximum funding of 100k€ per project. During the first two rounds, 23 projects received funding (2015 and 2016). Deadline for 2017 funding applications is in December 2016.

The Minister of Education is expected to make an announcement on a new initiative on open education during the Dutch Education Days in November.

Delft University of Technology

TU Delft has been active in the field of open education since 2007. Next year, we will celebrate 10 year anniversary of our OpenCourseWare website. Open has become an integral part of the strategy of the university, not only for education but also for research. Currently, we are drafting a strategic plan for open education for the period of 2017-2020.

Some of the activities that we have done or that are in progress include: new OCW website, publishing our MOOCs with an Open License, starting a project on Open Publishing (including OpenTextBooks), and creating a training for lecturers on how to adopt OER in their courses.

For more information, please contact Willem van Valkenburg via w.f.vanvalkenburg@tudelft.nl.