2nd World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress, Ljubljana 2017

Toward the realization of inclusive Knowledge Societies, Open Educational Resources (OER) support quality education that is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory. OER are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that 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. Open licensing is built within the framework of intellectual property rights as defined by relevant international conventions to respect the authorship of work. OER are a strategic opportunity to improve knowledge sharing, capacity building and universal access to quality learning and teaching resources.

The 2nd World OER Congress is organized by UNESCO and the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport in close collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning, Creative Commons, the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO and the UNESCO Chair on Open Technologies for OER and Open Learning (Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia) with the generous support of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The objectives of the 2nd World OER Congress are to:

• examine solutions to meet the challenges of mainstreaming OER content and practices into education systems worldwide;\
• showcase the world’s best practices in OER policies, initiatives and experts, and;\
• identify recommendations that are demonstrably best practices for the mainstreaming of OER.

The theme of the 2nd World OER Congress "OER for Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education: from Commitment to Action" reflects the pivotal role OER can play toward achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and above all Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education.