Events

Implications of the science ministries’ AI paper for open education and open science – workshop with Peter Salden and Alexander Klein

Written by Tim Wiegers02 June 2025

In January 2025, the Conference of Science Ministers of the Federal States published a position paper on artificial intelligence in the higher education and science system. This was followed by two papers in response: one from the Network of State Institutions for Digital Higher Education (NEL) and one from the Stifterverband. The three papers document which political course should be set in the field of AI according to the three stakeholders. We will take a closer look in the workshop: What is being called for? Does it fit together? How do the workshop participants rate these demands – and what should be added from the perspective of independent education?

The workshop will take place as part of the KNOER conference on June 17 and 18, 2025 in Berlin. Participation is free of charge. Further information on the event and registration can be found here:

 


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News

Funding for digital teaching and learning materials: TIB Hannover awards funding for 2025

Written by Tim Wiegers12 November 2024

The Hanover German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) is awarding funding for the development of digital teaching and learning materials for science and technology courses in 2025. These materials are to be prepared as Open Educational Resources (OER) and thus be freely accessible. The Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture supports the initiative, which gives teachers at state universities the opportunity to employ student assistants to develop materials.

Funding is obtained by means of a simple short application, which professors and academic staff is open to professors and academic staff. Applications can be submitted until December 18, 2024. Further information is available at Twillo.

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News

The KNOER Annual Conference 2024 starts.

Written by Tim Wiegers10 June 2024

The KNOER Annual Conference 2024, organised by ZOERR in cooperation with KNOER, begins today in the historic reading room of Tübingen University Library.
Programme highlights of the first day:

  • Welcome: Peter Rempis (ZOERR), PD Dr Markus Deimann (ORCA.nrw), Dr Konrad Faber (VCRP)
  • Greeting: Renke Siems (MWK Baden-Württemberg)
  • Keynote & discussion: ‘AI and Openness’ by Prof Dr Thomas Köhler (TU Dresden)
  • Workshops:
    • OER & ‘My educational space’: Markus Deimann, Konrad Faber (KNOER), Danny Pajak, Leander Pöhls (Capgemini)
    • Open Educational Practices in university didactics: Verena Russlies (ZOERR) and KNOER members
  • Fishbowl discussion: ‘How open is AI – how intelligent can open education be?’, moderated by PD Dr Markus Deimann and Dr Konrad Faber

The conference offers a platform for exchange and networking around Open Educational Resources and practices. We look forward to inspiring discussions and innovative ideas!

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Neuigkeiten

Study “Didactic metadata in OER and teaching portals” published

Written by Tim Wiegers22 April 2024

As part of a cooperation between the HIS Institute for University Development e. V., the Virtual Campus Rhineland-Palatinate and the ORCA.nrw | The state portal for studying and teaching created the study “Didactic metadata in OER and teaching portals”. The study examines the question of how open teaching and learning materials (OER – Open Educational Resources) in the higher education sector can be made more sustainable, so that teachers can You can find these more easily and use them for your own courses. This includes, on the one hand, an overview of the practice of indexing OER and, on the other hand, approaches to its further development.

The results of the study can now be viewed free of charge on the HIS-HE website: https://medien.his-he.de/publikationen/detail/didaktische-metadaten-in-oer-und-lehrportalen

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Events

Beyond OER Policy – What happens after the decision?

Written by Tim Wiegers22 April 2024

5th OER Policy Network Meeting | Tue April 9th, 2024

In exchange with the practitioners!

By adopting an OER policy, universities can set clear framework conditions for the use and creation of open educational materials and actively position themselves for free access to education and knowledge. The development of a policy and its anchoring in the strategic goals of a university on the one hand and the implementation of its principles in (teaching) practice on the other hand bring with them some challenges.

But what happens when it is finally done and the OER policy is decided and published? At what is now the 5th network meeting on the topic of OER policy, we are dealing with the effects of an OER policy on teaching practice.

We are very pleased to welcome Martin Ebner (TU Graz) and Simona Koch (UB Duisburg-Essen) as experts. Both were significantly involved in the adoption of an OER policy at their university and are now supporting the further process. After a short input from the two experts, we discuss the questions together:

How does university teaching work with an adopted OER policy?
What measures can be used to strengthen the policy and bring it to life?

Target group teachers and educational staff, university employees and students who are interested in the topic of OER

Speakers

Yulia Loose (lawyer, ELAN e.V.)
Silvia Czerwinski (scientific MA, Technical Information Library)

Date: Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m

The workshop will take place online.

Registration: Please register via email to: support.twillo@tib.eu
The online event is organized and handled by the Technical Information Library.

This is a free offer for all participants – even beyond Lower Saxony.

Here you go directly to the workshop room

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News

OERCamp 2024: Event review and participation by KNOER

Written by Tim Wiegers22 April 2024

Since 2012, the OERcamp has been the meeting place for the German-speaking community around Open Educational Resources (OER) and digital, open, contemporary education. At OERcamps, different actors work and learn from and with each other, consciously going beyond the boundaries of educational areas and subjects and looking at the subject area of OER and open education from pedagogical-didactic, legal, organizational, technical and other perspectives.

OERcamp 2024_Eindrücke.jpg (20/20)Photo: OERCamp 2024

– “The OERCamp is an outstanding interactive event with a wide range of opportunities for exchange and shared learning.”

[Noreen Krause, twillo]

KNOER and its members were present at OERCamp 2024 in various formats:
KNOER WORKSHOP ON “OPEN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF OER REPOSITORIES”

In the 4-hour intensive workshop “Open Educational Practices from the perspective of OER repositories”, representatives of ZOERR, VCRP, Twillo and HessenHub discussed the definitions and (publication) practices of Open Educational from the perspective of OER publication platforms Practices (OEP). The lively discussion during the exchange led to the conclusion that the development of the term OEP to date has resulted in a range of definitions. The term ranges from very broad to very narrow definitions, whereby two tendencies can be identified: On the one hand, OEP are to be viewed as materialized in some way (objects for lesson planning, special metadata, etc.), the other direction sees OEP rather located on a meta level as an idea or goal for implemented open education. As a central result, OEP was understood as a (partial) task of the OER repositories; as a possible path and next step, we are investigating didactic metadata as an interface or connection between OEP and OER.

KNOER WORKSHOP ON “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN UNIVERSITY TEACHING”

This intensive workshop, organized by the state portal ORCA.nrw, was about the implications of artificial intelligence for open educational resources with a focus on university teaching. The opportunities and potential of AI for OER were discussed, as well as areas of action and challenges that currently arise in this context. In the second part of the workshop, participants had the opportunity to try out the potential of artificial intelligence for open educational resources using AI tools in a “Prompt-LabOER”. A (photo) documentation of the workshop can be found on the website of the “KI-NEL-23-NRW” project, as part of which the workshop took place.

OTHER KNOER INVESTMENTS

Another workshop – moderated by Silvia Czerwinski (twillo, TIB) and Yulia Loose (twillo, ELAN e.v.) – was about the most important steps to an OER policy and what happens afterwards. Using the OER policy kit, we discussed how to overcome stumbling blocks in the creation process and what measures can be taken after publication.

Noreen Krause (twillo) was also involved in the newbie session “Introduction to the Barcamp method”.

KooperationspartnerInnen OERcamp2024.jpg (24/27)

Foto: Newbie-Session

Webseite: https://www.oercamp.de/24/
Program: https://www.oercamp.de/24/programm/

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Events
Written by Tim Wiegers04 March 2024

Since 2012, the OERcamp has been the meeting place for the German-speaking community around Open Educational Resources (OER) and digital, open, contemporary education. At OERcamps, different actors work and learn from and with each other, consciously going beyond the boundaries of educational areas and subjects and looking at the subject area of OER and open education from pedagogical-didactic, legal, organizational, technical and other perspectives.

KNOER and its members are also represented at OERCamp 2024 in various formats:

In the workshop “Artificial Intelligence and Open Educational Resources in University Teaching” PD Dr. Markus Deimann (ORCA.nrw) and Daniel Diekmann (ORCA.nrw) discuss the implications of artificial intelligence for open educational resources. This is about the opportunities and potential of AI for OER as well as the associated fields of action and challenges.

The workshop “Open Educational Practices (OEP) from the perspective of the OER repositories of the federal states” discusses what requirements must be placed on OER repositories for a successful OEP offering. This is about offering practice, options and the expectations of the user base. The workshop is offered by the OER Repository Baden-Württemberg (ZOERR) and the Virtual Campus Rhineland-Palatinate (VCRP). Verena Russlies (ZOERR), Konrad Faber (VCRP), Noreen Krause (twillo) and Paulina Rinne (HessenHub) are involved.

Another workshop – moderated by Silvia Czerwinski (twillo, TIB) and Yulia Loose (twillo, ELAN e.v.) – will be about the most important steps to an OER policy and what happens afterwards. The OER policy kit is used to discuss how stumbling blocks in the creation process can be overcome and what measures can be taken after publication.

Noreen Krause (twillo) is also involved in the newbie session “Introduction to the Barcamp method”.

Event website: https://www.oercamp.de/24/
Program: https://www.oercamp.de/24/programm/
Registration: https://www.oercamp.de/24/anmelde/

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News

The event documentation for Campus Innovation 2023 is online

Written by Tim Wiegers07 November 2023

Campus Innovation 2023 took place from September 27th to 29th in the atrium of the State and University Library (SUB) Hamburg. Under the motto “Upd@te digital transformation – AI, sustainability and OER at universities,” renowned experts presented their research and expertise and discussed it with the participants. Released lecture recordings and slides are now available for download on the Campus Innovation website. The order corresponds to the chronological order of the contributions in the conference program.

Further information at: https://www.campus-innovation.de/index.html and at https://www.campus-innovation.de/conference/treffen-documentation-2023.html

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Events

Nov. 7th, 2023: Network meeting on OER policies

Written by Tim Wiegers17 October 2023

Network meeting on OER policies on November 7th, 2023 from 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. (online)

In dialogue with practitioners!

More and more universities in Germany are committed to OER and want to use guidelines to send a signal to teachers that they approve of creating and sharing OER. The path to such a policy, i.e. an OER policy, can vary greatly depending on the university. Determining factors here can be the size of the university and accordingly the circle of participants or the approach to policy development – top-down or bottom-up, more or less participatory, etc.

Despite different starting points, there are steps in the development of an OER policy that all universities go through. We tried to visualize these steps in an OER Policy Kit. In addition to a map with the individual steps, materials such as presentation slides or text modules for mailings are also provided. The kit is intended to provide guidance on questions such as: Where should I start? Who should I contact and when?

At the fourth network meeting we would like to present and discuss the OER Policy Kit. We developed the policy kit together with Frank Homp (ORCA.nrw) and Astrid Dreyer (HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen), who explain their path to an OER policy as an example.

The policy kit provides input on the following questions:

  • Which steps are essential in the process and which are nice to have?
  • Which actors should be involved and when?
  • Which materials and tools can be useful for the coordination process?

After the presentation, you will have the opportunity to address your questions directly and discuss them together. We look forward to your impression and feedback.

Moderation: Yulia Loose (lawyer, ELAN e.V.) and Silvia Czerwinski (scientific MA, Technical Information Library)

Please Register for the online event at: support.twillo@tib.eu

Further information and the link to the workshop room can be found on the twillo event website.

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