“I am pleased that with the establishment of a cross-border network, an important basis for the more intensive exchange of open educational materials across national borders could be laid. The increasing digitization of university teaching, which has picked up speed again in the course of the Corona pandemic, and the free licensing of digital teaching materials makes more educational offers possible for everyone! With the establishment of a cooperation network, an important stage was reached in the efforts of the federal states and their institutions for digital teaching to better network their OER platforms in the future and to exchange innovative teaching ideas more intensively. Open educational materials are an important driver of innovation for the dissemination of new learning and teaching ideas in university teaching. The cross-state networking of the OER platforms means that the pool of available OER materials in the individual federal states can be expanded more than if the states were to go it alone, and the variety of innovative ideas also increases. I am particularly pleased that the Virtuelle Campus Rheinland-Pfalz (VCRP) has taken over the chair of the cooperation network together with ORCA.nrw. The Virtuelle Campus Rheinland-Pfalz recognized the added value of OER early on and has been involved in this area for a long time. With the support of the state, the Virtuelle Campus Rheinland-Pfalz has set up an OER platform and is constantly developing it, advises universities on the provision of OER materials and recently launched an OER program to develop digital teaching materials created during the pandemic. I wish the cooperation network every success in its work, thank the institutions involved for their commitment and hope that the network will continue to grow in the future!”

Yours, Clemens Hoch

Minister for Science and Health in Rheinland-Pfalz