What is ICORE?

Efforts towards opening up education through innovations like online cooperation, MOOCs and technology-enhanced learning have achieved broad awareness and agreement through the support of new policies launched by the European Commission. Nevertheless, investment in education and training is decreasing in many countries despite general recognition of its importance. Innovation and e-Learning can foster new ways of learning, however many contributions currently focus exclusively on technological opportunities. However educational change through refined pedagogies is extremely important to achieve the highest learning quality possible.

ICORE, the International Community for Open Research and Open Education was established with this objective in 2013 and launched at the international LINQ Conference in Rome in order to promote open education and its connections with open research. ICORE is bringing together interested experts and stakeholders from the fields of open education and open research. ICORE is completely non-profit, requires no membership fees to join, and is open to both representatives of organizations as well as individuals. In addition, ICORE is collaborating with leading European and international organizations motivated by a common vision, joining efforts for future strategies and activities which facilitate innovative learning in schools, universities, societies and at work.

ICORE offers membership to any organizations or individuals who support the association’s goals of promoting open research and open education as a fundamental social objective. This promotion is to be accomplished through the fostering of collaboration between relevant stakeholders in open research and education, such as international, regional and national policy makers, researchers, educators of all levels, students, research organizations as well as educational providers, among others. Activities for promoting and sharing open research and education include common events with all interested organizations (e.g., conferences, summer schools, etc.), an open and lively online community (the ICORE Wiki), the organization of scientific and educational initiatives and the establishment of creative partnerships between ICORE members to advance open research and open education internationally. ICORE is designed to make collaboration a rewarding experience for all members.

ICORE Management and Communication Board

The ICORE Management and Communication Board is a directorate to discuss and decide urgent requests and issues and to develop ICORE communications between ICORE Online Meetings. Its aim will be to further the ICORE message and build links with other organisations. The current board consists of Markus Deimann, Ignasi Labastida, Imma Subirats, Christian M. Stracke and myself.

ICORE Working Groups

ICORE has recently established 3 working groups:

• WG1: ICORE WG on Promoting the Connection of Open Research and Open Education
• WG2: ICORE WG on MOOCs and open online courses – This group will look at courses about and for Open Research and Open Education
• WG3: ICORE WG on Guide for Young Researchers

If you are interested in joining ICORE or finding out more see their website.

Today was the second in a series of meetings to develop the association’s defining connection between open research and open education. The first meeting on July 30th helped establish ICORE’s interpretation of openness in regards to education and research through an exploration of existing terminology. ICORE intends to bring the agendas of open research and open education together, thereby disseminating alternatives to traditional publishing and educational techniques. It will initially promote best practice examples in the fields of open research and education through a wiki page for collecting key terms and definitions, projects from other initiatives, resources, practices, and more.

ICORE Online meeting

This morning’s meeting was attended by over 25 participants from Europe and beyond (a second parallel meeting will take place later today to ensure all time-zones can participate) and was chaired by Christian M. Stracke from the University of Duisburg-Essen. There were some of the usual discussions on openness, though it was agreed that the group would use the open definition as a starting point for consensus. One interesting thread looked at why ICORE’s emphasis is upon connecting just research and education when the issues of opennes impact access and interoperability of systems and software, and so on. It was agreed that maybe it would be better to look at the various forms of openness (open access, OER) and to critically analyse their impact on education. This is something we hope to do in the Open Education Working Group at some point. Christian took the discussion forward and suggested section headings for the wiki (such as terms, projects, policies, articles and organisations related to on Open Research and Open Education) for people to work on between now and January when the next meeting will take place. ICORE will also have a presence at Online Educa Berlin in early December.

ICORE are at the early stages of carrying out some interesting and relevant work and the Open Education Working Group are happy to be working with them. Today’s second online meeting takes place at 16:00 UTC.