Making teaching materials publicly accessible and cooperatively developing them further is one of the aims of the "Community for Knowledge Transfer OER: Network of Educational Stakeholders (CO-WOERK)" project, which was launched in June under the leadership of the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and the Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences. The focus is on the idea of Open Educational Resources (OER), i.e. freely accessible teaching materials. The aim of the project is to expand skills in the field of OER among teachers at universities and in vocational training in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and to expand existing networks.
The project is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with 3.16 million euros over three years. The funding amount for the European University Viadrina is around 678,000 euros. In addition to Viadrina and Neubrandenburg University of Applied Sciences, the universities of Potsdam, Rostock and BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg are also part of the network.
"The idea behind the project is greater openness and educational equality. We want to move away from teaching as a black box. Teachers should benefit more from each other on a didactic and professional level," says Dr. Christin Barbarino, Head of CO-WOERK, describing the motivation. As the challenges in teaching at different universities are similar, cooperation across universities and federal states in the form of open educational resources makes sense. "It's not just about publishing teaching materials, but also about cooperative further development," says Barbarino. For example, they could work together to make materials more accessible. Thanks to the internationally widespread Creative Commons licenses, copyright-compliant use is possible.
In various initiatives, the European University Viadrina is focusing on the topic of Open Educational Resources. For example, practical OER have already been developed and disseminated as part of the Digital Teaching Cooperation Groups (PROKODIL) program. The economist Dr. Rick Steinert was awarded the state teaching prize in 2023 for his OER course on machine learning.
Media offer
Dr. Christin Barbarino is available for interviews and background discussions on the CO-WOERK project and the use of Open Educational Resources. Contact: barbarino@europa-uni.de
Further information
European University Viadrina
Department of University Communication
Phone +49 (0)335 - 5534 4515
presse@europa-uni.de
www.europa-uni.de