Open educational resources have garnered more attention during the pandemic as educators and district leaders sought to find instructional materials to accommodate the pivot to remote learning. For some, it was the first time hearing about these materials. For others, it was an invitation to the larger K-12 open community and the #GoOpen Initiative. In a joint effort to continue building awareness and implementation of OER, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) and the US. Department of Education (ED) are announcing the new #GoOpen pledge and a two-day virtual convening surrounding OER later this fall.
What is #GoOpen?
In October 2015, ED launched the #GoOpen initiative (goopen.us) to support states, school districts, and educators choosing to transition to openly licensed educational materials to improve teaching and learning. Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under a license that permits their free use, reuse, modification, and sharing with others. The use of OER has enabled school districts to empower teachers and repurpose a portion of funding typically spent on static textbooks for other needs.1 There are currently over 100 school districts and 20 states committed to supporting the transition to high-quality, openly licensed educational resources in their schools.
New Developments for Fall 2022
The #GoOpen initiative is developing some exciting new components this fall to elevate its support of open education. ISKME, together with ED, invite all K-12 educators, district leaders, and state leaders interested in advancing open education in their agency policies or in classroom practice, to take the #GoOpen Pledge of Support. The #GoOpen Pledge represents a public commitment to the principles of open education, demonstrated through the use of OER. The pledge is designed to be sustainable and serve learners no matter who leads the work, which is why it can be renewed every three years. Upon taking the pledge, each person will be presented with a #GoOpen digital badge to display their support for OER and #GoOpen.
About the #GoOpen Pledge of Support
The #GoOpen Pledge of Support is designed with State Education Agencies (SEA), Local Education Agencies (LEA), and individual educators in mind. State and district leaders can pledge to support open educational resources through an agency-level pledge, and educators can make a separate individual pledge. Though these pledges share similarities, the state and district level pledge focuses on commitments related to policy and practice and the individual pledge focuses on commitments related to knowledge-sharing and implementation support. See both pledges below.
State and District Level Pledge
Individual Educator Pledge
