File:POERUP D2.1 edition 2.pdf

POERUP is an EU-funded project whose funded period ran from November 2011 to June 2014 inclusive. Its purpose was to develop OER-friendly policy recommendations, based on analysis of existing OER initiatives, countries, policies and case studies.

For POERUP Work Package 2, Sero has created a curated map/database of 501 open education initiatives, both OER and MOOC.

A companion but much smaller work item created a report on OER policies – for details see Deliverable 4.1: Overview of European and International policies relevant for the uptake of OER.

First, Sero created a Custom Map Tool driven by the sophisticated “noSQL” database MongoDB to allow display of and search for OER initiatives – http://oer.poerup.org.uk – as part of a wider initiative to document and allow search for open education initiatives, including MOOCs, available at http://www.poerup.org.uk. The core database technology and approach were chosen to be scalable to high performance as well as being open source and Linked Data-ready. The Open API it makes available facilitates future use by different groups working collaboratively on problems of collecting, mapping and analysing open education initiatives, including but not only eMundus, SharedOER, D-TRANSFORM, OER Africa and, possible Hewlett-funded initiatives in this area.

Second, Sero created Semantic Map Tools using Semantic Maps, a module of Semantic MediaWiki, hosted on Referata to support the POERUP wiki – http://poerup.referata.com. Semantic Wiki is a powerful extension of the MediaWiki software. (MediaWiki is used also for WikiEducator and Wikipedia.) See for example the map at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Languages Third, Sero created a number of Google Map Tools consisting of ad hoc maps and charts, using Google Map Engine Pro and Google Charts – e.g. the “POERUP 501” map at https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/1/edit?hl=en&authuser=1&mid=zYG2prGO09jE.kj-xjWvhQNjg

This deliverable was written at the very end of the POERUP project and so inevitably has aspects of looking to activities beyond the project and in particular Exploitation of project results.