OLCOS and the Cape Town Open Education Declaration
In September 2007 the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the Shuttleworth Foundation convened a meeting in Cape Town to gather leading proponents of open education. The goal was to seek ways for these initiatives to deepen and accelerate their efforts through collaboration. The release of a declaration of shared vision and common strategies was concluded as an appropriate first step.
With the help of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration a coalition of educators, foundations, and Internet pioneers urges governments and publishers to make publicly-funded educational materials available freely over the Internet. The Declaration is part of a dynamic effort to make learning and teaching materials available to everyone online, regardless of income or geographic location. It encourages teachers and students around the world to join a growing movement and use the web to share, remix and translate classroom materials to make education more accessible, effective, and flexible.
The Declaration has already been signed by hundreds of learners, educators, trainers, authors, schools, colleges, universities, publishers, unions, professional societies, policymakers, governments, foundations and other kindred open education initiatives around the world. Also project team members of the OLCOS consortium have signed it. Furthermore the report “Open Educational Practices and Resources – OLCOS Roadmap 2012” is linked at the website of the Declaration in the category “Related Initiatives”.
The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is available to read and to sign at:
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
