Webinar: OER in TVET. Making education more accessible and affordable

The webinar OER in TVET. Making education more accessible and affordable was organized on 18 March 2025 by the European Training Foundation (ETF), the International Council of Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and UNESCO’s International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO-UNEVOC).

This webinar focused on the role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in improving access by reducing costs for students. After an introduction to OER, the session highlighted an impressive initiative by the Milwaukee Area Technical College in the USA. During COVID, the college formed an Open Access Team that has been very successful in expanding low-cost and no-cost textbook options across the college. Furthermore, Susanne Grimm of OERinfo Germany  presented the relaunched OER World Map. This interactive map can be used to expand knowledge, share information and experiences and it can help collect data on OER initiatives. Finally, ICDE’s Secretary General Torunn Gjelsvik provided an update on the organization’s new OER strategy and its Open Education Network.

You can find the recording here:

About

The objective of this webinar series is to build the capacity of TVET leaders and practitioners on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER), as a way to increase the innovation potential of their educational offer and become more inclusive. OER are teaching and learning materials intentionally released with open licenses, that give users the right to own, share, and in most cases, modify them. Within Higher Education, the use of OER has shown the potential to reduce accessibility barriers and at the same time to support co-creation practices, but in the vocational education and training the use of these approaches is still limited.

Agenda

14:00 Welcome and introduction

• Max Ehlers, UNESCO-UNEVOC

14:05 Introduction to OER: First steps into the world of OER for educators

• Fabio Nascimbeni, ETF

14:25 Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) Open Access Initiative

• The MATC Open Access team tells us how they successfully converted classes to OER, thus saving students US$ 5 million textbooks cost in 3 years. This was made possible by a faculty-led open access team comprising administration, faculty, staff and students
• The MATC Open Access Team is represented by Dr. Sadique Isahaku, Vice Provost, Milwaukee Area Technical College; Carl Morency, Director, Instructional Resources & Student Support; Dr. Thomas Kalluvila, Faculty & Chair-Open Access Team; Dr. Krystia Nora, Faculty & OER Community Education Facilitator; Dr. Elaine Strachota, Faculty & OER Healthcare Facilitator; Naomi Omoruyi, Student Ambassador

14:50 Presentation of the OER World Map and how it can be of use to the global open education community

• Susanne Grimm, OERinfo

15:05 Presentation of ICDE’s new Open Education Network

• Torunn Gjelsvik, Secretary General, ICDE

15:20 UNESCO-UNEVOC's new guide for inclusive education

• Priscilla Gatonye

15:25 Closing