The education process is changing: the classical textbook is becoming less important, while there is a growing interest in assembling custom presentations and education material with many components: text, images, videos, simulations, sounds, etc. Most audio/visual material is proprietary, and even if a university is granted (or has bought) the rights of usage, the resulting product cannot be open. This also has the consequence that a course given by another teacher has often to restart from scratch instead of reusing/adapting the existing material. Arising from the EUNIWELL funded project, Science Shops for Well-Being, this proposal aims to establish an open repository of educational material, in the broad field of sustainability. The repository will be searchable based on key words and usage statistics and include a broad range of topics from earth sciences, engineering, economy, social sciences, mathematical, physical and chemical sciences, biology, etc.
The material should be selected thinking of its usage in the field of public engagement and teaching.
Since the population of the repository implies a great work and a broad collaboration, we propose to set-up a multimedia journal, with a review board which can check for appropriateness, openness and classification of the material.
The idea is that anybody producing appropriate material, such as images, videos, sound recording, animations, simulations, presentations, can submit it to the journal, and, in case of approval, the material receives a DOI and can be appropriately cited. This will also allow an easier tracking of the material usage and encourage the inclusion of cutting edge and novel findings.
Moreover, the journal “status” would constitute an incentive to students to produce high-quality material, that will be linked to their name.
The working of this journal could be made quite direct: people submit their material (which is made public after a quick check for appropriateness) to an archive. Then, if the material passes the review phase, it is moved to the “approved” session.
In our opinion, this initiative will be appreciated by students and researchers, who can find open material for their papers and presentations, and can share their products, but also by high-school teachers who can profit from the available material and can propose the elaboration of new contributions to their classes.
We are exploring collaborations with existing media system such as Wikimedia, which has the goals of “bring free educational content to the world”.
If you are interested or have suggestions or comments, please contact the authors.
