OPENMED: Exploring Intercultural Learning through Open Education Practices across the Mediterranean

Funder

EU

Value

£50,116

Dates

October 2015 - February 2018

Project lead

Professor Katherine Wimpenny, GLEA

in partnership with Dr Daniel Villar-Onrubia, DMLL.

Project objectives

OpenMed ‘Opening up Education in South-Mediterranean Countries’, is an international cooperation involving five partners from Europe and nine from the South-Mediterranean (S-M) region (Morocco, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan). The project is focused on how universities from the designated countries, and other S-M countries, can join the action as community partners in the adoption of strategies and channels that embrace the principles of openness and reusability within the context of higher education. Open Education represents transparency, equity and participation. Such values are core in widening participation and building capacity in Open Education Practices, important to the national contexts of the Mediterranean countries.

Project impact

The overarching goal of OpenMed is to raise awareness and facilitate the adoption of Open Education Practices and OER in the S-M countries, with a particular focus on higher education in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Palestine https://openmedproject.eu/home/. OpenMed fosters the role of universities as knowledge providers not only to their on-campus students but also beyond the walls of institutions, especially towards disadvantaged groups (low-income peoples, disabled students, people living in rural areas, learners at risk of low achievement, and refugees).

OpenMed has been highlighted on Virtually Inspired, an ongoing research conducted by Marci Powell and Susan Aldridge at Drexel University Online in Philadelphia. The research is aimed at showcasing innovations in online learning from around the world "to uncover the best of breed technology-enhanced online courses and programs indicative of the Online Classroom of the Future".