A free content video streamed from blip.tv UNESCO Office for the Pacific States.

Dr Visesio Pongi, Director of the UNESCO Apia Office for the Pacific States welcomed virtual meeting participants and attendees in Dunedin. "The concept of free learning for all students is well aligned with UNESCO's global mission to provide education for all which now seems imminently more doable with the mainstream adoption of OER in our formal education institutions." said Dr Pongi.

UNESCO asks planners of the OER university to find sustainable and scalable solutions to these key questions:

1. How can OER be best harnessed to train the millions of teachers needed?
2. What partnerships and interventions are necessary to support OER quality assurance and acceptance?
3. What specific types of OER content should we prioritise?
4. A wealth of content exists. How can an effective "clearing house" function that supports quality, cataloguing, information dissemination and other key tasks be operationalised?

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Sir John Daniel.

Sir John Daniel, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Commonwealth of learning provides well-founded advice for the planning of the OER university, drawing on the international experience of open distance learning. "Students seek flexible study opportunities, but they also want their achievements recognised in credible credentials." said John Daniel. "This important meeting should tackle the challenges of combining flexibility with rigour, which requires clarity in conception and quality in execution."

Sir John highlights two strategic questions for the planning of the OER university:

1. How can the "OER university" give students every element of possibility to draw on the rich environment of knowledge in their learning?
2. How can the "OER university" provide routes to credible certification so that learners and society can have confidence in the robustness in their knowledge and skills?

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Dr Robin Day.

Dr Robin Day, Chair of the Board of the OER Foundation and Deputy Chief Executive of Otago Polytechnic welcomes participants to the inaugural planning meeting for the OER university. "We extend an open invitation to all post-secondary institutions that care about sharing knowledge as a core value of education to join us in planning these sustainable learning futures." said Dr Day. In this video, Robin:

• Extends a formal welcome to the University of Queensland who have joined the OER Foundation as a founding gold member.
• Acknowledges the support from UNESCO in facilitating global access to this important meeting.
• Acknowledges the contributions of Rory McGreal, member of the Board of Directors and Athabasca University as founding member of the OER Foundation.
• Extends thanks to BCcampus who hosted the pre-meeting SCoPe seminar
• Highlights the significance of sustainable education as a key driver for the future of post-secondary education and the role which the OER university can play in fostering international collaboration in widening access to learning and credible qualifications.

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Phil Ker.

Phil Ker, Chief Executive Officer of Otago Polytechnic outlines the leadership rationale for engagement in the OER university concept. Phil highlights:

• The dichotomy between management and leadership, namely doing things right versus doing the right thing.
• That institutions must stop reinventing wheels by sharing OER.
• That OER is the vehicle to improving quality in education.
• The commitment from Otago Polytechnic to bring the "Moodle wall" down opening access to all courses.
• That OER is the platform for sustainable education practice.
• That credible, accessible assessment can be provided for a fraction of the cost of traditional delivery approaches.

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Jim Taylor.

Professor Jim Taylor, from the University of Southern Queensland, points out that the OER university will create a parallel learning universe to augment and add value to traditional models of delivery through open collaboration networks. "This is not theoretical speculation, it is entirely viable." said Jim Taylor. In this keynote address, Jim:

• Refers to the "gales of creative destruction" associated with technological change where old industry can be swept away and replaced by new ones. However, the OER university concept provides opportunities for "creative construction" for universities in a digital age.
• Demonstrates that conventional supply of education using traditional delivery methods will not the meet the demands for access to higher education. Consider, for example:
  • the need for 18 million new teachers
  • the doubling of post-secondary students in the next decade
  • the need to build roughly one new university per week in India alone to meet the future demand for learning.
• Points out that we already have a critical mass of open access materials, but we don't have open curriculum, open student support, open assessment and open accreditation.
• Indicates that the OER university concept will provide a stairway to credible credentials based soley on OER.

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Paul Stacey.

BCcampus in Canada hosted a pre-meeting SCoPE seminar in preparation for the OER university meeting. The seminar was intended to generate discussion and input on the context, problem, concept, partners, and objectives of an OER university.

Paul Stacey, who facilitated the online seminar prepared a summary of the inputs from SCoPE seminar for the meeting.

The meeting connected with Paul in Canada via audio link and streamed the teleconference via the Ustream broadcast for the meeting. These inputs will be transferred to the issues and possible solutions for each of the initiatives of the logic model for the OER university.

A free content video streamed from blip.tv OER Foundation.

On February 22, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand causing extensive damage. Our hearts and thoughts go out the residents of Christchurch who are dealing with the anguish, devastation and loss of life resulting from the earthquake.

We have noted the apologies from the following attendees who due to flight cancellations across New Zealand were unable to make the meeting in Dunedin: Associate Professor Mark Brown, Director, Teaching, Learning & Distance Education, Massey University, New Zealand; Associate Professor Richard K. Coll, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Teaching & Learning. University of Waikato, New Zealand; Dr Herbert Thomas, Electronic Learning Media Team Leader, Digital Media Group, University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Vasi Doncheva, Flexible Learning Manager, Northtec, New Zealand; Lynda Mathey, Director Educational Services NorthTec, New Zealand; Darren Harkness, Athabasca University, Canada; Annabel Schuler, Education Support Services Manager, Tai Poutini Polytechnic, New Zealand; and Professor Niki Davis, Professor of e-Learning, University of Canterbury and President of DEANZ, New Zealand.

We invite you to meet the +200 participants from +45 countries who registered as virtual participants.

A free content video streamed from blip.tv Saylor Foundation.

The Saylor Foundation shares the vision of the OER university that "everyone, everywhere should have access to a college education. The Saylor Foundation are building a web site which will serve as a zero-cost alternative to those that lack the resources to attend traditional brick-and-mortar institutions. Alana Harrington, Program Director of The Free Education Initiative explains the model highlighting the challenge of formal accreditation. The Saylor Foundation:

• is aggregating existing OERs into degree structures and filling the gaps where no OER learning materials exist.
• has prioritised high enrolment entry courses in the United States
• is exploring alternatives for credentialing services
• keen to find solutions for identity verification of unproctured online examinations.

We were unable to stream this video during the meeting. A hgher resolution version of video available on YouTube