New UNESCO chair in open educational resources

Stolte, E. (2011) UNESCO link helps Athabasca U. extend reach Edmonton Journal February 4

Rory McGreal, Vice-President Research at Athabasca University, has just been appointed the new UNESCO chair in open educational resources.

I was at Athabasca University last week and was able to congratulate Rory personally – over a pint.

The new chair comes with $520,000 in research funding from the Commonwealth of Learning, Hewlett Foundation, the provincial government and Athabasca University.

Rory said he will focus on aggregating free, quality resources already being developed, and researching how to create online resources so they are as easy to learn from as possible. Axel Meisen, president of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, said he hopes McGreal’s efforts to co-ordinate the push for freely available, high-quality educational materials will eventually help pregnant women in rural Africa access health information on their cellphones.