Robert Schuwer is highly esteemed by the open education community for his outstanding work and quiet but relentless perseverance in open education. Robert has made important contributions to innovate education with the use of OERs, both nationally and internationally. In the Netherlands, he has been one of the key players behind the official recognition of the strategic importance of OER in Dutch education. Robert has consistently explored solutions to promote sharing and reusing of digital OERs so that instructors and students enjoy them and find them useful. He has done so from two different perspectives. Firstly, how to consolidate and organize the tangible use/reuse of OER within and for education (pilots, projects, and programmes). And secondly, focusing on the data. Setting up studies and research that would encourage reflection and thought about the implementation of OER as an innovative solution for education.
Robert’s open education journey is extensive and goes back to the first phases of OER. Here are some of his highlights:
In 2006, Robert was the project manager and public face of the first OER project in the Netherlands: OpenER (Open University of the Netherlands). OpenER quickly became a flagship project of open digital self-study courses, both nationally and internationally. It changed the attitude towards OER within the university itself and led to a growing awareness in the Netherlands of the value of OER in general, in other educational levels as well as among policy‐makers and politicians.
Shortly after, and together with Fred Mulder, Robert played an important role in the development of the national Wikiwijs project (https://www.wikiwijs.nl). He was involved from the initial planning in 2008 to the completion of the first phase of the national Wikiwijs programme in 2013. A single platform was to be created for all digital educational resources, for all sectors from primary education to higher education. Robert worked hard to ensure that higher education also started using Wikiwijs. Thanks in part to his efforts, there is now a single standard for metadata for educational resources in the Netherlands. He also made an important contribution to the quality assurance of educational resources in Wikiwijs.
Robert was involved in setting up and launching GO-GN (Global OER Graduate Network). A network of PhD students from all over the world whose research projects focus on open education (OER, OEP, MOOC). These PhD students form the core of the network. Currently, this “community of practice” consists of more than two hundred PhD students, experts, supervisors, and mentors. GO-GN was founded in 2013 by Fred Mulder, former rector of OU, and world’s first UNESCO Chairholder OER.
As of 2016, Robert is the second UNESCO OER Chair in the Netherlands, affiliated with Fontys Hogeschool ICT. He works with an international network of OER chairholders to advance open education globally.
Robert has participated in multiple research studies and special interest groups. A couple of his latest involvements are:
- SURF Special Interest Group OER / Open Education
- National Acceleration Plan for Innovation with ICT
- This working group was a major driving force behind the creation of the National Approach to Digital and Open Learning Resources Statement, signed by the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences, the Universities of the Netherlands, and SURF Control of educational resources: Towards a national approach to digital and open educational resources. In the Statement, the Dutch higher education institutions agree to work together to create, share, reuse open educational resources, to purchase collectively digital educational resources, and to build an open infrastructure for OER.
Robert will retire in 2022 but we hope to continue to see him as a strong advocate of OER and an active member of the open education community.
Explore more about this award…
Open Education Global’s podcast featuring practitioners of open education from around the world.
Our 2023 season commences a sequence of conversations with the people recognized in the most recent Open Education Awards for Excellence. It is fitting to start with Robert Schuwer, who was recognized with an OE Individual Award for Lifetime Achievement. As we hear in the episode, it might take a lifetime to cover all of Robert’s contributions to Open Education.
The OEG Voices podcast studio traveled to visit Robert in the village of Malden, just south of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Listen in to learn about his early influences, a career path from classroom teacher to computer science professional, and ultimately his rise as a key figure for implementing open education and open educational resources on a national level in the Netherlands. His work in the field and influence as a mentor has extended far beyond that.
In Robert’s voice and his descriptions of his career you will understand why he has been honored with this lifetime achievement OE Award for Excellence. At the time of the recording, Robert was days away from his retirement as a professor Open Educational Resources from Fontys University of Applied Sciences, but it is not surpising, as you hear, he will remain engaged in research on the sustainability of OERs. As a bonus, hear Robert describe the metaphor meaning of the black hole image in his zoom background and also learn about his passionate interest in classical music.
References and Quotes for Episode 48
Actually the technical issues were the least difficult, [but it was] how to interest board members, how to interest students, how to interest teachers to be part of this, to adopt the sharing and re -sharing and reusing of resources.
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So my real interest is in what can we do to widen adoption of OER and overcome all those barriers, which are mostly cultural barriers and psychological barriers and not so much technical barriers.
Robert Schuwer
- 2022 OE Award For Excellence for Lifetime Achievement
- OpenER (Open University of the Netherlands)
- Wikiwijs (Wikiwise) project
- Kennisnet (primary and secondary educators using Wikiwisj)
- Fontys University UNESCO chair for Open Educational Resources
- GO-GN (Global OER Graduate Network)
- SURF Special Interest Group in Open Education
- HBO SAMEN hbo-verpleegkunde (Good Practice Professional Community, Nursing)
- Hbo Verpleegkunde (Nursing Project in Wikiwijs)
- Towards Digital (open) Educational Resources (national acceleration program)
- Digitaliseringsimpuls Onderwijs (Digital Transformation Impulse for Education)
- Robert Schuwer (web site)
- About Robert
- Open Educational Resources Adoption: Where Do We Go From Here? (Dec 1, 2022 blog post)
- Classical Music site
Those are two important milestones to come to this situation that working with OER should be as normal as working with classical textbooks was 10 or 20 years ago for each teacher and for each student also.
That’s what’s going on in Netherlands. And that is what I also trust that will be the case in 2030, that was also how I ended my blog, because when I started in 2009, 2010, Fred Mulder said to get OER mainstream, it’ll take 20 years.
Well, 10 years have been past since then, so 2030, then it is 20 years later. I think all the conditions are now. There’s the UNESCO OER recommendation, which our government has signed. There’s a UNESCO Open Science recommendation. The Netherlands had signed it. We have this agreement with all board members from higher education.
We have this program, which is huge with a lot of money from the government where this OER is part of this program. And there it is a lot of very interested people who want to go further with it. So, if the lights are green, it is now or never.
And I’m convinced it is now. People really will take the responsibility and work on this. And of course there will be drawbacks. Certainly there will be barriers, but I’m convinced that in 2030, this goal, this picture I have in my mind, will be a reality then in the Netherlands.
Robert Schuwer
Our open licensed music for this episode was selected in honor of Robert’s music interest, a track called Beethoven – Bagatelle op.119 nº9 by Circus Marcus licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial Licensefound, like most of our intro music, in the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).
The introduction created with the OEG Voices Mixer features voices of Robert along with Lori-Beth L, Ajita D, Terry G, Catherine C, Gardner C, Lisa Y, Alex E, Judith S, Jonathan P, Bonni S, Clint L, and Shinta H (learn how to add your voice to the mix).
Also on a production note, this was the first episode we used Descript for transcribing and editing audio, it feels like a game changer for editing!
