Developed by an independent team and published by UNESCO, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report is an authoritative reference that aims to inform, influence and sustain genuine commitment towards Education for All. Now, the International Association of Universities (IAU) asks for your reactions in the form of a short comment. More...

Open Education Week is a series of events to increase awareness of the open education movement. The third annual Open Education Week takes place from 10-15 March, both online and offline around the world. Through the events and resources, the week will demonstrate what kind of opportunities open education has created and what we have to look forward to. Participation in all events and use of all resources are free and open to everyone, and there are multiple opportunities to contribute. More...

This event which will take place on 31 March - 1 April 2014 in London, United Kingdom aims to facilitate partnerships between international organizations, institutions, academies, schools and universities with Gulf Cooperation Council, Middle East and African academic institutions. Gulf Education embraces all countries within the MENA Region with substantial investments in education. The conference is based around a programme of expert speakers, but interactive workshops, presentations and panel discussions are all on the agenda, and there are abundant opportunities for the arrangement of one-to-one strategic private consultations and networking sessions. More...

The Open Education Challenge, launched in partnership with the European Commission, is an invitation to all innovators to submit projects, receive mentoring and seed funding through the European Incubator for Innovation in Education, and get direct access to investors from day one. Applications are accepted from all over the world. More...

Funding opportunity for education start-ups

This issue features papers on the move from geographical to pedagogical student support at the Open University, UK; wellness promotion in online learning with examples from three American higher education institutions and a set of recommendations; OER in teaching and in learner support; student drop-out rates at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia; accessibility improvements for disabled students through cloud services at SUNY Empire State College, United States; course-embedded student support in ELT; and the introduction of an online student support platform at Wawasan Open University, Malaysia. More...

The dates for the 26th ICDE World Conference have been changed to 14-16 October 2015 to accommodate venue availability.
Meanwhile, registration is open for the ICDE International Conference to be held in Moscow in the Russian Federation in September 2014.
And you can get a flavour of the Balinese welcome delegates to the 2014 ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents (SCOP) meeting may expect in a short introductory video. More...

ICDE and partners in LangOER, a 3-year network project supported by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme, are looking for your input on the role of Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practices in less used languages.
How can less used languages, including regional and minority languages benefit from Open Educational Practices (OEP)? How can Open Educational Resources (OER) foster linguistic and cultural diversity in Europe? What policies are favourable to the uptake of quality OER in less used language communities? Answers to these questions will be sought through LangOER, a 3-year network project supported by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme. To aid in this, you are asked to contribute by answering five very short questions on your experience of OER and less used languages. More...

By Terri Macdonald. The Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) report entitled Copyright and the Digital Economy was tabled in the Parliament of Australia on 13 February.  Copies of the full report and a summary can be downloaded from ALRC website. The report makes a number of important policy recommendations about the way copyright law works in Australia. The most important recommendation is to introduce a general fair use exceptions regime to replace our existing specific purpose fair dealing exceptions. The ALRC is also recommending changes to statutory licences that apply to educational institutions. More...

By Terri Macdonald. On 22 June 2013, the Attorney-General’s Department asked the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, on behalf of the Australian Human Rights Commission to conduct a national review on the prevalence, nature and consequences of discrimination in relation to pregnancy at work and return to work after parental leave.
The significant number of complaints received by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Fair Work Australia indicate that discrimination against pregnant employees and against men and women returning to work after taking parental leave continues to be a problem in Australian workplaces. More...

Targeted at various stakeholders, the eLearning papers that you can now find on the new Open Education Europa portal stimulate reflection on open educational resources and in general new technologies and education in Europe. The latest eLearning Papers item discuss how Learning Analytics uses the learners’ digital trail to gain a better understanding of and improve the learning process. The articles propose a teacher-led design inquiry of learning and expose the benefits of combining learning analytics and open linked data research. The Papers also propose four case studies introducing assessment in basic maths, concept mapping for reflection, an analysis of the teachers’ learning process and real-time visualisation of discussion activities in a MOOC.