Workshop on the Regional Network of Open Educational Resources Concludes

On August 3, 2012, the workshop on the Regional Network of Open Educational Resources (REA/OER is the Spanish acronym) successfully concluded at the BIREME headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The workshop covered the following issues:

• Advances and difficulties in using the Regional Network for Open Educational Resources;
• Exchange of experiences on the operation of repositories, in particular, the institutions’ difficulties in publication;
• Updated situational analysis on the quality of educational resources published in each country;
• Evaluation of the proposed methodology to monitor and control quality within the network; and
• Training in the configuration and administration of CWIS and Drupal.

The following representatives from the Virtual Campus in Public Health (VCPH) country nodes participated:

Argentina
National University of Cordoba, Faculty of Medical Sciences
- Mónica Perfetti, Librarian

Brazil
National School of Public Health, Fiocuz
- Ana Furniel, Coordinator of Institutional Communication
- Ana Paula Mendonca, Systems Analyst
- Rosane Mendes, Systems Analyst

Open University of SUS (The Brazilian National Public Health System) (UNA-SUS)
- Dr. Francisco Campos, Executive Secretary
- Alysson Feliciano Lemos, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator for Projects and Programs
- Aline Santos Jacob, Librarian
- Onivaldo Rosa Júnior, Software Engineer

Chile
University of Chile, Faculty of Medicine
- Katherine Rivas, Librarian

Colombia
University of Antioquia, Library
- Paula Restrepo, Librarian

Costa Rica
Costa Rican Institute of Research and Teaching in Nutrition and Health
- Marlen Solid, Coordinator of the Center for Information and Communication

Mexico
ACAI – Institute of Training and Research
- Edgar Castelo

Paraguay
National Institute of Health
- Griselda Lesme, Tutor

Peru
University Peruana Cayetano Heredia
- Julio Cuadros, Coordinator, Area of Information and Systems Technology

Uruguay
Ministry of Public Health
- Silvia Maria Vidal, Specialist in Health Information Systems

BIREME
- Renato Murasaki, Manager, Information Technology and Methodology (MTI)
- Arthur Treuherz, Supervisor, Administration of Information Sources (AFI)
- Claudia Guzzo, Supervisor, Production of Information Sources (PFI)
- Elisabeth Biruel, Librarian, Cooperative Services for Information (SCI)
- Marcos Mori, Supervisor, MTI
- Moacir Moda, Systems Analyst, MTI
- Vinicius Andrade, Systems Analyst, MTI
- Lilian Calo, Manager, PFI
- Luciano Duarte, Supervisor, PFI
- Rosemeire Rocha, Supervisor, SCI
- Veronica Abdala, Manager, SCI

VCPH Regional Team
- Jose B. Jardines, Regional Coodinator
- Madgledis Almanza, Technical Webmaster
- Johel Diaz, Contents Webmaster

The Primary Recommendations from the meeting were:

1. To develop a general policy for the Regional Network of the REA of the VCPH/BVS on the development and use of educational resources and the country node repositories.  The policy should include a combination of guides and manuals indicating the procedures and work flow to register and publish resources, criteria for selection and permanence of resources in the repository, criteria for quality, license for use and author’s rights, and other pertinent issues related to the theme;
2. In developing the guides and manuals, use and reference international standards and best practices for the bibliographic description of the REA, such as the Dublin Core, LOM, AACR2, RDA, etc.;
3. The VCPH country nodes should develop policy based on the Regional Network’s general policy with adaptations based on their local needs;
4. Those responsible for the country nodes should articulate, politically and technically, with the network of national institutions, the development of the REA repositories and their interoperability with the country node repository;
5. Those responsible for the nodes should present the workshop recommendations to the Directing Group of the VCPH in their country; and
6. To strengthen the network of those responsible for the repositories of the Network REA in the participating institutions, using tools and knowledge that would help to improve the educational resources, through capacity-building activities, training of trainers, etc.