Open letter to President Obama to provide OA to federally-funded educational resources

Dear President Obama, We, the undersigned organizations from the education, library, technology, public interest and legal communities are writing in response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy's call for ideas to strengthen the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan. To ensure that the value of educational materials created with federal funds is maximized, we call upon the President to issue a strong Administration policy to ensure that they are made available to the public as Open Educational Resources to freely use, share, and build upon.....We therefore call upon you to take action by setting forth a strong Administration policy that will ensure that these valuable informational and educational assets created with Federal funds are unlocked and made available to the educators, students, investors, and innovators eager to put them to productive use. This initiative would build upon your Administration’s existing commitments to meet the Open Government Partnership’s grand challenges, specifically by improving public services and more effectively managing public resources. It would also build on the important steps your Administration already has taken to show that in an Open Government, when public funds are used to create non­classified data, research, educational and other informational resources, the public should be able to freely access and share, invest in, innovate with and otherwise reuse these informational resources...."