Draft Dubai Declaration on OER: Digital Public Goods and Emerging Technologies for Equitable and Inclusive Access to Knowledge | UNESCO OER Dynamic Coalition Portal

"UNESCO Member States adopted the 2019 Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) at the 40th session of the UNESCO General Conference. The 2019 Recommendation on OER calls on Governments to support the creation and sharing of content for learning and teaching through open licenses that respect intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.

The use of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, by the public, has been a testament to the value of free software and open content. At the same time, the advancement of Generative AI has fostered significant debates in regard to the new ways in which content can be created, used, reused, and shared. In the field of law, there have been intensive discussions on the status of creative works generated through AI techniques, the legality and ethics of using both copyrighted and open content to train AI models, and the relevance of current open licenses in light of the challenges presented to content creators.

With a view to examining mechanisms for optimizing openly licensed learning content to address the challenges and opportunities posed by emerging technologies, including AI, UNESCO organized the 3rd UNESCO World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress: ‘Digital Public Goods and Emerging Technologies for Equitable and Inclusive Access to Knowledge’. This Congress was hosted by the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) and United Arab Emirates Authorities in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) on 19-20 November 2024...."