SURF’s views on “Open”
SURF is the higher education and research partnership for ICT in the Netherlands. SURF aims to improve education and research by means of ICT, in particular by removing as many barriers to functionality, accessibility and cooperation as possible.
In
SURF’s Strategic Plan for 2011-2014, the Dutch institutions for higher education have made the theme of “open” a priority for the coming years, in both education and research. Cooperation at the national level has taken the Netherlands to the top of the international rankings in this area. Digital openness encompasses the following elements:
- Open Access
- open learning materials
- open research data
- open standards
- Open Source
Open Access
Access to knowledge, information, and data is essential in higher education and research. It provides a basis for knowledge transfer (education) and knowledge generation (research).
The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities calls on researchers to make their research material freely available to all
via repositories on the Internet or in
open access journals. This refers not only to articles but also to raw data and other research material. Users must be able not only to consult and distribute such materials but also make use of derived works. The only proviso is that the original author must be referenced.
SURF signed the Berlin Declaration on 1 December 2004 and actively promotes Open Access in the Netherlands. That is why it is working on open access to research material in a standardised, coherent, and interoperable manner. SURF is working to achieve this aim through its
SURFshare programme.
Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) can play an important role in the transition to an education system that combines innovation, a custom approach to students, excellent quality, cost savings, and efficiency. OER are learning materials (in the form of individual materials or entire courses) that are available online for use/reuse and may be copied, modified, and distributed subject to certain terms and conditions.
Institutions of higher education worldwide are increasingly offering open access to their teaching materials, and governments are investing heavily in the development of OER. These trends fit in with the worldwide “Open movement”.
SURF launched its long-range
Open Educational Resources Programme in 2011. The aim of the programme is to increase awareness of Open Educational Resources and to develop a strategic agenda concerning OER. A further aim is to encourage development and use/reuse of OER.
Open research data
Besides wanting to increase access to publications, SURF is also working to make research data as freely available as possible, without losing sight of personal data protection or commercial interests. It does this in partnership with various organisations in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Its motto is: open access where possible, restricted access where necessary. Open access to research data makes it possible to verify research and to reuse the results efficiently in teaching and in other research. Combining datasets also makes new forms of research possible.
Open standards
SURF is working to apply open standards whenever they are available and to promote their use. Open standards simplify cooperation and prevent dependence on suppliers. Where no open standards are available, SURF is helping to develop them.
Open Source
SURF delivers ICT services and negotiates satisfactory terms and conditions of use so that state-of-the-art software and services are affordable for the higher education and research sector. It is often able to choose between Open and Closed Source solutions to provide the necessary functionality:
- With regard to its own services and own use, it bases its decision on practicability arguments. It considers the relevant solution’s functionality and manageability, whether it can be expanded, and the one-off and recurring costs involved.
- When delivering software to its connected institutions, SURF strives to offer a range of different options. That means that, wherever possible, it will offer various different Open and Closed Source alternatives.
If there are no satisfactory Open or Closed Source solutions available, SURF may decide to develop its own software code or other material, based on the idea that its services should not be limited by what the market currently has to offer. If the results prove interesting to parties other than the connected institutions, SURF tries to make them freely accessible and reusable for all (by offering them as an Open Source solution). SURF has already made a great deal of software available in Open Source.