Education nonprofit ISKME is marking its 20th year of working to shift the education landscape, both nationally and globally, from its home base in Half Moon Bay, Calif. For two decades, the organization has conducted groundbreaking educational research; done pioneering work on advancing open educational resources (OER)—including launching OER Commons, a global digital public library; and led the way in the development of international, federal, and state policies for open education.
“For ISKME, the early underpinnings of OER were about improving teaching and learning, with the implicit assumption that education is a public good,” said ISKME CEO and founder Lisa Petrides, Ph.D. “This work has always been based on the assumption that education is a human right and that all people should have access to it.”
Learn more about ISKME in this new retrospective on the organization’s history, “ISKME’s Journey to Transform Teaching and Learning: A Quest for Participatory, Equitable, and Open Education.” To use ISKME as a source in education reporting, contact: comms@iskme.org
In an education system historically reliant on traditional textbooks, ISKME’s work on openly licensed and freely available, open educational resources was groundbreaking in 2007 when OER Commons was launched. ISKME has only continued to lead the way over time, including by advising UNESCO on the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources. ISKME also partnered with the Department of Education’s #GoOpen initiative in 2018, and took over the program in 2022.
During the pandemic, OER helped to ensure that millions of students had access to free course materials online, and ISKME continues to work with thousands of educators in K-12 and higher education to support equitable and culturally responsive teaching practices.
“Open Educational Resources are free for educators to download, share, and adapt, ensuring that all students have equal access to quality learning materials,” said Petrides. “We’ve seen first-hand how educators who work with OER become empowered to customize and contextualize learning materials for themselves and their students. At ISKME, we have always been committed to making education more participatory, equitable, and open.”
Read this new retrospective on the organization’s history online, or download the pdf. To use ISKME as a source in education reporting, contact: comms@iskme.org