Open data, a key tool for promoting knowledge and education
Fecha de la noticia: 12-05-2023
Open solutions, including Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Access to Scientific Information (OA), Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS), and open data, encourage the free flow of information and knowledge, serving as a foundation for addressing global challenges, as reminded by UNESCO.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognizes the value of open data in the educational field and believes that its use can contribute to measuring the compliance of the Sustainable Development Goals, especially Goal 4 of Quality Education. Other international organizations also recognize the potential of open data in education. For example, the European Commission has classified the education sector as an area with high potential for open data.
Open data can be used as a tool for education and training in different ways. They can be used to develop new educational materials and to collect and analyze information about the state of the educational system, which can be used to drive improvement.
The global pandemic marked a milestone in the education field, as the use of new technologies became essential in the teaching and learning process, which became entirely virtual for months. Although the benefits of incorporating ICT and open solutions into education, a trend known as Edtech, had been talked about for years, COVID-19 accelerated this process.
Benefits of Using Open Data in the Classroom
In the following infographic, we summarize the benefits of utilizing open data in education and training, from the perspective of both students and educators, as well as administrators of the education system.
There are many datasets that can be used for developing educational solutions. At datos.gob.es, there are more than 6,700 datasets available, which can be supplemented by others used for educational purposes in different fields, such as literature, geography, history, etc.
Many solutions have been developed using open data for these purposes. We gather some of them based on their purpose: firstly, solutions that provide information on the education system to understand its situation and plan new measures, and secondly, those that offer educational material to use in the classroom.
In essence, open data is a key tool for the strengthening and progress of education, and we must not forget that education is a universal right and one of the main tools for the progress of humanity.
