Other Group

Cape Town Open Education Declaration

Website:

www.capetowndeclaration.org/

Type:

Education Advocacy Group

Formation:

2008

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The Cape Town Open Education Declaration was written in 2007 at a meeting organized by left-of-center activist organizations, most notably the Open Society Foundations. The declaration aimed to produce a framework for global cooperation to advance open-access education. There was a follow-up meeting in 2017 to build upon the previous ten years and further advance the open-access education movement, including by suggesting policy changes related to the copyright status of government funded research and educational resources and copyright reforms related to education. 1 2 3

Founding and History

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is a document produced as the result of a 2007 meeting in Cape Town South Africa. The declaration promoted the open access of educational materials on the internet and laid a foundation for further open access movement collaboration going into the future. 1 2

In 2018 there was a 10-year anniversary Conference, CPT+10, that sought to build on the progress of the first meeting. 3

The website that hosts the declaration is managed by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), a fiscally sponsored project of the New Venture Fund, a left-of-center 501(c)(3) affiliated with Arabella Advisors. 4

Participants and Signatories

Participants and Authors

The participants and coauthors of the declaration at the 2007 meeting included officials and academics from around the world. Also at the meeting were four participants from the Open Society Foundations and its various global branches and five participants from the Shuttleworth Foundation. Jimmy Wales of the Wikimedia Foundation was also in attendance. 1

Signatories

Notable signatories of the declaration include the Open Society Foundations, Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), The Satanic Chapel, US National Democratic Party Asian American Caucus (USNDPAAC), and the Internet Archive. 5

CPT+10

In 2017, a tenth-anniversary meeting was held, again in Cape Town, South Africa, to analyze the previous ten years and lay the groundwork for the future. This meeting was sponsored by the Hewlett Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Shuttleworth Foundation. The meeting produced a 32-page document entitled “Ten Directions to Move Open Education Forward.” 3

Philosophy

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration called on both educators and learners to participate in the open access movement; for creators, authors, publishers, and the like to release their products under open access; and for government and university level policy changes to be implemented that will promote both the access to open-access resources and the philosophy of open access education. 6 2

The declaration’s website encourages partnership with for-profit and entrepreneurial ventures. 7

In the document released after the CPT+10 meeting, organizers noted that governments around the world fund billions of dollars in educational resources, but that such resources are not frequently made publicly available. The organizers called for all publicly funded educational resources to be made open access by default. The organizers also called for a reform of educational copyright to increase the ease of use for educators and students. 8

References

  1. “Cape Town Meeting.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/meeting/.
  2. “Read the Declaration – Cape Town Open Education Declaration.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read/.
  3. “CPT+10.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/cpt10/.
  4.  “Privacy.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/privacy/.
  5.  “View Organization Signatures – Cape Town Open Education Declaration.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/sign/signatures/.
  6. [1] “Cape Town Meeting.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/meeting/.
  7.  “FAQ – Cape Town Open Education Declaration.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/faq/.
  8. “CPT+10 10th Anneversary Pamphlet.” CapeTownDeclaration.org. Accessed July 1, 2024. https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/cpt10-booklet.pdf.
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