Today we join more than 90 organizations in asking President Obama to open up taxpayer funded educational materials to the public

Today, New Media Rights along with a broad coalition of more than 90 education, library, technology, public interest, and legal organizations, called on the White House to take action to ensure federally funded educational materials are made available as Open Educational Resources (OER) that are free to use, share, and improve.

This letter comes in response to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) request for ideas to strengthen the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan, which is currently under development. The executive action envisioned by the coalition would build upon the Administration’s strong leadership in advancing public access to publicly funded resources with a strong Executive Branch-wide policy for the open licensing of educational, training, and instructional materials created with federal funds. In the letter, the coalition outlined five core principles for Administration policy on this issue:

1. Adopt a broad definition of educational materials;
2. Provide free access via the Internet;
3. Create conditions for resources that enable reuse;
4. Require prompt implementation; and
5. Regular reporting of progress and results.

Members of the public can join the call for opening up taxpayer funded educational materials by tweeting with hashtag #OERUSA. The full letter can be found at the bottom of this post.