Technological Enablers 4.0 to Drive Open Science and Education: Input to UNESCO Recommendations

Abstract

The integration of technologies in education brings organizational changes not only in traditional classrooms, but also in digital platforms, and invites to locate opportunities for educational innovation. This article aims to identify the perception of 206 participants of an international Open Education (OE) program and to contribute to UNESCO’s (2019) recommendations for OE and science, with possibilities for technological enablers. The guiding questions in this study were: what are the challenges, cases, and experiences that participants perceive as drivers of OE? In what ways can technologies enable OE within the framework of UNESCO recommendations? A parallel mixed method was carried out with an initial phase analyzing qualitative and quantitative data with a perception instrument applied to the participants. The second phase comprises a literature search to locate research that uses technologies in OE and to provide an outline of technological enablers. The results were: (a) the greatest perceived challenges are “Promoting the culture of open access” and “Promoting international cooperation”; (b) 46 contributions from participants with cases to promote OE stand out and (c) contribution of six research studies to promote UNESCO’s recommendations with technologies and (d) a classification scheme of technological enablers 4.0 for education is proposed. This article is intended to be of interest to educational communities, ministries of education and science, researchers, and trainers interested in educational innovation.