Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education

ISKME believes that access to education is a human right, and as such, has dedicated itself to remaining an independent nonprofit that is sustainable and viable, so as to provide unrivaled access to education. This means that our work cannot rely solely on charitable donations, but must also provide a means to grow and scale the work with the goal of achieving greater impact across the globe. The overall impact of ISKME’s efforts over the past ten years has been to assist in the discovery of and enable the use of OER. These efforts have guided districts, states, and ministries of education to use OER as a cost-effective solution for providing quality learning content, and have led to strategies that are shaping how they will use OER to meet their learning challenges, and deliver much-needed training and support for educators and advocates around the world.

Since its founding in 2002, ISKME has been at the forefront of knowledge innovations in education. With the mission to improve the practice of continuous learning, collaboration, and change in the education sector, ISKME continues to formulate and advance an applied research agenda for education focusing on continuous improvement, open educational resources, the development of cultures of inquiry, and the use of knowledge for decision-making—issues that have now become common goals if not yet common practices in education. ISKME’s research-based approaches are applied to collaboration and professional learning, which are elements in a broad model for systemic change in education through knowledge sharing.

ISKME has been very successful in growing institutional support for the organization since its inception. Through large institutional funders and a select group of individual major donors, it has grown to and stabilized at a $2 million annual budget. ISKME has partnered with 35 states, hundreds of districts and schools to identify and address some of education’s biggest challenges, from introducing personalized curriculum to sparking deeper learning in classrooms, libraries, and other learning environments. Our research , development, and training teams together provide services, including a SaaS (software as a service) through our microsites and hubs, as well as hands-on support for state agencies and teachers to build their own open library infrastructure. ISKME has trained thousands of teachers, district leaders, curriculum developers, librarians, college faculty, and representatives from other organizations.

ISKME has worked to advance equity and access to high-quality open educational resources (OER) among partner organizations, consortia of states, schools, and institutions globally. Since 2007, ISKME has facilitated OER Commons (www.oercommons.org) as an intermediary to content providers and practitioners across the field at all educational levels. As a recognized leader in information and library science research, and its impact on educational practice, ISKME brings a long-term commitment to enhancing OER access and engagement for the advancement of teaching and learning. ISKME is working to increase flexibility in how resources and knowledge are shared across learning contexts--by expanding on our technical infrastructure to support digital libraries in the curation and dissemination of quality content, and by convening educators and their communities focused on improving teaching and learning through open educational practice (OEP).