AULA, ročník 25, číslo 1-2/2017

Dear readers,

we dedicate this issue to the 12th international conference DisCo 2017: „Open education as a way to a knowledge society“, which was held from 26th June to 27th June in Prague. Over 90 participants from 15 countries took part in teh conference. 26 participants used Central European Initiative (CEI) support for their travel costs. The speakers delivered over 40 presentations. Nearly 90 % of participants were from CEI countries. For the first time in the history of the DisCo conference our main partner was Microsoft, which hosted the conference in its own building.

The conference program was opened by the welcoming speech of Jaroslav Fidrmuc, Deputy Minister of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Czech Republic. A panel discussion traditionally made an intergral part of the conference and it was called „Open Education: the challenges and experience“. The panellists were Anastasia Syzenko, Petra Aczél, Irena Bifordová and Francesco Pisanu. The panellists defined the following four areas as the most challenging ones for Open Education: 1) Opening minds of teachers and users, 2) Quality assurance of Open Education content and its processes, 3) The technological background (fast internet connection accessibility), and 4) Funding of Open Education.

What follows is a round-up of content presented at the conference and turned into a thematic special issue. This issue contains 4 articles from Czech authors and one research report.

We wish you a pleasant time with this issue.