OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER)

Niraj Thurairajah

All text

Images and logos:

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Open Educational Resources Commonly used definition (OECD, 2007)

Digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research

Learning materials that are freely available under a license that allows them to be: Reused Revised  Remixed Redistributed 

Openness

The concept of ‘Openness’ is based on the idea that knowledge should be disseminated and shared freely through the Internet for the benefit of society as a whole

‘openness’ entails, at a minimum, no cost to the consumer or user of the resource (Downes, 2007; Tuomi, 2006) free availability fewer restrictions

Educational Resources

Resources are not limited to content but comprise three areas: Learning content: Full courses, learning

objects, collections and journals. Tools: Software/tools to support the

development, use, reuse and delivery of learning content

Implementation resources: Licenses to promote open publishing, design principles of best practice and localise content.

OECD, 2007

Open in OER (Geser, 2007)

Open access: content (including metadata) is provided free of chargeOpen licensed: liberally licensed for re-use, favourably free from restrictions to modify, combine and repurposeOpen format: produced in open format and designed for easy re-use

Open software: produced with open source software

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OER in Higher Educational Institutes

MIT Open Courseware

Use scenario: Educators Percentage of use

Improve personal knowledge 31%

Learn new teaching methods 23%

Incorporate OCW materials into a course 20%

Find reference material for my students 15%

Develop curriculum for my department or school 8%

Humbox

JISC funded

Phase 1 Humanit

ies

Map of online communities

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/munroes-map-for-social-networksrsquo-lost-souls-2111356.html

Benefits of OER

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For students

Learn new things or enrich other studies; Share and discuss topics asynchronously

or synchronously with other learners; Assess whether they wish to participate

in (further) formal education; Decide which institution they want to

study at; Improve their work performance; Create or revise OER themselves.

For Academics

Create courses more efficiently and/or effectively, particularly using rich media resources that require advanced technical and media skills;

Investigate the ways in which others have taught their subject;

Create resources or courses in collaboration with others rather than doing it all themselves;

Join in communities of practice which help improve their teaching practices as they reflect on the community use of new open tools and technologies;

Customise and adapt resources by translating or localising them.

For Educational Institutes

Showcase their teaching and research programmes to wider audiences;

Widen the pool of applicants for their courses and programmes;

Lower the lifetime costs of developing educational resources;

Collaborate with public and commercial organisations in new ways, including educational publishers;

Extend their outreach activities

For Government

Showcase their country’s educational systems; Attract international students (to higher

education at least); Help drive changes in educational practices; Develop educational resources in ‘minority’

languages that commercial publishers are reluctant to do so;

Develop educational resources that reflect local cultures and priorities;

Cooperate internationally on common resources to meet common needs.

Thank you