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ABOUT OER
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How can education benefit by harnessing OER?

The most important reason for harnessing OER is that openly licensed educational materials have tremendous potential to contribute to improving the quality and effectiveness of education. The challenges of growing access, combined with the ongoing rollout of ICT infrastructure into educational institutions, indicates that it is becoming increasingly important for them to support, in a planned and deliberate manner, the development and improvement of curricula, ongoing programme and course design, planning of contact sessions with students, development of quality teaching and learning materials, and design of effective assessment - activities all aimed at improving the teaching and learning environment while managing the cost of this through increased use of resource based learning.

Given this, the transformative educational potential of OER revolves around three linked possibilities:
  1. Increased availability of high quality, relevant learning materials can contribute to more productive students and educators. Because OER removes restrictions around copying resources, it can reduce the cost of accessing educational materials. In many systems, royalty payments for text books and other educational materials constitute a significant proportion of the overall cost, while processes of procuring permission to use copyrighted material can also be very time-consuming and expensive.
  2. The principle of allowing adaptation of materials provides one mechanism amongst many for constructing roles for students as active participants in educational processes, who learn best by doing and creating, not by passively reading and absorbing. Content licences that encourage activity and creation by students through re-use and adaptation of that content can make a significant contribution to creating more effective learning environments.
  3. OER has potential to build capacity by providing institutions and educators access, at low or no cost, to the means of production to develop their competence in producing educational materials and carrying out the necessary instructional design to integrate such materials into high quality programmes of learning.
Deliberate openness thus acknowledges that:
  • Investment in designing effective educational environments is critically important to good education.
  • A key to productive systems is to build on common intellectual capital, rather than duplicating similar efforts.
  • All things being equal, collaboration will improve quality.
  • As education is a contextualized practice, it is important to make it easy to adapt materials imported from different settings where this is required, and this should be encouraged rather than restricted.

Taken from A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)


MORE INFORMATION ON OER
RECENT NOTES

On a Path to Open: New report on Ontario's capacity to support OEP
November 12, 2024
Brock University’s Inclusive Education Research Lab and eCampusOntario have released On a Path to Open , a new report detailing key results from a study conducted with Ontario’s publically-supported colleges, universities, and Indigenous institutes about their capacity to support open educational practices (OEP). This report begins with an overview of open education and OEP, chronicles the development and deployment of the Institutional Self-Assessment Tool, presents results from an online survey of Ontario institutions, and closes with 10 practical recommendations. The full report is available here: https://www.ecampusontario.ca/on-a-path-to-open/ ...

CIDER Session on Micro-credentials
September 3, 2024
The Canadian Initiative for Distance Education Research (CIDER) will be hosting a webinar on September 11, 2024, featuring Dr. Rory McGreal, UNESCO Chair in OER at Athabasca University, discussing the potentials of blockchain and artificial intelligence to empower micro-credentials. Empowering Micro-credentials using Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Dr. Rory McGreal September 11, 2024, 11am MT http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/mcgreal-2024 The recognition and transfer of credits is becoming essential for students, as an increasing number of them are studying at different institutions, often at the same time online, in both traditional and unconventional settings. Micro-credentials can aid in this process by providing easily accessible and transparent evidence of skills or knowledge, certified by an authority, based on small units of learning. The development of Blockchain technology holds promise of becoming a useful enabler for supporting the storage and dissemination of micro-credentials on a global scale. Because of its immutability, Blockchain can be used to attest to students' accomplishments securely and privately under their control. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can facilitate the micro-credential assessment process as well as their maintenance and dissemination on the Blockchain. This session will describe the important features of these three technologies for higher educational contexts, and suggest how they can work together to improve learning for students, administration for institutions, and ensure security for both. Related chapter: Empowering Micro-credentials using Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Registration is not required; all are welcome. To join the session, go to: http://www.cideresearch.ca/session/mcgreal-2024 ...

New report on OER policy development
August 21, 2024
The Commonwealth of Learning has released a report on OER policy development, prepared by Professor Rory McGreal , consultant for facilitating the development of a draft OER policy for St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, Trinidad & Tobago. The report is now available here . The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus (UWISTA), in a determined and focused fashion, has initiated a process to adopt a Policy statement on OER. This report contains an overview of the initiative, including the methodologies employed and the outcome achieved following the processes used in formulating a draft OER policy for consideration by the Campus authorities. As OER continues to gain prominence as a catalyst for democratizing education, this report can highlight UWISTA's commitment to the cause of OER and could also serve as a resource for the wider academic community and policymakers interested in implementing a similar policy supporting open access to educational content. The description of the process conducted, and the draft Policy that emerged from the consultations can offer insights into the strategies employed and lessons learned. Through this report, COL and readers can explore the UWISTA journey in OER policy development, with the hope that the experiences shared can contribute to a broader discourse on shaping OER policies in the wider Caribbean and beyond. OER Policy Development at St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies ...

Current developments on the OER World Map
August 12, 2024
The OER World Map has revised its user interface to improve user experience. The map has now been extended to take up the full browser window, with the search box and quick filter options revised. To browse the map, you can click on a specific country. The Map will then zoom in automatically to a state or region view. Now you can easily click on one of the entries (dots on the map) to view them. To see recent activities on the map, click on the menu tab Recent . To search the map for specific actors and activities, you can use the search box. The Search box is now more visible in front of the blue bar of the main menu in the upper corner. To find actors and activities on the Map, hover over the menu tab Find and the menu tab will open. Click on Lighthouses , Most Liked , or on one of the many options under the categories: Organization , Person , Service , Policy , Project , Tool or Event . For example, if you are looking for fellow teachers or researchers to exchange experience, then click on Teachers (under Person ). You will now see only entries on teachers. To filter for specific actors and activities, you can either use the Quick Filter icons on the left side in the lower corner, or the Advanced Filter function, which you can open by clicking on the arrow on the left upper corner. There you can filter for primary sector, subject or field of activity, for example. The OER World Map has been collecting and illustrating data on the growing number of actors and activities in the field of open education worldwide since 2014. Its aim is to support the development of the OER ecosystem by showing the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of the OER movement possible. OER World Map ...

OER Foundation provides an update of its web services for 2024
July 20, 2024
The OER Foundation (OERF) continues to develop and refine its web services through a tool set built around the "Fediverse" (the set of libre technologies tied together through the ActivityPub open standard). Through these services, the OERF continues to provide access to learning for tens of thousands of registered users and hundreds of thousands of anonymous learners. In this post , the OERF gives its update for July 2024 on its rich, complex, and cost-efficient set of technologies, their positions in the Fediverse, and how they contribute to the open learning services provided by the Foundation. Updating OER Foundation Web services for July 2024 ...