Open Access (OA) and Open Educational Resources (OER) represent the core values of the free sharing of knowledge. By following their beginnings, understanding their concepts, theways in which they are used by the society can assist the build of knowledge-based economies of South Eastern European countries like Republic of Macedonia. The need for shifting toward the openness of scholarly communication and the construct of informationinfrastructure in the higher education requests the use of more flexible copyright licensesused for the academic publishing of textbooks and e-journals in order to provide the society with valuable knowledge. By using EU recommendations from the OA and OER best practices projects, the higher education institutions in RM can improve their role as leading figures in production of knowledge and develop the economy of the country. In order to do so, new models of OA and OER should be explored and implemented at the national level supported by the information literacy initiatives as a part of lifelong learning scheme.

Keywords

copyright · higher education · information literacy · licences · Lifelong Learning · open access