Open Educational Resources taking off

27-February-2007

There is an increasing buzz around developing Open Educational Resources
Lots going on on the Open Educational Resources front.

The OER Commons id designed as a teaching and learning network with links to OER materials as well as related links, such as news stories, articles, conferences, discussion forums.  It aims to expand educational opportunities by increasing access and facilitating the creation and re-use of OER.
 
Also it is well worth looking at a study  recently been released by the OLCOS project.  OLCOS, the Open Learning Content Observatory Services project (1/2006-12/2007), is funded under the European Union’s eLearning Programme and aims at building an online information and observation centre for promoting the concept, production and usage of OER, in particular, open digital educational content (ODEC) in Europe.  The report is called Open Educational Practices and Resources: OLCOS Roadmap 2012.

I'm working on ideas for new projects around Open Educational Resources. Just for the record this is a quick list of what I see as teh major issues to be addressed:

  • The interoperability of OERs

Despite the increased adherence to standards, there remains much work to be done in ensuring that OERs are interoperable between different platforms and applications.

  • Discovery and access

It remains difficult to find resources. Centralised repositories account for only a small percentage of OERs.

  • Licensing

Licensing regimes inhibit the reuse of many resources. Many contributers are still unaware of the importance of the use of enabling licenses such as Creative Commons.

  • Culture of reuse

There has been little research into the culture of reusing materials produced by others. Anecdotal evidence points to significant national differences in cultures.

  • Contexts of use

the value of educational materials depends on teh context in which they are being used. As yet we have no means of tracking such contexts.

  • quality

Traditional means of measuring quality - such as peer review - maybe inadequate andn inappropriate for OERs. quality could be said to be dependent on context of use.

  • Sustainability

Models for ensuring the sustainability of OERs are still in their infancy and are problematic

  • Learning environments

Traditionally OERs have been used in an institutional setting. However, user surveys suggest many individuals are accessing OERs for non formal learning. How can such use be supported?


 

Graham Attwell; 27-February-2007 12:13:48;