Definition, emergence and importance of Open Educational Resources

1. Introduction to OERs

2. What
are…

3. Open Things…
• Open Access
• Open Content
• Open Course ware
• Open Source Software
• Open Education / e-Learning
• Open Educational Resources
• …and many more things

4. 4
Change in philosophy towards an “Open
Movement”
Open Source Software
Open Access
Open Licences
Open Society
Open Science
Open Educational
Resources
Open Data
Credits: Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University, May 08, 2013

5. 5
Affordances of the Internet
Title : File:Internet map 1024.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_map_1024.jpg
license : Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Credits: Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University, May 08, 2013

6. 6
Available to other
faculties, students and
institutions.
Other educators can now
discover and reuse.
…sharing beyond the classroom
Traditional sharing of
teaching materials
Learning activity
or resource
Creates
Designated as
OER on web
Adapted from Conole, G., McAndrew, P. & Dimitriadis, Y., 2010
Shares
with students
and other
faculty
Sharing educational
resources as OER
Additional considerations:
• Clearing of copyright issues
• Formatting for web and accessibility for reuse
• Addition of descriptive metadata
• Publishing in repository, referatory or on the web
Educator
Credits: Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University, May 08, 2013

7. 7
What has enabled OER?
• Alternative
copyright
Licensing
• A range of
financial
models
• Affordances
of the
Internet
• Change in
philosophy
Social Technical
Financial Legal
Credits: Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University, May 08, 2013

8. Beginning…
The term was first used at a
UNESCO conference in 2002,
although OERs were being
produced and used before
that time. For instance, the
MIT OpenCourseWare project,
which began in 2001, was one
of the first major initiatives of
the OER movement.

9. Lets see how it all started…
• In 1994 Wayne Hodgins coined the term “learning object,”
and this term quickly entered the vernacular of educators
and instructional designers.
• One role of learning objects in the history of OER is its
popularization of the idea that digital materials can be
designed and produced in such a manner as to be reused
easily in a variety of pedagogical situations.
• Along with its emphasis on reuse, the learning object
movement spawned several standards efforts aimed at
detailing metadata, content exchange, and other standards
necessary for users to find and reuse digital educational
content (ARIADNE, IMS, IEEE LTSC / LOM, SCORM, &c.).
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247

10. Open Content
• In 1998 David Wiley
coined the term “open
content,” and while
targeted at the
educational community
(and learning object
creators specifically),
the term quickly
entered the vernacular
of internet users.

11. Open Source…FOSS…
• One role of open content in the history of OER
is its popularization of the idea that the
principles of the open source / free software
movements can be productively applied to
content, and the creation of the first widely
adopted open license for content (the Open
Publication License).

12. Creative Commons…
• In 2001 Larry Lessig and others founded the
Creative Commons and released a flexible set of
licenses that were both a vast improvement on
the Open Publication Licenses™ confusing license
option structure and significantly stronger legal
documents.
• One role of Creative Commons in the history of
OER is the increase in credibility and confidence
their legally superior, much easier to use licenses
brought to the open content community.

13. 2001 MIT announced its
OpenCourseWare initiative
• to publish nearly every university course for
free public access for noncommercial use. MIT
OpenCourseWare has played many roles in
the history of OER, including being an example
of commitment at an institutional level,
working actively to encourage similar projects,
and lending the MIT brand to the movement.

14. 2002: UNESCO
• As the number of
institutions offering free or
open courseware
increased, UNESCO
organized the 1st Global
OER Forum in 2002 where
the term Open Educational
Resources (OER) was
adopted.

15. 2005: OER Community wiki
• With the support of the Hewlett Foundation,
UNESCO created a global OER Community wiki
in 2005 to share information and work
collaboratively on issues surrounding the
production and use of Open Educational
Resources.

16. Feb 2006: WikiEducator domain name
registered

17. 2006 October: OpenLearn of UKOU

18. 2006 November
• FLOSS4Edu launches for African OER
• 2008: OER Africa launched

19. What is an
OER?
Image source: http://www.bihardays.com/

20. Open Educational Resources (OER) are
‘materials offered freely and openly to use
and adapt for teaching, learning,
development and research’.
- The Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
http://www.col.org/resources/crsMaterials/Pages/OCW-OER.aspx

21. Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and
learning materials that are freely available online
for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor,
student or self-learner. Examples of OER include:
full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures,
homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom
activities, pedagogical materials, games,
simulations, and many more resources contained in
digital media collections from around the world.
- OER Commons
http://www.oercommons.org/

22. OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the
public domain or have been released under an intellectual property
license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open
educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools,
materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
- The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

23. Open Educational Resources
free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for
• teaching,
• learning,
• research, and
• other purposes.

24. “Open” in Open Content
5Rs Framework
• Reuse
• Revise
• Remix
• Redistribute
• Retain
"A door can be wide open, mostly open, cracked slightly open, or completely
closed. So can your eyes, so can a window, etc.“ – David Wiley
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1123
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1123[
Image Source: http://wikieducator.org/Educators_care/Defining_OER

25. Types of Open Educational Resources
• Courses
• Course materials
• Content modules
• Learning objects
• Collections, and
• Journals

26. 26
Open Educational Resources
Open Content / Open educational resources (OER) / Open
Courseware are educational materials which are discoverable
online and openly licensed that can be:
Shared
Shared freely
and openly to
be…
Used
Improved
Redistribute
d
… used by
… redistribute
and share
… adapt / repurpose/ anyone to …
improve under some
type of license in order
to …
again.
Credits: Michael Paskevicius, Vancouver Island University, May 08, 2013

27. 27
Alternative copyright Licensing

28. 28
A range of financial models
• Donor funding – e.g. Hewlett Foundation
• Marketing budget – e.g. Open University
• Commission – e.g. MIT and Amazon
• Endowment – e.g. Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
• Membership – e.g. Sakai Consortium, OCWC
• Government – e.g. NROER – Govt of India
funding

29. 29
Recap: What makes an OER?
• Educational curriculum, materials or mixed
media
• Discoverable online as they are shared freely
and openly
• Openly licensed (usually Creative Commons)
• Can be legally used by anyone to repurpose/
improve and redistribute

30. Strategies…

31. Open Educational Practice (OEP)
A characteristic of Open
Educational Practice,
compared with
conventional forms of
professional practice, is
that it changes the
nature of relationships…
- Allison Littlejohn, Lou McGill, Isobel Falconer, Jay Dempster
http://littlebylittlejohn.com/do-oer-funded-initiatives-impact-professional-practice/

32. What this change is?
• Between academics and support staff (as people work
in multi-disciplinary teams, sharing areas of expertise);
• Amongst academics (as teaching practice shifts from
individual practice to cross-institutional and inter-institutional
collaboration);
• Between academics and students (as teachers and
learners (who may not be registered with a university)
interact in new ways);
• Between academics and organisations {including the
university where they are employed} (as university
activities open up).

33. What further we can do?

34. Explore… find… search…
Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education
http://www.iskme.org

35. Collaborate for content creation…
Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education
http://www.iskme.org

36. Collaborate for content creation…

37. Author:
Document, remix, license, and share OER
http://wikieducator.org/User:Kalpanagupte/My_Projects

38. Curate…
Create a specific collection of OER for easy access and sharing
http://www.scoop.it/t/open-learning-news
http://www.scoop.it/t/open-educational-resources-oer

39. Share…
http://wikieducator.org/User:Rashkath

40. Join
OER
Foundation…

42. Beome a
proud member
of
WikiEducator

43. http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page

44. WikiEducator - India
http://wikieducator.org/India

45. Free professional development
opportunity from the OER Foundation

46. OER Project: Guide for newly enrolled
distance learners

47. Thank You !