This document discusses open educational resources (OER), which are freely available teaching and learning materials online that can be used and reused by instructors, students, and self-learners. It outlines some examples of OER and initiatives by organizations like MIT, the Open University, and JISC. It also discusses potential benefits of OER like reducing costs and increasing access to education, as well as challenges like technical support, quality assurance, and copyright issues that institutions need to address when implementing OER programs. The document promotes a new OER sharing service for colleges in Scotland called Open Scot that will make resources more accessible and encourage sharing under Creative Commons licensing.

1. Sharing Educational Content:
Is it a dangerous idea?
Celeste McLaughlin
JISC RSC Scotland

2. What are Open Educational Resources?
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
JISC / Higher Education Academy OER infoKit - http://bit.ly/oerinfokit
Last accessed 6/6/12

3. MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu
Open University - OpenLearn
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/
JISC OER Programme
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/oer

4. Teachers
• Unaware of
the benefits
• Time
• Skills
(technical &
pedagogical)
• Quality
• Legal Issues
Learning
Support
• Technical
• Quality
• Metadata
• Hosting
• Legal Issues
Management
• Understand
the value of
OERs
• Institutional
Approach
• Management
of Resources

5. Economies
of Scale
Student
Satisfaction
MarketingManagement
of IPR
Community
Building
Benefits
of OERs

6. iTunes U @
Oxford University
Up-skilling of Staff
More interest in making materials available
Widespread cultural change
Students interest increased
OpenLearn @
The Open University
Pilot project stared in 2006
Positive activities as a result of the pilot
included the fact that one third of advisory staff
used OpenLearn without training
The OU has now moved from the pilot stage
but this has taken time and external funding
From August 2011 the OU stopped publishing
legacy content and moved to the open
publishing of newly developed or updated
content

7. Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/
OER Commons
http://www.oercommons.org
iTunes U
http://itunes.ox.ac.uk/
OpenLearn
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

8. Jorum - http://www.jorum.ac.uk

9. • An open resource-sharing service developed for
the college sector in Scotland
• The platform developed in partnership with
Jorum
• The service steered by a Management Group
• And supported by an Engagement Group
• Will provide free access to a wide range of open
resources (including Jorum)
• Will integrate with college VLEs

10. • Enable all staff in colleges to easily share their
own resources
• Will make resources available under Creative
Commons Licensing
• Will promote use of OER
• Will provide advice and guidance on sharing and
licensing of resources
• Provide links to discussion around resource use

11. Useful Links
• Open Educational Resources infoKit -
http://bit.ly/oerinfokit
• JISC OER Programme -
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/oer
• Open Educational Resources, An introduction
for managers and policymakers,
JISC Briefing Paper -
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programm
es/OER3/OER-%20Web%20ready.pdf