A presentation of some of opportunities and challenges associated with deploying open educational resources, sometimes called open courseware, in developing countries.

1. The opportunities and challenges of
Open
Educational
Resources
in the developing world.

2. What are OER?
“teaching, learning and research materials in any medium,
digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or
have been released under an open license that permits
no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by
others with no or limited restrictions. Open licensing is built
within the existing framework of intellectual property rights
as defined by relevant international conventions and
respects the authorship of the work”
-UNESCO

3. How might OER impact education
in the developing world?

4. Opportunities

5. OER foster the
exchange of
global knowledge.

6. OER help forge
south-north and
south-south
linkages.

7. Online collaborative OER development
supports capacity building in the
developing world, thereby bridging the
digital divide.

8. Since course
development is
so resource
intensive, OER
help developing
countries save
both course-authoring
time
and money.

9. Collaborative OER
development encourages
the preservation and
dissemination of
indigenous knowledge.

10. The availability of
high-quality OER can
raise the quality of
education at all levels.

11. Challenges

12. Lack of a sophisticated
internet infrastructure…
and reliance on mobile.

13. Questions about
intellectual
property rights
and licensing.

14. Unequal power
distributions
risk casting
developed
countries as
producers and
developing
countries as
consumers.

15. A majority of OER are in English.

16. Cultural imperialism
subverting the growth
of domestic knowledge
ecologies.

17. How can we realize the
potential of OER and
avoid the pitfalls?

18. Credits:
Slide 1 - Kimberly Burns/USAID - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Uganda_students.jpg
Slide 5 - Patrick Gage Kelly - https://flic.kr/p/6GjMcy
Slide 6 - Yogendra Joshi - https://flic.kr/p/fo9LLD
Slide 7 - Nicolas Raymond - https://flic.kr/p/cMaGa1
Slide 8 - Mary Beth Griffio Rigby - https://flic.kr/p/bvo5FR
Slide 9 - Masae - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Teacher_in_Laos.jpg
Slide 10 - Lemurbaby - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diego_Suarez_Antsiranana_urban_public_primary_school_(EPP)_Madagascar.jpg
Slide 12 - Ken Banks - https://flic.kr/p/5Q5g4D
Slide 13 - Oisin Prendiville - https://flic.kr/p/6EmWZ1
Slide 14 - Leo Reynolds - https://flic.kr/p/5nziYc
Slide 15 - Tomasz Sienicki - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Miniature_DNF_Dictionary_055_ubt.JPG
Opportunities adapted from: Kanwar, A., Kodhandaraman, B., Umar, A. (2010). Toward sustainable open education resources: A perspective from
the Global South. The American Journal of Distance Education, 24(2), 65-80.

19. Paul Gordon Brown
@paulgordonbrown
www.paulgordonbrown.com
paulgordonbrown@gmail.com