Open Educational Resources

= The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for noncommercial purposes.

- Unesco 2002 [1]

Definition

Open Educational Resources are defined as "technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes". They are typically made freely available over the Web or the Internet. Their principal use is by teachers and educational institutions support course development, but they can also be used directly by students. Open Educational Resources include learning objects such as lecture material, references and readings, simulations, experiments and demonstrations, as well as syllabi, curricula and teachers’ guides." (http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247)

History

Read: the current state of OER, at http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247

A Brief History of OER

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.).

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. 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).

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 License’s 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.

Also in 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.

Finally, in 2002 UNESCO held a Forum comprised of some of the many people who "wish[ed] to develop together a universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity". (http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247)

Examples

Open University (UK) Open Content Initiative

Rice Connexions

Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative

UNESCO Open Training Platform

MIT OCW

National Repository of Online Courses

Discussion

Open Access to the means of instruction is critical

David Wiley:

"we have to understand that content is infrastructure to see current “open educational resources” projects and initiatives from the proper perspective. The OpenCourseWares, the Connexions, the GLOBEs, and all the other repositories of open educational resources in the world are critical infrastructure. As such, they are necessary conditions for revolutionizing education. The revolution can not happen without them. However, open content itself is by no means a sufficient condition for the revolution to succeed. So much more is needed! The list above includes only a handful of what needs to be worked on (localization, translation, low-bandwidth delivery, accreditation, degrees, certificates, support, tutors, study group locators).

To say that content, and therefore these projects, are necessary but not sufficient conditions is not to say that content is unimportant. Anything but! Every piece of the system, including content, is critical.

Content is infrastructure. An important beginning step that absolutely must be completed, and there is much more to follow." (http://blog.worldcampus.psu.edu/index.php/2007/10/03/content-is-infrastructure/)

Open Educational Resources should be Free as well

"As mentioned previously, the adjective "open" does not express the essence of this freedom to engage. It is also possible that the term OER, defined in terms of "intellectual property", was more acceptable at the time to those who would allocate funding to the initiatives. OCW and most prominent OER initiatives are institutionally focussed. Would the movement have been as successful to date if OER and OCW had been promoted as "Free Educational Resources" or "Libre CourseWare" etc.? This is similar to the "open source" versus "free software" situation described above.

Times change, awareness of global issues is growing, and it is more important than ever to inspire action towards holistic and well thought out visions of a sustainable future to inform and guide our efforts. For OER and other "open" initiatives, it is time to transform.

Recognise the need for universal participation in the global knowledge society, understand the perspective of development as freedom (Sen, 1999), and respect the freedom of local communities to localise, adapt, mix and share knowledge resources. Quality and utility is context-specific.

The "Open" communities are invited to re-assess their stated goals - for the most part, these are already orientated towards libre knowledge - and consider relabelling resources and titles "Libre" or "Free". At the very least, use these terms when freedom to use, copy, modify, mix and share is the intended meaning." (http://communities.libre.org/philosophy/saylibre)

Comparison with Open Source Sofware

Monica Mora [2]:

"OER and OSS are similar in that both rely heavily on sharing materials, publicly accessible repositories of open assets, and licenses that allow the use, modification and redistribution of assets.

OSS relies on collaborative development much more so than OER. With OSS, collaborative development makes the code progressively better. Many eyes decrease the number of bugs in software. However, few OER rely heavily on collaborative development. Two examples of OER that do rely heavily on collaborative development are Curriki and Wikieducator.

OER and OSS differ in terms of their quality assurance, business models, reuse, and skills required to make changes. OSS strives to be defect free with no errors in the code. There are well established tools and processes that help developers produce defect free software. These tools and processes can not be used to improve open content. The quality of OER is associated with accuracy of facts and the pedagogical methods it supports while the quality of OSS is associated with errors per line of code and the fit between function and customer requirements.

The ways to make money from OER production and distribution are not well understood. Large companies are not making money from OER development. We have a much better understanding on how companies and individuals make money from OSS. Large companies like IBM, SUN and HP invest in OSS projects with the expectation to make money.

File type and pedagogical structure determine the extent in which an OER can be reused, edited or extended. For example, many OER are built so the content is open; however, the file type and structure may make the reuse of the content closed. OSS that runs on one platform but not on others has a similar problem.

Users with no skills in development can make changes to the content of an OER. However, users can't make changes to the OSS unless they have the requisite development skills." (http://www.osbr.ca/archive.php?issue=10&section=Ar#A5)

More Information

1. OER Wiki
2. See the video by Todd Richmond on Open Educational Resources
3. OECD Report: Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources
4. Open Educational Practices and Resources: OLCOS Roadmap 2012
5. A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities (Atkins, Brown, and Hammond, 80 pages)
6. Essay: Say "Libre" for Knowledge and Learning Resources. Kim Tucker.