Understanding Open Educational Resources
Date
2015-08Abstract
The fact that you are reading this lesson suggests that you have heard of open
educational resources (OER). Currently, there is a lot of buzz about OER. Some see
them as totally revolutionising how we bring learning materials into our education
system and use them, while others see OER from a more pragmatic perspective.
Before we start looking at OER, including their origin, benefits and challenges, it is
important to consider the problems that we are facing today in education. While
these problems range, in different countries, from lack of access to poor quality,
there is a common thread in most: low availability of good-quality educational
materials. Although learning materials are available, the cost of access in many
locations is very high and increases each year. For example, the cost of college
textbooks in the United States increased 82 per cent between 2002 and 2013— three
times the rate of inflation.1 According to the College Board, in the 2014–15
academic year, students in the USA spent about USD 1200 each on textbooks.2
Another study indicated that 65 per cent of U.S. students do not buy textbooks due
to prohibitive costs, despite being concerned about grades.3 Is this not alarming?
While there are many other reasons to support OER, the cost issue is a primary
factor in their growing popularity amongst students and teachers.
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Harnessing OER to Drive Systemic Educational Change in Secondary Schooling
Butcher, Neil; Moore, Andrew; Hoosen, Sarah (Commonwealth of Learning (COL), 2014)This paper reports on two action research projects which explored the challenge of determining the conditions under which use of OER can drive a transformative educational agenda in schooling systems. At St Peter’s College ... -
Guide to Developing Open Textbooks
Moore, Andrew; Butcher, Neil (Commonwealth of Learning (COL), 2016-09)This how to guide has been developed to assist teachers, teaching support personnel and educational technology administrators to: understand the value of open education, OER and open textbooks for teaching and learning; ... -
Harnessing OER to Develop Teachers: The Guyana Experience
Butcher, Neil; Moore, Andrew; Hoosen, Sarah (Commonwealth of Learning, 2014)The Ministry of Education in Guyana has prioritised increasing the number of qualified teachers by providing opportunities to both pre- and in-service teachers to gain relevant qualifications. This paper describes the ... -
Green Teacher: Module II: Understanding Sustainable Development
Kumar, Avanish (Commonwealth of Learning, Vancouver;Centre for Environment Education (CEE), 2005)The Green Teacher is a unique capacity-building distance education course. This course will give teacher-learners an opportunity to empower themselves with knowledge and skills of effectively transacting education for ... -
What Does It Cost to Run?: NPTEL Online Courses and Certification
Thangaraj, Andrew (Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) & Commonwealth of Learning (COL), 2014-09)Week 3: What Does It Cost to Run?, module 4 of the MOOC on MOOC course offered by the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) & Commonwealth of Learning (COL), September 2014. This resource contains a video link, ...