A Review on Awareness Levels of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Free Technologies Used for ODL Fashion Education in the Case of the Open University, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is a second chance for people those who have missed their tertiary education. Open Educational Resources (OER) and free technologies are highly utilized to achieve extended classroom learning experience. Many foundations contribute to Open Educational Resources (OER) and free technology movement to strengthen ODL education. UNESCO defines OER as the open segment of the educational resources, supported by the information communication technology, for discussion, utilize and adopt by a group of community for non-commercial purposes (UNESCO, 2002). But yet the positive outcome of OER and free technologies are to be gained as many ODL students do not know what is OER, how to use and adopt OER and free technologies and where they are available to access. Specially, art and design ODL education do not use OER as a popular method of teaching. Through this research it was expected to review the awareness levels of students on OER and free technologies. Both qualitative and quantitative research techniques were used and the sample population consists with 79 fashion design students. It was discovered that the students had moderate awareness levels on OERs and MOOC s and even after starting their learning process as an ODL student they have not significantly developed their understanding on OERs and MOOCs. Though Student Based Learning (SBL) environment is effective in tertiary education and it is a prominent component in ODL; expectations of majority students are similar to conventional fashion student. Many students had moderate preference on Online Learning Experience (OLE) and majority was not familiar with MOOCs. Ultimately, it has resulted poor exchange of ideas, opinions, perspectives, and made students to go in difficult routes to complete their studies. At the same time some students who preferred OLE had mentioned that it made them independent with good self confidence.// Paper ID 139