Open Education Resources and Community Development: Exploring New Pathways of Knowledge in the Field of Higher Education in Assam

Abstract

In this paper, an attempt has been made to establish some points which can be seen to constitute certain integral aspects of teaching-learning in the open and distance mode. These are:

1. Learning in ODL must refer to cultural factors over and above psychological theories of learning. ODL pedagogy needs to be considered as being distinct from older methods relevant to classroom teaching. Thus, resource development must follow certain necessary outlines. 2. The design of study material must contain implicit references to institutional infrastructure. Learning materials constitute only one aspect of what is made available to the learner. For the totality of what goes into the learning environment for the distance learner, other institutional infrastructure like information channels are important aspects of the learning process. 3. OER must be based on the levels and degrees of interaction between teacher and target learner that an institution envisages within a programme of study. The ODL system has to revise the idea of teacher-learner contact through various means. 4. Unless ODL comes to embrace in full the connotations of “openness”, the system will be cost-effective only in the short-term, an unsustainable mopping-up campaign by older universities playing second fiddle to older face-to-face systems of learning.