Effectiveness of a Capacity Building Intervention for OER Search and Integration for Course Materials Development

Abstract

The Wawasan Open University has been one of the pioneers in the adoption of open educational practices in its course development and delivery. It initiated deliberations within its governing bodies as well as academic community regarding the possibility of OER adoption right from 2010. This led to concerted efforts on the part of a team of senior academics in the University for developing awareness about OER and OEP and build capacity among its academic and academic support staff to adopt open educational practices mainly for course development. As of now, fourteen courses at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels have been developed by fully or partially using available OER materials. WOU in collaboration with CEMCA and COL developed OER materials that were delivered as MOOCs in 2015. // WOU is in the final stage of a research project entitled OER Integration in e-Learning Materials on Research Methodology in Education, the findings of which are expected to provide more insight into the OER adoption and integration for developing course materials in open distance learning. As part of this project WOU developed a mechanism to enhance capacity among the potential users of OER to identify, integrate and use OER for teaching and learning. It is expected that this workshop will be able to develop adequate conceptual understanding of OER and OER adoption among the participants as well as inculcate a positive attitude towards OER use. This project is one of the sub-projects under a larger meta-project called Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) supported IDRC, Canada. // The present paper attempts to discuss the processes involved in designing and implementing the capacity building workshops conducted in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka and its impact/effectiveness on about 200 participants constituting students and educators of higher education with respect to conceptual understanding of OER and attitudes towards OER. // Paper ID 257