Open Educational Resources (OER)
ON THIS PAGE:
Overview...
COL's OER initiatives...
Searching for Open Educational Resources...
Overview
The term ‘Open Educational Resources’ (OER) was first adopted at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
COL has adopted the widest definition of Open Educational Resources (OER) as ‘materials offered freely and openly to use and adapt for teaching, learning, development and research’. While OER are mainly shareable in digital formats (both online and via offline formats such as DVD or CD-ROM), COL sees OER not just synonymous with online resources, online learning or e-learning, and within the development context COL is working, OER can also be in printable formats.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is strongly committed to the creation, adaptation and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) because they have the potential to increase access to education while cutting costs and improving quality. They are, therefore, an important element of COL's mission of Learning for Development.
OER can be deposited (by donation) by a variety of sources to one or more of the many OER repositories, which are mainly online.
The term ‘Open Courseware’ (OCW) is used for publicly available materials that are either a part of, or a complete course from an educational institution such as a university or college.
Both terms have been evolving in their definitions since 2002.
COL's OER initiatives
In 2010, in collaboration with UNESCO, COL launched an initiative: Taking OER beyond the OER Community: Policy and Capacity that aims to expand the understanding of OER by educational decision makers and to promote their wider use. Activities include publications on the use of OER, advocacy workshops and online discussions on different topics/issues in OER and OER policy support to government and institutions. The initiative has also developed materials for one-day workshops on the use, re-use and re-purpose of OER, A Basic Guide to OER and Guidelines for Open Educational Resources in Higher Education.
Growing from this, COL and UNESCO have embarked on an initiative that aims to encourage more governments to adopt policies that include OER: "Fostering Governmental Support for OER Internationally".
COL has also developed a Policy on Open Educational Resources.
Searching for Open Educational Resources
Using the Google search field, which uses Google Custom search, will initially return all OCW and OER results from the higher-education institutions and OER repositories that we have selected and listed below. Once on the results page, you can refine your search further by selecting only OCW or only OER or only OCWs from certain regions.
Using the Yahoo Pipes search field, will help you find specific OCWs.
Search for OCW using Yahoo Pipes:
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The following table may be helpful:
| Find higher education material |
Yahoo Pipes |
It will take you to a direct link to the course material |
Not all OCW material can be included, most notably the Berkley webcasts are excluded AND OERs are excluded
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Find higher education material you know to be from one of the major sources of OCW (e.g., MIT)
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Yahoo Pipes |
It will take you to a direct link to the course material |
None |
| Find either OERs or OCWs |
Google Search |
It includes OERs AND OCW |
Depending on the subject being searched, returns may be overwhelming
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| Find smaller chunks of learning materials |
Google search – Then refinement - OERs |
It will exclude OCW material |
The links may not take you directly to course material – more sifting is required AND The target age-group for the material will vary
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INSTITUTIONS/SITES INCLUDED IN INITIAL SEARCH OF OCWs AND OERs
(Uses Google Custom Search; Institutions that, to COL’s knowledge, do not offer Open CourseWare are not listed)
- African Virtual University
- Australian Flexible Learning Framework (TVET)
- Brigham Young University
- Capilano University
- Carnegie-Mellon University
- China Open Resources for Education
- Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
- Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO)
- Connexions
- Curriki
- Dixie State College of Utah
- Exploring Humanitarian Law Virtual Campus
- Folksemantic
- Food Security Information for Action
- Georgetown University (Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship), USA
- Glasgow University (Podcats)
- HippoCampus
- Imark
- John Hopkins School of Public Health
- Jorum
- Kaplan Higher Education
- Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (Small Business Development Center)
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)
- Learning Resource Exchange for Schools
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- Michigan State University
- Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning & Training (MERLOT)
- National Repository of Online Courses
- OER Africa
- OERCommons
- OpenLearn (The Open University UK)
- Open Training (UNESCO)
- Open University of Catalonia, Spain
- Stanford University (iTunes)
- Stanford University (School of Engineering)
- Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA)
- TU Delft University
- Tufts University
- United Nations University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Irvine
- University of Cape Town
- University of Massachusetts, Boston
- University of Michigan
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Nottingham
- University of Southern Queensland
- University of the Western Cape
- Utah State University
- Utah Valley University
- Weber State University
- Western Governors University
- WikiEducator
- Yale University
- Zunia OERs
INSTITUTIONS INCLUDED IN SEARCHING FOR OPEN COURSEWARE:
(Uses Yahoo Pipes; Institutions that, to COL’s knowledge, do not offer Open CourseWare are not listed)
- Capilano University, Canada.
- University of Sumatera Utara, Indonesia.
- Kyoto Uinversity, Japan. Nagoya University, Japan.
- Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.
- The University of Tokyo, Japan.
- United Nations University, Japan.
- Delft Univeristy of Technology, The Netherlands.
- University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
- Korea University, South Korea
- Open University of Catalonia, Spain
- Taipei Medical University, Taiwan.
- Middle East Technical University, Turkey.
- The Open University, UK.
- The University of Nottingham, UK.
- University of Michigan, USA
- Dixie State College of Utah, USA.
- Georgetown University (Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship), USA
- John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA.
- Kaplan Higher Education, USA.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.
- National Repository of Online Courses, USA.
- New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA.
- Tufts University, USA.
- University of California, Irvine, USA.
- University of Cape Town, South Africa
- University of Notre Dame, USA.
- Weber State University, USA.
The material from one of the sources, the Connexions OER Repository, falls under the strictest definition of OERs in that it uses the Creative Commons “Attribution” licence for all of its content but, otherwise, the material is still free to obtain and reuse. The definition of the “Attribution” licence is that it lets others copy, distribute, display, and perform copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if credit is given the way it is requested.
The licensing requirements of all material and sources should be checked in order to ensure that copyright is followed. Please see www.col.org/copyright for more on copyright of educational material. |
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