Open Education Resources (OERs) 

The term ‘Open Education Resources’ (OERs) was first adopted at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by the Hewlett Foundation. 

Open Education Resources (OERs) are defined as:
“digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research”
OERs 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.

Since 2002 both terms have been evolving in their definitions.

Taking OERs beyond the OER Community: Policy and Capacity

Workshops for Heads of Commonwealth Universities and Quality Assurance Bodies

OERs will not be able to help countries reach their educational goals unless awareness of their power and potential can rapidly be expanded beyond the communities of interest that they have already attracted. Please see COL's Integrating eLearning programme, where you will find information on a series of capacity-building workshops, jointly sponsored by COL and UNESCO. These workshops will contribute to expanding the understanding of OERs by educational decision makers (governmental and institutional) in order to promote their wider use. 

Searching for Open Education 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 OCWs or only OERs or only OCWs from certain regions. 

Using the Yahoo Pipes search field, will help you find specific OCWs.

SEARCH FOR OCW/OER MATERIAL

 

Search for OCW using Yahoo Pipes:

 

The following table may be helpful:  

 If you want to  Use this Search  Because…  But be aware of the limitations, which are...
 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
 
 Find higher education material you know to be from one of the major sources of OCW (e.g., MIT)
 		  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
 
 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
 

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)

  • 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)
  • 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)

  • University of Southern Queensland, Australia.
  • Capilano University, Canada.
  • China Open Resources for Education, China
  • The Open University of Hong Kong, China.
  • Kyoto Uinversity, Japan. Nagoya University, Japan.
  • Osaka University, Japan.
  • The University of Tokyo, Japan.
  • United Nations University, Japan.
  • Kyung Hee University, Korea.
  • Delft Univeristy of Technology, The Netherlands.
  • University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
  • Open University of Catalonia, Spain
  • Middle East Technical University, Turkey.
  • The Open University, UK.
  • The University of Nottingham, UK.
  • 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.
  • Michigan State University, USA.
  • National Repository of Online Courses, USA.
  • Tufts University, USA.
  • University of California, Irvine, USA.
  • University of Cape Town, South Africa 
  • University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA.
  • University of Notre Dame, USA.
  • Utah State University, USA.
  • Weber State University, USA.
  • Western Governors University, USA.
  • Yale 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” license for all of its content but, otherwise, the material is still free to obtain and reuse. The definition of the “Attribution” license 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.