Jan Hylen (previously at the OECD) presenting via video link for this session.

Despite a trend of growing competition where learning resources are often considered as key intellectual property, there is still much sharing of content between academics and institutions. There seems to be a new culture of openness in HE – Open Source Software, Open Access, Open Educational Resources – content made available over the internet for free and licensed for reuse.

OECD/CERI study setup to look at 4 main issues:

• IPR issures
• How to develop sustainable business models
• Incentives and barriers to produce, use and delivery of open resources
• How to improve access to and usefulness of resources

Firstly a definition – what is an OER?

OER are digitized material offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research (UNESCO 2002)

Four areas of development driving OER:

• Technological (improved access, better software)
• Social (increased IT skills, expectations of ‘free’)
• Economical (lower costs, new business models)
• Legal (new licensing – rethinking IP)

Mapping OER movement is challenging – it’s a global movement with a growing number of initiatives and resources. Also remove barriers to access, OER initiatives tend not to require registration – and so poor usage statistics.

Different types of initiatives:

• Publicly or institutionally backed programmes – e.g. OpenLearn, OpenSpires, Open Courseward (MIT)
• Community approach – Open Course, Common Content, Free Curricula Center
• Mixed models – MERLOT, Connexions, ARIADNE

A followup study in 2008 found that the number of resources in 6 major OER initiatives had increased between 30% and 300%; still a large amount in English, but more in other languages; a move from text content to audio-visual and multimedia content (podcasts, video etc.)

A move from the community approach to institutionally supported approach – most initiatives now have institutional support.

According to MIT and Tufts users of OpenCourseWare typically well educated – already holding a degree. Mostly North American based (although this may have changed since) and self-learners (i.e. not use in other institutions)

Teachers asked said they tended to use OERs are a supplement to other materials – generally as smaller chunks. Barriers to using OERs were lack of time, skills and reward systems.

Motivations for producing and sharing OERs:

Governments

• Expaned access to learning
• Bridge gap between informal and formal learning
• Promote lifelong learning

Instituitons

• Altruism
• Leverage on taxpayers money
• “What you give you recieve back improved”
• Good PR and shop window
• Growing competition – new cost recovery models needed
• Stimulat internal improvement, innovation and reuse

Individuals

• Altruistic or community supportive reasons
• Personal non-monetary gain – ego-boost
• Commercial reasons
• It is not worth the effort to keep the resource closed

OECD report “Giving Knowledge for Free”

During Q & A Andy Lane makes the point that you get waves of interest in specific areas – e.g. Darwin bicentenary – but this interest drops off quickly.