Global Trends
Policy Brief
November 2010
UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education
GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TO REFORM EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
CONTENTS: Introduction The forces driving publication and use of open educational resources From open educational resources to open educational practices Impacts on educational systems Recommendations
INTRODUCTION
Open educa onal resources (OER) have become a major focus of discussion and ac on within educa onal circles, par cularly those related to higher educa on. There are a number of names associated with this movement that was ini ated in the late 1990s but gained global prominence in 2001 when MIT launched their Open Courseware ini a ve1. Names such as open content, open educa onal content, open learning resources, open educa onal technologies, open academic resources and open courseware are variously used in the literature and in online and face-to-face discussions; but it is the term open educa onal resources adopted at a UNESCO mee ng in 2002, that is most commonly used. There are also a number of defini ons but this modifica on of the original UNESCO defini on is o en quoted: OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educa onal resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, so ware, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge (Atkins, Brown and Hammond, 2007, p. 4).
1
h p://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
IITE Policy Brief
November 2010
This defini on does not make an explicit dis nc on between resources created specifically for an educa onal purpose (e.g. lecture notes) and those resources that can be used for educa onal purposes (e.g. historical images from an archive) but implicitly it is dealing more with the
November 2010
UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education
GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TO REFORM EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES
CONTENTS: Introduction The forces driving publication and use of open educational resources From open educational resources to open educational practices Impacts on educational systems Recommendations
INTRODUCTION
Open educa onal resources (OER) have become a major focus of discussion and ac on within educa onal circles, par cularly those related to higher educa on. There are a number of names associated with this movement that was ini ated in the late 1990s but gained global prominence in 2001 when MIT launched their Open Courseware ini a ve1. Names such as open content, open educa onal content, open learning resources, open educa onal technologies, open academic resources and open courseware are variously used in the literature and in online and face-to-face discussions; but it is the term open educa onal resources adopted at a UNESCO mee ng in 2002, that is most commonly used. There are also a number of defini ons but this modifica on of the original UNESCO defini on is o en quoted: OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educa onal resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, so ware, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge (Atkins, Brown and Hammond, 2007, p. 4).
1
h p://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
IITE Policy Brief
November 2010
This defini on does not make an explicit dis nc on between resources created specifically for an educa onal purpose (e.g. lecture notes) and those resources that can be used for educa onal purposes (e.g. historical images from an archive) but implicitly it is dealing more with the