Neil Butcher

“ In developing courses and learning resources, teaching staff naturally use what is available. The increasing pool of OER not only widens their choice, but also creates opportunities for new resources to be adapted to fit the local context in terms of culture and learning needs — without necessitating lengthy copyright negotiations or duplicating content development.
Experience shows that, when institutions make good quality courses and materials publicly available online, they can attract new students, expand their institutional reputation and advance their public service role. ”

“ Quality assurance is primarily the responsibility of higher education institutions, although external quality assurance bodies play an essential role in fostering a quality culture through the assessment of programmes and reviews of institutional quality assurance mechanisms. ”

“ Student bodies can actively support and promote strategies to allow students to assist in sourcing, adapting and producing OER in partnership with academic staff. Furthermore, student bodies can help to shape the nature and quality of students’ educational experiences by encouraging and supporting the use of OER for the purposes of self-directed study and, at the more advanced levels, by having students create their own curriculum/courses of study. ”

“ Institutions should aspire both to create OER and to use OER from elsewhere. Well-designed learning resources encourage greater individual engagement by students with information, ideas and content than is possible with lectures alone. By making such resources an integral part of the teaching and learning process, limited face-to-face teaching time with students can be more effectively used to foster engagement and to nurture discussion, creativity, practical applications and research activities. ”

“ Develop the habit of working in teams. Just as modern research is usually a team effort, so the development and repurposing of materials is likely to be more successful and more satisfying for the academic staffs involved, if they adopt a team approach. Seek institutional support for OER skills development. In order to exploit OER effectively academic staff will need to acquire skills and competences, such as materials design, curriculum development and the location, selection and adaptation of OER through a blended strategy of skills development and professional skills support. ”

“ Programme, course and materials design and development expertise, with a particular focus on helping academic staff harness the full potential of resource-based learning and student-centred pedagogies in their rogrammes and courses. An understanding of educational approaches is important (e.g., being able to differentiate among open, distance, electronic and blended learning, and their respective merits) , as is an understanding of the context of education in the specific sector in which work is taking place. ”

“ Academic staff may find existing OER to be useful benchmarks for reflecting on and improving their own curriculum and pedagogy as well as those of others. Such exploration and peer support/review may also develop their confidence to share new and/or adapted resources to address curriculum gaps in the existing pool of OER, which would enable them to contribute to global knowledge. ”

“ The missions of quality assurance bodies and recognition bodies are closely linked, and recognition bodies often rely on information provided by quality assurance bodies. Therefore, recognition bodies are also likely to consider the educational resources produced, adapted and used by the awarding institution. ”

“ Student bodies can encourage students to participate in the social networking environments that have been created around OER repositories, so that they play an active role in assuring the quality of content by adding comments on what content they are finding useful and why.Recognise that ICT are an increasingly important part of the higher education experience and are often crucial for students with special educational needs. ”

“ Given the centrality of ICT to accessing and sharing content online, such support could focus on ensuring sustained provision of connectivity and staff/student access to ICT within higher education systems.Support the sustainable development and sharing of quality learning materials. Key to the sustainable development and use of OER will be supporting higher education institutions, individually and collectively, in their efforts to produce and share high quality educational resources. ”

“ Academic staff can benefit tremendously from using existing online networks and communities of practice collaboratively to develop, adapt and share OER, as well as to engage in dialogue about their experiences in teaching and learning. Such communities of practice can also provide an excellent platform for publishing resources in existing repositories.Encourage student participation. ”

“ Academic staff should understand how these policies might affect their rights. 2.4 Guidelines for student bodies As the role of universities has evolved, so too has the role of the student. Emerging trends include a need for active global citizenship, employability, transferable skills and knowledge, communication skills, creativity and innovation. Key challenges include meeting the rising costs of education (including textbooks) and identifying appropriate educational courses/programmes that meet learning needs. ”

“ Open content can be shared with others without askingpermission and without paying licence or other access fees. However, some important cost considerations must be taken into account. Taking effective advantage of OER requires institutions to invest systematically in programme/course design and materials development and acquisition. Time must be invested in developing courses and materials, finding appropriate OER, adapting existing OER and negotiating copyright licensing (if material is not openly licensed) . ”

“ Governments can assist higher education stakeholders to understand issues surrounding IPR, as well as how IPR are being challenged and reshaped by the rapid digitisation and online sharing of information and resources.Promote national ICT/connectivity strategies. ”

“ A repository of student work could serve as a powerful learning resource, while also raising awareness about the distinction between appropriate sharing/collaboration and plagiarism.Take an active role in assuring the quality of OER through social networks. ”

“ The participation of non-specialists in previously specialised disciplinary areas is extending the boundaries of scholarship, while dynamic knowledge creation and social computing tools and processes are becoming more widespread and accepted. ”

“ The transformative potential of OER also includes the benefits of sharing and collaborating among institutions and countries, and the creatively disruptive role of OER in opening up new educational models. ”

“ Student bodies should engage in institutional decision-making processes to ensure that the ICT chosen are directly useful to students, are inclusive and conform to existing open standards.Encourage student participation in activities to support OER development. ”

“ This means striving to ensure that academic staff and students have ubiquitous access to the necessary ICT infrastructure, software and connectivity to access the Internet and develop or adapt educational materials of different kinds. ”

“ In this way, it would be possible to encourage equitable access to higher education and improve learning outcomes for all learners. Sustainability of this endeavour might be encouraged by setting up a government programme of support for OER creation and reuse.Consider adopting open licensing frameworks. One effective way to accelerate open licensing and the sharing of higher education resources would be to adopt, within policy frameworks, an appropriate national open licensing framework. ”

“ The purpose would be to ensure full access to and use/sharing of resources in higher education. This could span both research and educational publications, serving to ensure the perpetuity of editable electronic documents, regardless of changes to software. Such standards could cover educational materials produced by government departments and agencies and by institutions receiving government support for developing educational resources./li>Contribute to raising awareness of key OER issues. ”

“ This could include support for national initiatives to develop local content and regional/global efforts to develop OER repositories and directories, as well as fostering mechanisms to promote quality in OER. There is no single strategy that will work for every context, but a coordinated approach would likely yield the best results. ”

“ Such institutions may also further the dissemination of research results and thereby attract research funding. However, institutions have to position OER within their institutional branding and take into account any income that the sales of their educational materials may generate. ”