Open educational resources : conversations in cyberspace

172 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.Libro ElectrónicoEducation systems today face two major challenges: expanding the reach of education and improving its quality. Traditional solutions will not suffice, especially in the context of today's knowledge-intensive societies. The Open Educational Resources movement offers one solution for extending the reach of education and expanding learning opportunities. The goal of the movement is to equalize access to knowledge worldwide through openly and freely available online high-quality content. Over the course of two years, the international community came together in a series of online discussion forums to discuss the concept of Open Educational Resources and its potential. This publication makes the background papers and reports from those discussions available in print.--Publisher's description.A first forum : presenting the open educational resources (OER) movement. Open educational resources : an introductory note / Sally Johnstone -- Providing OER and related issues : an introductory note / Anne Margulies, ... [et al.] -- Using OER and related issues : in introductory note / Mohammed-Nabil Sabry, ... [et al.] -- Discussion highlights / Paul Albright -- Ongoing discussion. A research agenda for OER : discussion highlights / Kim Tucker and Peter Bateman -- A 'do-it-yourself' resource for OER : discussion highlights / Boris Vukovic -- Free and open source software (FOSS) and OER -- A second forum : discussing the OECD study of OER. Mapping procedures and users / Jan Hylén -- Why individuals and institutions share and use OER / Jan Hylén -- Discussion highlights / Alexa Joyce -- Priorities for action. Open educational resources : the way forward / Susan D'Antoni

Open educational practices in Australia: a first-phase national audit of higher education

For fifteen years, Australian Higher Education has engaged with the openness agenda primarily through the lens of open-access research. Open educational practice (OEP), by contrast, has not been explicitly supported by federal government initiatives, funding, or policy. This has led to an environment that is disconnected, with isolated examples of good practice that have not been transferred beyond local contexts. This paper represents first-phase research in identifying the current state of OEP in Australian Higher Education. A structured desktop audit of all Australian universities was conducted, based on a range of indicators and criteria established by a review of the literature. The audit collected evidence of engagement with OEP using publicly accessible information via institutional websites. The criteria investigated were strategies and policies, open educational resources (OER), infrastructure tools/platforms, professional development and support, collaboration/partnerships, and funding. Initial findings suggest that the experience of OEP across the sector is diverse, but the underlying infrastructure to support the creation, (re)use, and dissemination of resources is present. Many Australian universities have experimented with, and continue to refine, massive open online course (MOOC) offerings, and there is increasing evidence that institutions now employ specialist positions to support OEP, and MOOCs. Professional development and staff initiatives require further work to build staff capacity sector-wide. This paper provides a contemporary view of sector-wide OEP engagement in Australia—a macro-view that is not well-represented in open research to date. It identifies core areas of capacity that could be further leveraged by a national OEP initiative or by national policy on OEP.</p

Trends and Developments of Institutional Open Access Repository Movement in BRICS countries: A comparative Study

“This article main purpose the examine the growth and development of Institutional Repositories available in BRICS countries , The relevant Data was collected from the Directory of OPENDOAR. Based on the data in OPEN DOAR, We found that 418 total repositories are available from BRICS countries, and analyzed that BRICS countries among the Brazil with 154(37%) number of repositories in OPEN DOAR. Russia with 50 (12%) in Number of contribution repositories in BRICS countries. foreword to India with 102 (24%) Number of repositories, China 64 (15%) , South Africa 48 (12%). Brazil year 2020 (40) highest repositories contribution and year 2007, year 2018 found is lowest contribution in OPEN DOAR Types of repositories are found the Institutional 129 in Brazil , Russia with 42, India 88,China 52 and South Africa 44. Subject Content Social science is found Brazil 126,Rusia 40, India 84, China 33, South Africa 45.

Open access and soft power: Chinese voices in international scholarship

Networked digital technologies and Open Access (OA) are transforming the processes and institutions of research, knowledge creation and dissemination globally: enabling new forms of collaboration, allowing researchers to be seen and heard in new ways and reshaping relationships between stakeholders across the global academic publishing system. This article draws on Joseph Nye’s concept of ‘Soft Power’ to explore the role that OA is playing in helping to reshape academic publishing in China. It focuses on two important areas of OA development: OA journals and national-level repositories. OA is being supported at the highest levels, and there is potential for it to play an important role in increasing the status and impact of Chinese scholarship. Investments in OA also have the potential to help China to re-position itself within international copyright discourses: moving beyond criticism for failure to enforce the rights of foreign copyright owners and progressing an agenda that places greater emphasis on equality of access to the resources needed to foster innovation. However, the potential for OA to help China to build and project its soft power is being limited by the legacies of the print era, as well as the challenges of efficiently governing the national research and innovation systems

The Promise of Open Educational Resources

This whitepaper defines OER, discusses what underlies the open educational resources movement and the current status of open educational resources, presents MIT's OpenCourseware project as a case-study, and concludes with future visions for teaching and learning, challenges, and observations

Growth and Development of Open Access Institutional Repositories in Africa

The present study attempts to highlight the growth and development of institutional repositories in Africa. The institutional repositories developed by African countries were identified by selecting the database of OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories). The retrieved data were thoroughly analyzed for the necessary information. The study found a total of 219 open access repositories In Africa, out of which 161(73.51%) are Institutional repositories that contained theses and dissertations as one content type. The process of inclusion of institutional repositories at OpenDOAR in Africa started in the year 2005, while the maximum growth of repositories has been recorded during the year 2013 (21; 13%), 2015 (29; 18%), and 2019(46; 28%) respectively. The study also signifies that Kenya is the front runner contributing the highest institutional repositories, followed by South Africa and Nigeria. In terms of sub-region categorization (Eastern Africa, southern Africa, Northern Africa, Western Africa, and central Africa), it is observed that eastern Africa is the leading region having a maximum number of repositories while central Africa is lagging which do not have even a single repository registered with OpenDOAR. DSpace is the most preferred software used by the institutional repositories. The interface language assessment shows that English, the international language, was the most commonly preferred interface language by African institutional repositories.https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.20088302.2022.20.1.3.

Indian Institutional Repositories (IRs) reflected in the Directory of Open Access Repository (DOAR): A Case Study

Open access resources are an essential part of the academic community by which students, researchers, and even faculties get useful resources to pursue their academic requirements. Open access repositories enhance the visibility of scholarly publications and improve the collaboration among the authors with the support of global networks. Open access institutional repository provides a platform to showcase the intellectual works of an individual organisation. At present a total of 5414 repositories were found on DOAR from all countries on different subjects. Out of 5414, 96 repositories were from India. The analysis presented in this study is based on selected criteria like software used, size of items, content included, languages and policy used, etc. This study explores the prominence of open access institutional repositories of India reflected in the Directory of Open Access Institutional Repository (DOAR). Authors made to visualize India\u27s contribution to repository type, disciplines, languages covered, and software used for building the Institutional Repository (IR) to communicate it better. As a concluding remark, the authors elucidated the opportunities and threats associated with the development of OAIR to meet the educational requirements of the academic community

Global Visibility of Open Access Institutional Repositories of SAARC Countries: An Explorative Study

The concept of open access extends perceived advantages to its stakeholders, especially in the preservation of scholarly publications through digital repositories. Open Access (OA) improves collaboration among the authors with the support of global networks. There has been remarkable progress worldwide in creating institutional repositories to provide open access to resources. Open access institutional repositories (OAIR) provide a stable platform to showcase an individual\u27s intellectual works without a hitch. This study explores the visibility of open access institutional repositories of SAARC countries that are reflected in the Directory of Open Access Institutional Repository (DOAR). Collected data has been analyzed and represented in tabular and graphical formats to understand the variables\u27 relationship. The authors also assessed the contribution of SAARC countries concerning repository type, disciplines, languages covered, and software used for building them. The study\u27s finding revealed that out of 128 institutional repositories, the highest number of (14.06%) institutional repositories are registered in 2013 and 2019 and belong to the institutional category. DSpace is the software used for creating the majority of the repositories (60.94%), followed by E-Prints (25%). Three-fourths of the repositories are represented in the English language having its contents in journal articles. Among the SAARC countries, India contributes the highest number of institutional repositories (72.66%). The discipline-wise distribution of institutional repositories shows that the majority (18.40%) of the collection is represented under the category Science in general followed by multidisciplinary (15.74%) and technology in general 51 (12.35%) respectively as a concluding remark, authors elucidated the opportunities and threats associated with the development of OAIR to meet the educational requirements of the academic community