Open Educational Resources: Policy, Costs and Transformation

Open Educational Resources (OER) — teaching, learning and research materials that their owners make free for others to use, revise and share — offer a powerful means of expanding the reach and effectiveness of worldwide education. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and UNESCO co-organised the World OER Congress in 2012 in Paris. That Congress resulted in the OER Paris Declaration: a statement that urged governments around the world to release, as OER, all teaching, learning and research materials developed with public funds. This book, drawing on 15 case studies contributed by 29 OER researchers and policy-makers from 15 countries across six continents, examines the implementation of the pivotal declaration through the thematic lenses of policy, costs and transformation. The case studies provide a detailed picture of OER policies and initiatives as they are unfolding in different country contexts and adopting a range of approaches, from bottom-up to top-down. The book illuminates the impacts of OER on the costs of producing, distributing and providing access to learning materials, and shows the way that OER can transform the teaching and learning methodology mindset. Recommendations on key actions to be taken by policy-makers, practitioners, OER developers and users are also outlined, particularly within the context of Education 2030. Clearly, progress is being made, although more work must be done if the international community is to realise the full potential of OER. Contents Foreword by the President and CEO, Commonwealth of Learning Foreword by the Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO Introduction Open Educational Resources: Policy, Costs and Transformation | Rory McGreal, Fengchun Miao and Sanjaya Mishra Chapter 1 Open Educational Practices in Australia | Carina Bossu Chapter 2 Open Educational Resources Policy for Developing a Knowledge-Based Economy in the Kingdom of Bahrain | Nawal Ebrahim Al Khater, Hala Amer and Fadheela Tallaq Chapter 3 The State of Open Educational Resources in Brazil: Policies and Realities | Carolina Rossini and Oona Castro Chapter 4 Open Educational Resources in Canada | Rory McGreal, Terry Anderson and Dianne Conrad Chapter 5 Caribbean Open Textbooks Initiative | Neil Butcher, Andrew Moore and Sarah Hoosen Chapter 6 Open Educational Resources in Germany | Ulf-Daniel Ehlers Chapter 7 Copyrights in OER Publishing in India: The Case of the National Programme on Technology-Enhanced Learning | Mangala Sunder Krishnan iv Chapter 8 The Promise of Open Educational Resources in Indonesia | Petra Wiyakti Bodrogini and Mohammad Rinaldi Chapter 9 Using Open Educational Resources for Undergraduate Programme Development at Wawasan Open University | Teik Kooi Liew Chapter 10 OERu: Realising Sustainable Education Futures | Wayne Mackintosh Chapter 11 Integrating ICT for Innovative Educational Solutions in Oman: Leveraging OER Policy to Enhance Teaching and Learning | Maimoona Al Abri and Saif Hamed Hilal Al Busaidi Chapter 12 The Polish Open e-Textbooks Project as a Policy Model for Openness of Public Educational Resources | Alek Tarkowski Chapter 13 Open Access to Educational Resources Through Federal Portals and OER in Russia | Svetlana Knyazeva and Aleksei Sigalov Chapter 14 Open Educational Resources for Early Literacy in Africa: The Role of the African Storybook Initiative | Tessa Welch and Jennifer Glennie Chapter 15 Developing an Infrastructure Support for Faculty Use of Open Educational Resources: The Case of the Washington State Community and Technical Colleges System | Boyoung Chae and Mark Jenkins Conclusions | Fengchun Miao, Sanjaya Mishra and Rory McGrea

Alternate Academy: Investigating the Use of Open Educational Resources by Students at the University of Lagos in Nigeria

Abstract Open educational resources (OER) are increasingly used to support pedagogical initiatives and learning needs at institutions of higher education across the globe. In this thesis, I examined key issues in the use of OER by students at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. Specifically, I examined how much awareness the students have of OER, their attitudes toward OER, and the benefit they derive from using the resources. I also examined the specific motivations behind their use of the resources as well as the challenges they face in doing so. A mixed methods research design, consisting of two data collection approaches (surveys and interviews) and two methods of analysis (grounded theory and principal component analysis [PCA]), was applied. Of the participants, 417 completed the surveys and 20 participated in the interviews. The thesis reveals that although participants frequently used OER, their overall knowledge of the resources was limited. Particularly, participants were limited in their understanding of the concept of OER as well as in their awareness of OER repositories. The thesis also shows that, in general, participants had a positive attitude toward OER, and benefited from using the resources in multiple ways. They were motivated to use OER because the resources facilitate the completion of assigned academic tasks. In spite of the benefits of OER, participants faced several challenges in using the resources, including the high cost of Internet access. Based on the results, a model of OER use was developed. Finally, while the results suggest a growing use of OER among students at the University of Lagos, it also highlights the importance of institutions and governments in facilitating better use of the resources. These insights further illuminate the overall understanding of the use of OER. They may also serve as additional resources for individuals interested in developing and promoting OER at institutions of higher education, particularly at the University of Lagos

Intersections of open educational resources and Information literacy

Comprend des références bibliographiques et un indexALA Editions"Information literacy skills are key when finding, using, adapting, and producing open educational resources (OER). Educators who wish to include OER for their students need to be able to find these resources and use them according to their permissions. When open pedagogical methods are employed, students need to be able to use information literacy skills as they compile, reuse, and create open resources. Intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy captures current open education and information literacy theory and practice and provides inspiration for the future. Chapters include practical applications, theoretical musings, literature reviews, and case studies and discuss social justice issues, collaboration, open pedagogy, training, and advocacy.Chapters cover topics including library-led OER creation; digital cultural heritage and the intersections of primary source literacy and information literacy; situated learning and open pedagogy; critical librarianship and open education; and developing student OER leaders."--provided by ALAstor

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH EURASIAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES CONFERENCE

The Conference features 23 distinguished speakers and experts across the globe (USA, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Czech Republic, the Philippines, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan) demonstrating their experience in creating OA digital collections, repositories and implementing OA technologies in libraries. We featured three keynote presentations: the first keynote speaker, Matthew Voigts (Netherlands, Policy and Research Officer in IFLA), presented his speech with the theme, “Copyright and Publications for the Digital Future: A Global View of Laws, Access and Practice”. The second keynote speaker, Paola Corti (Italy, Open Education Community Manager of SPARC Europe), gave an online presentation on “Ready, Set, Action! ENOEL Librarians at the Crossway of Open Education”. The third keynote speaker, Raymond Uzwyshyn (USA, Director of Collections and Digital Services at Texas State University Libraries), had his speech on the topic “Open Access Data Research Repositories: From Data to Research Ecosystems to Artificial Intelligence”. We also would like to thank our speakers who presented online despite various barriers and life situations in the world. In order to support and develop open access, all presentations and Proceedings of the EALC 2022 conference are placed in the NU Repository, and a video recording of the conference is available on the YouTube channel of the NU Library

Exploring leaders\u27 sensemaking of emergent global norms for open science: a mixed methods discourse analysis of UNESCO’s multistakeholder initiative

In November 2021, all 193 United Nations Member States adopted the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Recommendation on Open Science (UNESCO, 2021a), which signaled a shared commitment to globally recognized standards for open science. However, as with other normative instruments established by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) such as UNESCO, the ways in which local, national, and regional leaders will implement the recommendation can and will vary (Finnemore, 1993). Top-down and bottom-up coordination across international stakeholders in the research system is critical for the framework to be effective in driving global policy implementation and enabling sustained research culture change. Such international coordination necessitates an understanding of the complex economic, socio-political, and cultural dimensions that exist among these stakeholders and may influence local implementation efforts and norm-setting (Martinsson, 2011; Nilsson, 2017). This mixed methods study explores leaders’ sensemaking of emergent global norms for open science through public discourse during the development of UNESCO’s recommendation. The central research question is: How did institutional leaders make sense of emergent global norms for open science during UNESCO’s multistakeholder initiative? The study is situated at the intersection of systems thinking, global norms, and sensemaking, using a social constructionist lens. A synthesis of study findings draws two conclusions: That there is evidence in the discourse of accelerating self-organization toward open science among Member States who responded to UNESCO’s call for commentary on the draft recommendation; and that there is also evidence in the discourse of a degree of instability around prospective norm diffusion and internalization of the Recommendation on Open Science (2021a) related directly to matters of implementation. The tension between emergence and instability is well documented throughout the literature across complex systems, global norms, and sensemaking. Therefore, the study supports the ongoing exploration of global norms development and, specifically, the critical progression from norm emergence to norm diffusion. Given the theoretical coherence of complex systems, global norms, and sensemaking as evidenced throughout the findings, the novel integrative analytic frame that was developed during the design of this study may support other global norms development studies

Using open educational resources to promote social justice

"The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) announces the publication of "Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice," edited by CJ Ivory and Angela Pashia, which explores the opportunities and challenges of moving the discussion about open educational resources (OER) beyond affordability to address structural inequities found throughout academia and scholarly publishing. OER have the potential to celebrate research done by marginalized populations in the context of their own communities, to amplify the voices of those who have the knowledge but have been excluded from formal prestige networks, and to engage students as co-creators of learning content that is relevant and respectful of their cultural contexts. Edited by academic librarians with experience advocating across campus, "Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice" takes a multidisciplinary approach and is filled with examples of the ways OER and open pedagogy can be used to support social justice in education. In five sections, it covers a wide range of topics from theoretical critiques to multidisciplinary examples of OER development in practice to examinations of institutional support for OER development."--ACR

Enhancing curriculum design and delivery with OER

This paper reports on the key findings from the EVOL-OER project which aims to develop a deeper understanding of the reuse of open educational resources (OERs) by academics in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This paper builds on the JISC OER Impact study by exploring and expanding on the Ratified quadrant of the study’s landscape of reuse framework (White & Manton, 2011). This paper puts forward a different four-quadrant diagram called ‘OER-enhanced curriculum’ to illustrate different approaches adopted by academics to embedding OER into curriculum design and delivery. Key issues in relation to motivation and challenges in reusing OER are discussed