Global sharing. Affordable Learning

Reflecting on anomalies in OER

Is 'Open' broken, and if so, can education fix it?

Wayne Mackintosh

UNESCO Chair in OER

Open Education Resource Foundation

OER Foundation

FOSS

OER

OEP

The OER opportunity

There is no form of educational delivery more cost-effective, scalable and sustainable than open education

A brief history of OER in HE

1969	Open University founded
1980s	Free and open source software
2002	UNESCO coins the concept of OER
2007	Cape Town Open Education Declaration Wiley's 4R permissions
2009	OER Foundation established
2012	UNESCO Paris OER Declaration
2012	Apereo Foundation established
2017	Ljubljana Declaration From awareness to action
2019	UNESCO OER Recommendation
2021	UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science

History image by Alan Cleaver published under Creative Commons Attribution license

The OER implementation challenge

Crossing the chasm

Sharing to LEARN

Learning to SHARE

Taichung Airport light trails by 攝影家9號 published under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license

Anomaly

noun

something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected

OxfordLanguages

Square peg, round hole, by Simon Law, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike

Anomalies of open

Red pea in pod, by Magnascan published under Pixabay license

Many governments reporting actions to support OER policies at the national and/or institutional level, but with scarce published research evidence demonstrating meaningful implementation of OER practices resulting from these policies.

60 UNESCO Member states report actions to support OER policy

Butcher N and Mohini Baijnath (2023) Researching the effectiveness of OER Policies. - Only two countries met the selection criteria for the study.

Anomalies of open

Red pea in pod, by Magnascan published under Pixabay license

The reliance of most OER projects on donor funding for sustainability in the absence of government funded support despite the unparalleled opportunities for publicly funded education systems to lower costs and enhance equitable access to educational resources.

64% of faculty are aware of OER, but only 15% of required course materials are OER.

2023 Bay View Analytics

Anomalies of open

Red pea in pod, by Magnascan published under Pixabay license

A notable presence of mainstream OER initiatives whose replicability is limited by proprietary software dependencies.

Anomalies of open

Red pea in pod, by Magnascan published under Pixabay license

7000 spoken languages, but 90% of OER content is published in English

How do we fix it?

Conservation light bulb by Alexas Fotos dedicated to the Public Domain under Creative Commons CC0

Digital enabler for OER

Open technology

“Open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues”

(The Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2007).

Seagull sky flight by maleifl dedicated to the public domain under Creative Commons CC0

OER4Covid

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