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.
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. 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.
In this context, it is suggested that higher education institutions:
- Develop institutional strategies for the integration of OER. These Guidelines suggest elements that institutions may wish to consider in developing corporate strategies for the integration of OER into a range of activities.
- Provide incentives to support investment in the development, acquisition and adaptation of high quality learning materials.
Institutional policies should be reviewed to:- Encourage judicious selection and adaptation of existing OER, as well as development of new materials where necessary;
- Promote the publication of educational materials as OER within institutional protocols;
- Promote research on using, reusing and repurposing OER;
- Promote students publishing their work (with the guidance of academic staff and within institutional protocols) under an open licence as OER;
- Build OER into mechanisms for institutional and individual monitoring;
- Promote collaboration both within and beyond the institution in developing materials;
- Provide staff with appropriate incentives and rewards for the development, acquisition and adaptation of learning materials; and
- Ensure that staff workload models allow for curriculum, course and materials design and development.
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