%0	Conference Proceedings
%A	Agbu, Jane-frances
%A	Okechukwu, Okafor
%A	Dahunsi, Opeyemi
%A	Vincent, Ado Tenebe
%C	Hagen, Germany, Nigeria, Africa
%D	2015
%I	EADTU
%P	17-27
%T	Sharing the Experiences of National Open University of Nigeria in its journey towards understanding and embracing OERs
%U	https://conference.eadtu.eu/download2414
%X	To many in our part of the world, the West Africa sub-region, the concept of OER is almost alien while the understanding and embrace is still viewed with skepticism among scholars. It may appear unattractive because of its low business value, at least from the perception of the content developer, but its social value which is geared toward sharing knowledge for the common good could be seen to outweigh this. The drivers of OERs in their first contact with us made us realize that government-funded materials could be shared as OERs while OERs could also be used to enhance our courses. The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), which is a government-funded Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Institution in the West African sub-region, upon realizing the potentials of OERs took a bold step to embrace it which culminated in the establishment of a dedicated unit for OER under the Office of the Vice Chancellor in August 2014. The ultimate goal was for NOUN to learn how to share its body of courseware are OERs and also raise awareness on the use of OER. The journey towards this initiative in NOUN was surprisingly challenging. This paper therefore shares NOUN experiences towards this journey, specifically from its three capacity-building workshops in this area. It is hoped that insight from this could serve as reference for other institutions that are planning to embrace and understand the OER initiative.
%8	10/2015
%@	978-90-79730-17-9
%*	yes