ADVANCED

There has been significant emphasis placed in OER discussions on the quality of OER. This makes the concept of resource-based learning of particular interest. Despite this, debates over OER have typically made little reference to the concept of resource-based learning until recently. This may be because the emphasis in most global OER discussion has been on the sharing and licensing of existing materials, a significant proportion of which has included simply sharing lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations used in face-to-face lectures.

What does the notion of resource-based learning mean, in essence? It means moving away from the traditional notion of the 'talking teacher' to communicate curriculum; a significant but varying proportion of communication between students and educators is not face to face but rather takes place through the use of different media as necessary. Importantly, the face-to-face contact that does take place typically does not involve simple transmission of knowledge from educator to student; instead it involves various forms of student support, for example, tutorials, peer group discussion, or practical work.

Resource-based learning is not a synonym for distance education. Rather, resource-based learning provides a basis for transforming the culture of teaching across all educational systems to enable those systems to offer better quality education to significantly larger numbers of students. Many courses and programmes at all levels of education now incorporate extensive use of instructionally designed resources, as educators have learned the limitations of lecture-based strategies for communicating information to students.

The use of resource-based learning does not of course imply any intrinsic improvements in quality of learning experience. The extent to which shifting the communication of curriculum to instructionally designed resources leads improves the quality of education depends entirely on the quality of the resources developed.

To summarize:

• There is no direct relationship between OER and resource-based learning.
• Many OER available online have not explicitly been designed as part of a deliberate strategy to shift to resource-based learning.
• Likewise, most practice in resource-based learning currently uses fully copyrighted materials rather than OER.

Nevertheless, linking OER and resource-based learning provides an opportunity to leverage both most effectively.

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Taken from A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER)

• What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?
• Are OER the same as open learning/open education?
• Are OER the same as e-learning?
• Who will guarantee the quality of OER?
• Shouldn't I worry about 'giving away' my intellectual property?
• How can education benefit by harnessing OER?
• What is the difference between OER and open access publishing?
• Are OER related to the concept of resource-based learning?
• Are OER really free?
• Where can I learn more about Creative Commons licenses and copyright?
• Where did the questions and answers in this FAQ section come from?