The OER Knowledge Cloud makes use of cookies. By continuing, you consent to this use. More information.
A review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities
Atkins, Daniel E. · Brown, John Seely · Hammond, Allen L.

PublishedFebruary 2007
PeriodicalPages 1-84
PublisherThe William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

ABSTRACT
Section one, OER history, structure and definition.

Section two, we will review the portfolio of OER grants to date in the context of the overall Technology/Open Educational Resources Logic Model and the description and goals above. From 2002 to the present the Hewlett Foundation has invested about $68 million in the OER program. We will comment on the distribution of grants across the various activities of the model, focus on important successes, and note areas that need more attention. We will particularly emphasize the unique contributions that Hewlett investments have made in both launching and moving forward the OER movement. We believe it has achieved a nascent movement status. A field of OER activity—a new culture of contribution—is emerging. The initiative has invested internationally in a way that builds capacity for engagement based on mutual benefit between people and institutions between and within developed and developing regions. In the next section we look in more detail at the portfolio of grants.

Section three, we describe threads of activity that we believe complement the OER activities supported by Hewlett and that provide Hewlett and other funders the opportunity for convergence into the next phase of investment and impact. The OER initiative has nurtured a culture of sharing, not only within individuals, but also within major institutions of higher education. It has helped shift faculty perspectives from this courseware is mine to this courseware is for (open) mining. The next phase is to nurture a culture of learning in which both intellectual capital (content) and human capital (talent) spiral upward, together. The conditions now exist, we believe, to consolidate understanding, technology, and incentive from multiple threads of activity into an open participatory learning infrastructure (OPLI).
A socio-technical initiative to form an open participatory learning infrastructure is critical to this culture of learning. By open participatory learning infrastructure we mean the institutional practices, technical infrastructure, and social norms that allow a smooth operation of globally distributed, high-quality open learning. We include the word “participatory” to emphasize that the focus is not just on information access, but on the role of technology in supporting the social nature of learning. An OPLI can leverage diversity of use, radical repurposing of content, and critical reflection. This perspective is consistent with collaboratories in science and humanities communities and the social software and the Web 2.0 movement more generally. Such an infrastructure supports diverse ecosystems of people and learning resources that could have profound implications for preparing people for a rapidly evolving knowledge-based world, one demanding creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurialism from us all. The OPLI should provide participatory architectures for emerging visions and concepts such as the meta-university, the university in and of the world, “learning to be” sooner rather than later, and global-scale massification of higher education. It also extends across level and age: K–12, higher education, and lifelong learning.

Finally, in Section 4 we elaborate on some of the opportunity resulting from the convergence of the threads of activity described in the previous section and we suggest a next phase for Hewlett educational investments. We also make specific suggestions about how Hewlett might approach defining, awarding, and managing the initiative.

Keywords connexions · higher education · K-12 · Lifelong Learning · MIT · OCW · OER definition · OER history · William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Languageen
Rightsby/3.0
URLhttp://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar



AVAILABLE FILES
ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf · 1.8MB87 downloads



Viewed by 192 distinct readers




CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document


POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS

Background and action paper on OER: A background and action paper for staff of bilateral and multilateral organizations at the strategic institutional education sector level
West, Paul G.; Victor, Lorraine; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Match: higher education; K-12; OER definition; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Our history
MIT
In 1999, MIT Faculty considered how to use the Internet in pursuit of MIT's mission—to advance knowledge and educate students—and in 2000 proposed OCW. MIT published the first proof-of-concept site in 2002, ...
Match: MIT; OCW

Open Educational Resources: Mainstream adoption and educational effectiveness
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The idea behind OER is simple but powerful—educational materials made freely available on the Internet for anyone to use, distribute, and revise. These digital materials have the potential to give people everywhere ...
Match: K-12; OER definition; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The advancement of lifelong learning through Open Educational Resources in an open and flexible (self) learning context
Mulder, Fred
The concept of Open Educational Resources has become one of the most relevant themes in the educational world. In this context, ICDE has decided to launch a new initiative: the ICDE Global Task Force on Open Educational ...
Match: Lifelong Learning; MIT; OER definition

Growing the Curriculum: Open Education Resources in U.S. higher education
Allen, Elaine I.; Seaman, Jeff; Babson Survey Research; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Pearson
Open educational resources (OER) have been defined by the Hewlett Foundation as teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license ...
Match: OER history; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Integrating MOOCs in regular higher education: Challenges and opportunities from a Scandinavian perspective
Dalipi, Fisnik; Ferati, Mexhid; Kurti, Arianit; Zaphiris, Panayiotis; Ioannou, Andri
MOOCs are increasingly being considered by universities as an integral part of their curriculum. Nevertheless, there are several challenges that to some extent slow this process, where the most important one is the ...
Match: opportunities; higher education

The investigation into the rising cost of textbooks: A background study of the context of Michigan initiatives with an eye toward launching a library-based college textbook publishing program
Nicholls, Natsuko Hayashi
In this report we investigate the facts concerning the rapidly rising cost of college textbooks. The lack of textbook affordability has drawn increased nationwide attention over the last decade. To identify the reason ...
Match: connexions; higher education

Open educational resources (OER): Opportunities and challenges for Indian higher education
Dutta, Indrajeet
Creation of knowledge workers holds key for success of a country. Unfortunately, many of the countries though having chain of human resources yet are unable to transform human resources to their advantage as they face ...
Match: opportunities; higher education

MOOCs in Higher Education - Opportunities and threats Or how small can a learning unit be in university degree programmes?
Bang, Jørgen; Dalsgaard, Christian; Kjær, Arne; O'Donovan, Maria; et al.
Overview of papers on enhancement of European Higher Education as presented during the Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference in Rome, October 2016. MOOCs and Open Online Courses in general offer new ...
Match: higher education; Lifelong Learning

Open educational resources: A literature review
Al Abri, Maimoona; Dabbagh, Nada
The open educational resources (OER) movement is an emerging trend in higher education contexts, primarily due to the ubiquitous use of technology and access to the internet. This literature review focuses on the ...
Match: higher education; K-12