Open Educational Resources include learning objects such as lecture material, references and readings, simulations, experiments and demonstrations, as well as syllabuses, curricula, and teachers' guides. (Wiley 2006)


Since that time, the term has gained significant currency and become the subject of heightened interest in both national policy-making as well as in institutional circles, as many people and institutions explore the concept and its potential to contribute to improved delivery of higher education around the world (Butcher 2011: 23). Indeed, the recent Paris Declaration (Unesco 2012) urges governments not only to promote the notion of OER but to encourage the open licensing of all educational materials produced wholly or partly with public funds. It is notable that policy requirements to this effect already exist in several countries including the United States, Austria and New Zealand for example (OER Africa 2012).


But what are OER and why should we engage with them?


WHAT ARE OER? In its simplest form, the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) describes any educational resources (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees. (Butcher 2011: 5)


It is important to note that resources released as OER remain the intellectual property of their developers and are still subject to copyright. The key difference is that in addition to asserting the right to be recognised as the originator of the work that has been shared, the author/owner adds licensing information that lets others know how and under what conditions they might use the work, including whether or not it can be adapted or remixed. Several open licensing frameworks are available but among the most robust and widely used in the education sector are the Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org). This framework provides for licensing of resources across a spectrum of more or less restrictive conditions. Importantly for education, a CCBY licence, for example, allows a teacher to remix resources from several sources and adapt them, for example by including more contextually relevant scenarios or activities and/or translating the content into another language, to suit the particular needs of particular groups of learners. The only requirement is that the teacher acknowledges his/her sources. This possibility begins to address a second question.


Open Educational Resources (OER): Do They Make a Difference and How Do/Will We Know? 125


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