WHY ENGAGE WITH OER?


OER has emerged as a concept with great potential to support educational transformation. While its educational value lies in the idea of using resources as an integral method of communication of curriculum in educational courses (i.e. resource-based learning), its transformative power lies in the ease with which


such resources, when digitized, can be shared via the Internet. (Butcher 2011: 5) … the transformative educational potential of OER revolves around three linked possibilities:


1. Increased availability of high quality, relevant learning materials can contribute to more productive students and educators. Because OER removes restrictions around copying resources, it can reduce the cost of accessing educational materials. In many systems, royalty payments for text books and other educational materials constitute a significant proportion of the overall cost, while processes of procuring permission to use copyrighted material can also be very time-consuming and expensive.


2. The principle of allowing adaptation of materials provides one mechanism amongst many for constructing roles for students as active participants in educational processes, who learn best by doing and creating, not by passively reading and absorbing. Content licences that encourage activity and creation by students through re-use and adaptation of that content can make a significant contribution to creating more effective learning environments.


3. OER has potential to build capacity by providing institutions and educators access, at low or no cost, to the means of production to develop their competence in producing educational materials and carrying out the necessary instructional design to integrate such materials into high quality programmes of learning. (Butcher 2011: 13 – emphases as in original)


The potential expressed here was echoed in an opening seminar that formed part of an OER-focused pre-conference workshop co-hosted by the University of the Cape Coast, TESSA and OER Africa, in Ghana in July 2012, in which the author participated. The seminar included a range of participants – some quite new to OER and others having worked with OER for some years. The discussion therefore foregrounded both a number of apprehensions as well as some reflection on experience raising a number of issues worthy of formal follow-up research.


Key issues arising from the opening seminar were:


1. Time is needed for staff to grapple with the implications of open content/ open resources.


Open Educational Resources (OER): Do They Make a Difference and How Do/Will We Know? 126


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