Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources are prospective tools to remove barriers such as distance and financial issues. OER became very popular in short time with teachers and learners although they test the present teaching and learning practices.

OER where created to provide knowledge that be shared for free through the Internet which anyone is can take advantage from excluding any barriers on the use. Initiatives giving steps of how open sources and learning objectives should be created have been presented.

· www.opensource.org (dedicated to software source code)

· www.opencontent.org (dedicated to content of information)

· www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/about/openaccess (three milestones to create an open access movement for school work)

OER are made up of three parts:

The Learning Content should include full courses with adequate notes, activity worksheets, homework and test divided into modules to help the learners, and journals that complement the course.

The Tools needed are to develop, use and reuse the content which can be searched and organized and providing learning communities where the learners can communicate.

The Implementation of Resources should happen through Intellectual Property licenses which can sponsor the open material.

As a conclusion, I would like to quote the Cape Town Open Education Declaration which describes open education as

“Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge…”

Ref: http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf