Open Educational Resources (Education)

This paper explores faculty’s perspectives and use of open educational resources (OER) and their repositories across different countries by conducting a multiple case study to find similarities and differences between academics’ awareness, perceptions and use of OER, as well as examining related aspects of institutional policy and quality that may influence individual views. Data were collected through nine expert reports on each country studied (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Spain and Turkey) and were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using thematic coding. Findings show the impact on individual OER adoption with regard to the individual control of diverse factors by faculty members; of institutional policies and quality measures on the externally determined factors (by the institution); and of institutional professional development and provision of incentives in more internally determined factors (by the faculty members themselves...

This conceptual article explores self-directed localized open educational practices for a decolonized South African higher education curriculum. From the historical context, language demography and especially due to student protests regarding the curriculum the need for a decolonized South African curriculum is evident. In this article, an overview is presented about the context-specific issues in relation to decolonization and language. It is proposed that in order to move towards a decolonized South African curriculum, there should be a self-directed learning approach to open educational practices which would involve carefully planned and supported localization efforts. This process also implies acknowledging both internal and external localization as done in a structured or even student-driven manner. Furthermore, localization means drawing on translations study theories pertaining to specifically dynamic equivalence. This approach would require increasingly accommodating languages other than English in the higher education context and as such language attitude planning efforts are needed. Finally, open educational practices would require an open ongoing process which provides agency to South African teachers and students to use the language of their choice to engage with content applicable and relevant to their contexts. In addition, this would imply including indigenous knowledge in order to address the needs of a decolonized curriculum. In conclusion, this article presents some practical recommendations towards self-directed localized open educational practices for a decolonized South African higher education curriculum.

Zusammenfassung In diesem Kurzbeitrag wird dargestellt, warum freie Bildungsressourcen für die Hochschule von morgen eine Notwendigkeit darstellen. Nach einer Begriffsdefinition werden Argumente für die Stärkung von OER vorgestellt. Darüberhinaus kann gezeigt werden, dass bereits auf viele existierende Ressourcen zugegriffen werden kann bzw. wie diese selbst genutzt werden können.

It disrupted traditional education. It has become the buzz word not only among distance educators but among the conventional universities as well especially since the early implementers came from the latter group. It is called MOOC which somehow captures the basic features of the course and which can also be considered as its framework: it is massive; it is open; it is online; and it is similar to the usual course being referred to in the academe. The year 2012 was even considered as the year of the MOOCs which is indicative of the number of universities; professors; courses; and learners who became part of the bandwagon. But just like any other attempt to revolutionize or change the status quo, there emerged various concerns and issues in the implementation of MOOCs which should be addressed for them to realize the envisioned democratization of access to education through technology. Some of these issues are: the perceived intellectual neocolonialism given the one-way transfer of educational materials from the rich north to the poor south Is it possible to have a MOOC minus these concerns and issues through integration of the quality pillars in open and distance eLearning, hence instead of a MOOC minus, it will now be a MOOC plus?

Flipgrid is a free app and platform that allows students to record short video responses. These videos are usually reflections or responses to specific topics/prompts asked by their teachers. This study aims to deepen the potentiality and effectiveness of Flipgrid in virtual learning environments for university students. Moreover, it aims to understand whether such a platform is really beneficial for developing reflective skills, meets students interests and gets their approval. To deepen these issues, we have analyzed the results of a case study conducted at the University of Rome Foro Italico, Italy, where Flipgrid was used as a support for delivering a course on education and European values and getting students to reflect in a deeper way on the topics and issues entailed. The data were collected through three principal phases. In the first one, within the framework of an exploratory study, a survey questionnaire containing items based on the Likert scale was administered to a general sample of University of Rome Foro Italico students. In the following phase, a focus group was conducted with a small group of students attending the course mentioned above, and in the third one, the students from the course were in-depth interviewed. The data were processed by statistical and text analysis software. The data were then interpreted and compared. The data results allowed us to obtain information and a map to understand the Flipgrid app/platform's effectiveness. From the data collected, at the end of the study, we were able to sketch a model for using the new app in a way so that it can help students develop reflective skills in e-learning in the most effective way.

Technology  Enhanced Learning (TEL), Open Educational Resources (OER), innovative learning paradigms, educational scenarios and the associated digital technologies, learning environments, applications and content are continuously changing and rapidly evolving nowadays, thus affecting not only the effectiveness, the impact and the cognitive outcomes of teaching, but also the quality of the learning process and outcome as a whole. The impact of TEL environments and portals using OER can be evaluated in terms of usability, effectiveness and pedagogical use. Impact evaluation has always carried great potential for improving learning outcomes and tailoring learning toward the users’ needs, motivation, satisfaction and expectations. However, impact assessment of the use of teaching and learning resources, environments and portals in a systematic manner has proven to be difficult.
The research work described in this paper contributes to assess the impact of using Open Learning Resources in a shared and distributed way, on an innovative portal, namely the “Open Discovery Space” (ODS) portal. In this European example case, there are different dimensions of impact to consider, including impact on teachers, students, stakeholders, schools and the educational system at large. The focus of the impact evaluation in this research is to understand how best such TEL environments are to be accommodated, adopted and used within the educational processes, and how well they can fit within the current national/regional curricula and educational systems. To achieve this, this research aims to evaluate how best the e-learning portals and services like ODS are to be accommodated within existing teaching and learning processes/practices as they are seen by teachers and learners.
The objectives of the impact assessment activities are to discover the nature and extent of effects and changes, and demonstrate the outcomes on the micro-level stakeholders, including on individual teachers, learners and schools and the macro-level stakeholders, including regional, national, and EU-level stakeholders, and also the policy makers. In this context, it is expected that identifying and measuring the actual impact that a portal like ODS has on educational systems will help stakeholders to fully exploit the strength of such portals and services and will facilitate improvements in terms of the application of digital technologies in educational systems and in their decisions for educational processes.
Impact assessment of an eLearning portal such as ODS involves evaluation and assessment of educational aspects that directly relate to the context of the teaching and learning activities. For this reason, the results of such assessment can be used as a basis to improve the educational system. This type of assessment contrasts with traditional approaches, which focus on a limited number of factors and are usually used for grading and accountability purposes. Thus, our impact assessment methodology considers various impact factors including motivation factors, engagement, support, empowerment, involvement, satisfaction, accessibility, availability, usability, effectiveness, achievement, performance, sharing, interaction, communication, collaboration, innovation, training, creativity, search facility, socialising, culturally and linguistically appropriate features, etc.
Taking into account the early results of this research, it appears that the use of an e-learning portal like ODS, in EU Educational Systems has a great impact on the whole educational system and on the learning processes and learning practice, and has the potential to greatly improve the quality of the work done in schools. Such an initiative is generally suitable for a wide range of teaching practices, while it enables the accomplishment of the learning tasks easily and offers a wide range of useful and updated learning resources. Further work is planned, in order to benchmark the results with previous studies, in order to conduct the qualitative research effectively and detect trends/patterns, and improve the reliability of ODS impact assessment survey results over time and across multiple assessment tools and instruments.

More and more governments are considering Open Educational Resources as a public good that requires being legislated and considered when funding education. Moreover, higher education institutions and bodies are also reviewing their existing educational policies to integrate OER in them, by changing the types of licensing, participating or creating OER repositories.

The CKLN and the Caribbean NRENs were supported through the ACP Connect Project, from April to October 2013, with the aim to successfully launch them, linking through C@ribNET, to each other and to the international research and education networks. To fully achieve this, it is fundamental to have dedicated high capacity broadband networks in place, at national and Caribbean level, supported among others by ICT, ODL and OER Policies.
The Caribbean suffers from a double ultra-peripheral situation, islands away from mainland and separated from each other, posing enormous challenges to their economic and human development.
In the Caribbean region, the use/development of Open Educational Resources is still in a very embryonic stage.

There are many reasons why Indian open universities are adding online learning opportunities to their course offerings. Two universities, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and the Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University (YCMOU), have been developing online aspects of their programs for some years. This article documents the experiences at IGNOU and then examines the situation for online development at YCMOU. Lessons can be learned from both experiences. These include being strategic in choosing which courses to offer, and in deciding which services to develop for which clientele. Choosing those that will bring the greatest enhancement in flexibility and efficiency for the least amount of new skill requirement from learners is likely to be of biggest benefit. Keeping cognizant of the computing context of learner sub-groups and enhancing learning through additional optional online services is most likely to result in effective courses and quality student services while maintaining efficiencies in financial logistics.

Η ιδέα της ανοικτής εκπαίδευσης σε συνδυασμό με τα περιβάλλοντα μάθησης στο Διαδίκτυο έχουν εξαπλωθεί σε εκατοντάδες ιδρύματα της τριτοβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης σε όλο τον κόσμο. Στο νέο κόσμο που ξεδιπλώνεται, αναδύεται παράλληλα η ανάγκη σχεδιασμού ή επανασχεδιασμού μιας ολοκληρωμένης θεώρησης νέων «διδακτικών» πρακτικών.
Οι τεχνολογίες του Διαδικτύου καθιστούν δυνατό το μεγάλης κλίμακας άνοιγμα της επιστημονικής γνώσης στο σύνολο της κοινωνίας, πρακτικά σε οποιονδήποτε επιθυμεί να διευρύνει, να ανανεώσει ή να επικαιροποιήσει τις γνώσεις του μέσω αυτο-εκπαίδευσης. Τα Πανεπιστήμια ενισχύουν τον εκπαιδευτικό ρόλο τους στην ευρύτερη δημόσια σφαίρα, ενώ παράλληλα έχουν τη δυνατότητα να προβάλουν το υψηλού επιπέδου εκπαιδευτικό και ερευνητικό έργο που παράγουν ενισχύοντας τη θέση τους στον παγκόσμιο εκπαιδευτικό χάρτη.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are dramatically restructuring, reshaping, and redefining the vast landscape of teaching and learning across the globe. With MOOCs' ubiquity, openness, and accessibility, they have become a new platform for teacher professional development. Utilizing a co-constructed narrative inquiry, this paper aimed to examine aspects of our memories, perspectives, and experiences in successfully completing Teach English Now! a 150-hour online Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Certificate Course from Arizona State University, United States of America via Coursera (www.coursera.org) as the MOOC platform. Acting as reflective practitioners and as teachers-as-researchers, we unpacked how we traversed the massive information superhighway in our quest for teacher professional development, what it was like to be an online learner, how we saw our role, why we believe what we believe about MOOCs' potential, and how we think all of these affect our decisions and practices in our classrooms and contexts. Data from our individual journals, individual reflections, and peer discussion revealed how MOOCs' features such as 'openness' and 'flexibility' as afforded by ubiquitous technology, sound course design, and strong learning community support have influenced us personally, socially, and professionally, making it a practical platform for teacher professional advancement particularly in developing countries such as the Philippines. Andragogical and pedagogical implications are provided in the light of our MOOC experience.

Uno de los componentes para impulsar la apropiación y uso
educativo de las TIC, está dado sobre la producción y gestión de los contenidos educativos digitales, el cual se constituye en un aspecto que, además de considerarse de orden estratégico, tiene mucha relevancia, ya que a través de éste, se contribuye a cerrar la brecha de acceso a la información, promover el acceso público y abierto al conocimiento; desarrollar capacidades nacionales
para la producción, fortalecer los marcos de colaboración y cooperación para producción y gestión de contenidos educativos; consolidar la oferta nacional de contenidos educativos digitales y desarrollar la capacidad de acceso, uso y reutilización de los contenidos por parte de las comunidades educativas.
Estas razones dieron lugar para que en el seno del Sistema Nacional de Innovación Educativa con Uso de TIC, se impulsara el diseño e implementación de la Estrategia Nacional de Recursos Educativos Digitales Abiertos dirigida a Educación Superior, que busca contribuir a mejorar las condiciones de acceso a la información y al conocimiento por parte de las comunidades
educativas, a fortalecer la capacidad del uso educativo de las TIC, a fomentar una cultura en torno a la colaboración y cooperación para promover el intercambio, reutilización, adaptación, combinación y redistribución de recursos educativos, y a consolidar una amplia oferta nacional de recursos de acceso público que aporte al mejoramiento de la calidad en la educación,
además de articularse con los planteamientos recogidos por la UNESCO en la reciente Declaración de París de junio de 2012.

A lo largo de este texto hemos de brindar algunos elementos de reflexión sobre una definicñon propuesta acerca de las Prácticas Educativas Abiertas concebidas más allá del uso de Recursos Educativos Abiertos. En ese orden de ideas las Prácticas Educativas Abiertas se entenderían como conjuntos articulados de actividades de naturaleza educativa (enseñanza, evaluación, planeación didáctica o diseño curricular, entre otras.), a las cuales se les aplican algunos de los atributos de "lo abierto", como el libre acceso, la adaptación, la colaboración, la compartición, la remezcla, entre otras. Lo anterior hace que las prácticas se lleven a cabo de manera innovadora por causa de dicha aplicación.

This article explores the possibilities provided by self-directed learning by means of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Afrikaans literature teaching. The National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement provides a basis on which self-directedness can be motivated and the use of technology such
as OER be supported. From the scholarship on literature teaching, clear links exist concerning self-directed learning. However, in order to foster self-directedness, it is essential that learners are central to the teaching context and that aspects such as active learning, cooperative learning, motivation, metacognition, the communicative approach, problem solving as well as an openness to text choices be considered. Finally, it is also evident from the literature review in this article that OER can provide clear opportunities toward the enhancement of self-directed learning in Afrikaans literature classes. However, despite some initiatives, there is a great need for expanding further online resources such as OER in this context.

Offene Bildungsressourcen (englisch Open Educational Resources OER) erlauben zahlreiche Verwendungen in der Bildungsarbeit, die bei herkömmlichen Materialien durch die Urhebergesetze ausgeschlossen sind, wie z. B. die Modifikation und Wiederveröffentlichung vorhandener Materialien. Im Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche Rolle OER derzeit im Bereich der deutschsprachigen Weiterbildung, also insbesondere in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz spielen. Obwohl dem Thema Digitalisierung in der Weiterbildung in der Schweiz ein hoher strategischer Stellenwert eingeräumt wird, spielen OER eher eine untergeordnete Rolle.

Open and Distance learning (ODL) programs are generally designed to serve an off campus population. These programs provide access to higher education for students who cannot attend traditional courses due to employment, marital status, family responsibilities, distance, and expenses incurred with traditional education (Hannay and Newvine 2006). According to Bukaliya and Musika,(2015), ODL lies in the philosophical nature of geographical dispersion of students and the vast distances apart between the students and the ODL institution. That nature of ODL underlie in the premise that, students know on how, where, when and what to study (Keegan, 1986), as a result students face a lot of challenges resulting in low learning motivation (Bukaliya and Musika, 2015). For sustainability in Open and Distance learning, counseling service as one of the Students Support Service (SSS) is very important in academic arena (Jung, 2005). Counseling is the process of helping an individual to receive, accept his/her conception of him/herself and his/her problems, perceptions, attitudes, goals, plans and choices and use advice that can help him to understand and solve his/her problem/ disturbing issues or to cope with it successfully for a better future (Biswalo, 1996). For the counseling process to be effective the counselor should have the knowledge of counseling skills, counseling techniques on how to conduct the counseling interview. In Open and Distance Learning, a counselor has to understand the effect of distance on the choice of technology (UNESCO: 2004) by considering Accessibility, Flexibility, Cost, and Speed (COL, 2003).

This paper discusses the general thesis that massive open online courses (in short MOOC), open educational resources (in short OER) and learning analytics are an impactful trio for future education, especially if combined. The contribution bases upon our practical experience as service providers and researchers in the department "Educational Technology" at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria. The team members provide support to lecturers, teachers and researchers in these addressed fields for several years now, for example as host of the MOOC platform iMooX.at, providing only OER since 2015. Within this contribution, we will show, against some doubtful or conflicting opinions and positions, that (a) MOOCs are opening-up education; (b) learning analytics give insights and support learning, not only online learning, if implemented in MOOCs; and (c) that OER has the potential for sustainable resources, innovations and even more impact, especially if implemented in MOOCs.

Open education provides opportunities for the inclusion of different languages in the education context. This conceptual article approaches the concept of language rights from a sociology of language perspective where language rights can be dealt with as group or collective rights. However, in terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996), language rights are considered individual rights. Language rights are associated with human rights; therefore, in this article, the human rights culture in South Africa is of importance. In the Constitution, there has been a historical shift from the recognition of two official languages towards the recognition of 11 official languages. The Constitution provides a regulatory framework within which language rights can be interpreted. The approach to language rights in the context of sociology of language and the relationship between language rights and minority and cultural rights provide a background for language rights as group rights. In this article, it is argued that language rights are exercised as individual rights in particular language communities which has implication of open education and open pedagogy.

Open Educational Resources have often been criticized for their lack of quality. Specifically, it could be argued that there are no incentives to publish open content of high quality, in the absence of positive or negative sanctions. In reply to this, I provide a principal-agent interpretation of the role of open educational resources. Namely, I argue that open educational resources can be employed by higher education institutions (operationalized as agents) as a means of signalling the principals (operation-alized as the government, or even the society as a whole) that they are worthy and thus that they deserve funding. This might contribute as a means of reducing the informational asymmetry between the society, the government and the higher education institutions which lies at the heart of the principal agent problem. Since second-order collective action problems might occur within the higher education institutions, I briefly analyze some solutions for solving these.

The term resources is understood to include the tools, materials, devices, settings, and people that learners interact with to facilitate learning and improve performance. Both the types of resources (specifically, technological resources) and how these resources are used (appropriately) serve to differentiate what is done by educational technologists from similar efforts in other fields. The chapter begins with these defining characteristics, and then, it surveys the evolution of the various types of resources and surveys how emerging technologies have affected the field. The second half
of the chapter differentiates analog and digital media, examining in greater depth how digital tools have changed the landscape of educational technology. It also discusses how settings and people are used a resources. The chapter concludes with a consideration of ethical issues in the use of resources.

free and open educational resources in wide variety of forms. Initiating the process with the school education, the projects aims to bring under umbrella the resources relevant for teacher education in future. It is also hoped by the end of 2014 the content will also be available in other regional languages too. The Unique selling point of the repository is pedagogical organization of knowledge. Unlike other repositories where the content is being uploaded in variety of forms, the NROER's focus is more on the pedagogical aspect of representation of knowledge. All the concepts in school education ranging from elementary education to higher and higher secondary education are organized in the form of concept maps which brings home the point that the entire knowledge is connected with each other.

Drawing on current literacy research, the goals of this chapter are to examine and synthesize the relevant research and best practices associated with literacy learning and teaching in virtual, blended and hybrid environments in K-12 settings. While the research base for literacy education in virtual schools, blended, and hybrid learning environments is significantly limited, it is supported by research done in the field of literacy education investigating reading and writing in online spaces. This chapter provides specific recommendations and implications for writing instruction and reading instruction in online education spaces, and in addition, implications for future research are provided.

"Open Education" is a topic which has become increasingly popular in a variety of contexts. This handbook has been written to provide a useful point of reference for readers with a range of different roles and interests who are interested in learning more about the concept of Open Education and to help them deal with a variety of practical situations.

The Open Education Handbook is a community project of the Open Education Working Group. It is supported by Creative Commons, Wikimedia Deutschland and the LinkedUp Project.

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who have made a contribution to this handbook.

Attendees at initial booksprint (London)

Brian Kelly, Web Focus
Chris Follows, UAL
Kevin Mears, University of South Wales
Leo Havemann, Birkbeck, University of London
Madi Solomon, Pearson
Marieke Guy, Open Knowledge Foundation
Mathieu d'Aquin, Open University
Michelle Brook, Open Knowledge Foundation
Pat Lockley, University of London
Phil Barker, Cetis & Heriot-Watt University
Simon Kear, Goldsmiths College, University of London
Simon Mahony, University College London
Suzanne Hardy, Newcastle University
Tony Hall
Ulrich Tiedau, University College London
William Hammonds, Universities UK
Wolfgang Greller, Open University Netherlands

Attendees of the 2nd Booksprint (Berlin)

Alek Tarkowski, Creative Commons Poland
Alessandro Adamou, Open University, UK
Anna Wertlen, VillageScribe
Balaji Venkataraman, Commonwealth of Learning
Davide Tailbi, Istituto per le Tecnologie Didattiche (ITD)
Elly Koepf, Wikimedia Deutschland
Frank Wittmann, Universität Potsdam
Ivana Marenzi, L3S Research Center, Leibniz Universität Hannover
Jake Berger, BBC
Jan Neumann, HBZ
Johanna Santos
John Weitzmann, Creative Commons
Kamil Śliwowski, Creative Commons Poland
Lucile Needen, SourceFabric
Marieke Guy, Open Knowledge Foundation
Martin Mehlberg, Leibniz Universität Hannover
Robert Lehmann
Sander van der Waal, Open Knowledge Foundation
Sebastian Horndasch, Wikimedia Deutschland
Sebastian Seitz, TSB Technologiestiftung Berlin
Sophie Bloemen, Common Causes Policy
Stefania Druga
Vera Klauer
Elhana Lernpaten
Wissam Tawileh, Technische Universität Dresden
Other contributors
Bekka Kahn, P2PU University
Cable Green, Director of Global Learning, Creative Commons
Fabian Tompsett, Wikipedia
Jacky Hood, Open Doors Project
Jade Forester, Global Coordinator + Liaison, Mozilla Foundation
Jane Park, Project Manager, Creative Commons
Michael Chesterman, FLOSS Manuals
Raniere Silva, Open Knowledge Foundation
Brazil Stefan Dietze, L3S Research Center,Leibniz Universität Hannover
Terry McAndrew, Jisc TechDis

The first draft of the Open Education Handbook was edited by Rob Farrow in September-October 2014.

The Wikibooks version was created by Martin Poulter in December 2014.

risorse educative aperte e sperimentazione didattica : le proposte del progetto innovascuola-amelis per la condivisione di risorse e lo sviluppo professionale dei docenti / maria ranieri (a cura di). -Firenze: Firenze university press, 2012. (strumenti per la didattica e la ricerca; 140) http://digital.casalini.it/9788866551942 isBn 978-88-6655-193-5 (print) isBn 978-88-6655-194-2 (online pdF) Certificazione scientifica delle Opere tutti i volumi pubblicati sono soggetti ad un processo di referaggio esterno di cui sono responsabili il consiglio editoriale della Fup e i consigli scientifici delle singole collane. le opere pubblicate nel catalogo della Fup sono valutate e approvate dal consiglio editoriale della casa editrice. per una descrizione più analitica del processo di referaggio si rimanda ai documenti ufficiali pubblicati sul sito-catalogo della casa editrice (http://www.fupress.com). Consiglio editoriale Firenze University Press G. nigro (coordinatore), m.t. Bartoli, m. Boddi, F. cambi, r. casalbuoni, c. ciappei, r. del punta, a. dolfi, V. Fargion, s. Ferrone, m. Garzaniti, p. Guarnieri, G. mari, m. marini, m. Verga, a. Zorzi.

It is a well-known fact that innovative e-learning concepts have pushed IT technologies to new levels of development or, reciprocally, innovative or even disrupting technologies have opened new possibilities for elearning. There are many examples of IT technologies that contributed to new or improved learning paradigms and styles, such as social networks, mobile devices, augmented and virtual reality, MOOCs and distributed computing. Recently, several research works discuss how the blockchain concepts and technologies can be applied not only in cryptocurrency, but also on elearning and educational processes with an essential impact, e.g. de-centralization of resources, open learning, tokenization of elearning, authenticity and security of information and resources. The current research paper will address how blockchain can be utilized with microservice based architectures, based on similarities, to support the most modern trends in education, such as open learning communities. In the first part of the paper, the main concepts and mechanisms behind the blockchain technologies are reviewed and explained in comparison with concepts and characteristics of microservices, considered a similar architectural pattern. Blockchain relies on the existing algorithms (such as cryptography) and distributed computing to bring new concepts such as ledgers and smart contracts. Likewise, microservices have roots on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Application Programming Interfaces (API). Microservices represent a new arhitectural pattern, to change the traditional way of software development resulting in "application monoliths" to a true modularization by means of composition of standalone software components (microservices), having well-defined functionality, securely exposed to other microservices or applications. In the second part, a software architecture leveraging blockchain smart contract and microservices to support open learning communities, unique identity, secure storage and retrieval of resources will be proposed and described.

Ziel der Ist-Analyse zu Open Educational Resources (kurz OER) in Deutschland ist es, deren Reichweite innerhalb Deutschlands abzubilden sowie insbesondere die Situation in den Bildungsbereichen Schule, Hochschule, berufliche Bildung und Weiterbildung darzustellen. In der Analyse werden unter „OER“ offene Bildungsressourcen bzw. freie Bildungsmaterialien verstanden, bei denen es allen gestattet ist, das Werk entgeltfrei, ggf. unter Auflagen, zu bearbeiten und weiterzuverbreiten. Dazu müssen die Materialien mit einer freien Lizenz zur Verfügung gestellt worden sein (z.B. CC BY oder CC BY-SA) oder der Gemeinfreiheit unterliegen. Der Ist-Stand zur Situation und Debatte um OER in Deutschland wird anhand existierender Quellen (insbesondere vorhandener Publikationen) abgebildet. Ergänzend werden im Vorfeld durchgeführte (Kurz-) Interviews sowie schriftlich gestellte Anfragen an Expertinnen und Experten präsentiert. Die Darstellung der Situation von OER in den einzelnen Bildungsbereichen greift jeweils deren (fach-)spezifische Besonderheiten auf, die in Bezug auf verwendete Bildungsmaterialien von Bedeutung sind. Die Ist-Analyse richtet sich an Bildungsexpertinnen und -experten, die sich zum Stand der Entwicklung zu OER in Deutschland informieren möchten. Diese Analyse entstand im Projekt Mapping OER - Bildungsmaterialien gemeinsam gestalten. Das Projekt wird von Wikimedia Deutschland durchgeführt und vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung gefördert. Die Analyse erscheint als Band 10 der Schriftenreihe „Beiträge zu offenen Bildungsressourcen“ (O3R.EU), welche von Martin Ebner und Sandra Schön herausgegeben wird. Die Reihe wird getragen vom gemeinnützigen Verein BIMS e.V. mit Sitz in Bad Reichenhall (http://bimsev.de). Die Autorinnen und Autoren sind Martin Ebner, Elly Köpf, Jöran Muuß-Merholz, Martin Schön, Sandra Schön und Nils Weichert.

In the modern era of information technology, digital resources have become readily accessible source of learning for teachers and learners. One such movement that encourages and enables sharing such learning resources is OER (Open Educational Resources). In India OER movement is especially important as higher education is still facing the paucity of high quality teachers, inadequate infrastructure of the universities and more specifically their libraries, and the derisory quality of Educational Resources utilized at the various universities
and colleges. The paper intends to elucidate the OER movement in Indian higher education and to introduce the open educational resources initiatives in /Indian higher education. It also outlines the issues hindering the progress of OER in India along with the recommendations that address these issues.