Open educational resources (OER) are rapidly becoming a major phenomenon in education across OECD countries and beyond. Initiated largely at the level of institutions by pioneers and technology advocates, the OER community has grown considerably over the past ten years and the impact of OER on educational systems has become an issue of public policy. The open education community is increasingly well organised and enjoys support from various institutions and foundations. National governments have developed, or are in the process of developing, open policies to support access to and use of OER.

Education is the key to economic, social and environmental progress, and governments around the world are looking to improve their education systems. The future of education in the 21st century is not simply about reaching more people, but about improving the quality and diversity of educational opportunities. How to best organise and support teaching and learning requires imagination, creativity and innovation. Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials that make use of tools such as open licensing to permit their free reuse, continuous improvement and repurposing by others for educational purposes. The OER community has grown considerably over the past ten years and the impact of OER on educational systems has become an issue of public policy. This report aims to highlight state of the art developments and practice in OER, but also to serve as a basis for exchanges and discussions that lead to cross-country peer learning on how to improve teaching and learning.

This chapter introduces OER in the context of educational policy and practice. In the first section it compares and contrasts OER to other commonly discussed innovations in education: learning objects, digital learning materials, open data, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and open education. It then goes on to explain how OER provide a special type of innovation potential capable of supporting new forms of teaching and learning. In contrast to other analyses of OER, this report takes the view that OER should be considered in the context of key challenges for educational systems today. Six key educational challenges are therefore identified and the possible contribution of OER to solving them briefly sketched.

This chapter focuses on the type of innovation potential inherent in OER for improving teaching and learning and how this potential can be harnessed. Based on the analyses in the other chapters of this report, it formulates 11 specific policy considerations, which should be used to guide decisions by policy makers, and goes on to recommend specific policy actions in four key areas: supporting the provision of OER; supporting the use and adaptation of OER; adapting framework conditions for teaching and learning accordingly; and supporting further research on use, adaptation and sharing of OER.

This chapter looks at how open educational resources (OER) can facilitate learning that is appropriate for the 21st century. There is a high expectation that OER will lead to pedagogical change and more learner-centred experiences. The four cases of OER used give evidence for how it can support peer learning between learners and the individualisation of the learning experience. The closing section discusses the pedagogical challenge associated with using OER to their full potential.

This chapter recognises that teachers and instructors are provided with new opportunities through open educational resources (OER). However, there is evidence that teachers require support to learn the necessary skills to benefit from the new degrees of freedom in designing relevant instructional materials. The four practice cases highlight different ways to support teachers, but also show that concerted efforts are needed to get beyond the self-motivated few. A key question for OER in teaching is the extent to which they are integrated into the curriculum. This chapter closes with a look at the alignment of OER in the design and delivery stages of educational provision.

This chapter looks at the common expectation that open educational resources (OER) lead to cost savings for private households and the public purse. It differentiates between initial development costs and maintenance costs once an OER has been developed and is being used. The development costs may be the same, higher or lower than the original educational resources they are replacing – depending on what the OER are being used for. Maintenance costs can be low, but are dependent on maintenance being coordinated and happening. Examples are given of countries that have been liberalising their procurement strategies for educational resources in the expectation that OER will help save costs without a negative impact on quality. The practical cases of OER use presented in the chapter further emphasise the cost-saving potential of reusing and widely distributing existing resources.

This chapter investigates how open educational resources (OER) can help facilitate the continual improvement of educational resources. This is largely made possible through the adaptability of OER. The presented cases show that the flexibility of OER leads to the need to rethink quality assurance mechanisms. The final section of the chapter discusses the possibilities of using both more open quality assurance mechanisms and applying standards to ensure that what is learnt using OER is recognised in formal education.

This chapter investigates how open educational resources (OER) can facilitate a wider distribution of higher quality education resources. While this topic may not be at the top of governments’ agendas, the practical cases highlight how OER can give access to virtual laboratories, but also contribute to breaking down disparities in educational resources between countries, between educational institutions in the same country, and between formal, non-formal and informal learning settings. Studies and concrete cases show that the adaptation and augmentation of educational resources made possible by OER are necessary to ensure successful integration into new educational settings.

This chapter considers the new learning opportunities made possible through open educational resources (OER). Technology-enhanced learning allows mode, place, time and pace of learning opportunities to be varied, and OER enables the simple adaptability of educational resources, as shown by the cases presented in this chapter. The discussion section highlights how for OER, as with other educational resources, the interaction between people, information and instruments must be considered to achieve successful outcomes. For this reason, the concept of “inclusive” or “universal” design that aims to match learners’ abilities with their opportunity for learning is presented.

This chapter investigates research challenges specific to OER. Reviews of existing research have concluded that there have been insufficient analyses of the use, sharing and adaptation of OER. This chapter will cover three sources of information about OER usage, sharing and adaptation patterns: 1) automatic tracking of usage in OER repositories; 2) user surveys and 3) qualitative studies. The potential of each of these information sources is examined and the real benefits in practice are presented. The main purpose is to examine the research potential of each of these information sources and how they can be combined to provide more insight into the practices of OER use, sharing and adaptation.

This chapter considers the sustainability challenges for OER initiatives. A conceptual model is presented that distinguishes between three models of cost recovery: philanthropy (and government support), community and revenue. In each case the challenge of sustainability, methods of covering initial and maintenance costs, and measuring success are presented. The role that government plays in providing funding and setting up favourable conditions for recovering costs using the three models is explored. Exemplary cases of OER initiatives are then presented and their cost-recovery models are highlighted.

This chapter identifies that the potential of OER can only be achieved through explicit policy support in the areas of production, use, reuse and adaptation of OER. This requires support in four areas: material support, information and training campaigns as well as changes to some regulations governing teaching and learning practices. The findings are based on background research before and discussions at the CERI/OECD Policy Seminar entitled “OER support through policy – exchange and discussion of good practices”, held in January 2015.