Open Educational Resources (OERs)

OERs are learning materials released under an open intellectual property licence or in the public domain, allowing free-of-cost and legal reuse, revision, remixing and redistribution. Whilst OERs are mainly shared in digital formats (online and offline), OER can also be in printable formats. OER include items such as courses, course modules and materials, e-textbooks, streaming videos of classroom lectures, assessments, tests, softwares and any other tools or techniques used to transmit knowledge.

The World OER congress, UNESCO, 2012 recommended that institutions, within their capacity and authority should:

• Foster awareness and use of OER
• Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT)
• Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OER
• Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworks
• Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materials.
• Foster strategic alliances for OER.
• Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural contexts.
• Encourage research on OER.
• Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OER."