This article looks at what constitutes an open educational resource and considers the issues and benefits to an educational institution that is moving to participate in open educational resource development and to adopt more open educational practices. It describes the initial steps in these directions being made by the Educational Development Centre at Otago Polytechnic, a tertiary educational and vocational training institution in Southern New Zealand. (Abstract by authors)

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the
public domain or have been released under an intellectual property
license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others.
Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools,
materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge. (By authors)

Open Educational Resources (OER) are important for the expansion of ubiquitous learning. Open licensing of learning components is a precondition for supporting anytime, anywhere learning, whether the lessons are arranged as text, multimedia, videos, applications, games or in other electronic formats. The obstacles presented by proprietary materials impede ubiquitous sharing of knowledge with the use of technological protection measures such as DRM (digital rights management), prohibitive licensing, and restrictions on format shifting, localization, content sharing and other activities considered essential in ubiquitous learning. (Abstract by author)

The proliferation of Web 2.0 social networking tools enables the creation of new open teaching and learning spaces. However the adoption of open social networks to encourage collaborative work around Open Educational Resources (OER) is a more recent phenomenon. This paper investigates the use of an open social forum associated with OER to facilitate informal and formal online activity between learners and teachers. The two participants who are lecturers are familiar with the use of closed and password protected online environments.

The developing role of the educator in open social networks is investigated through actual use of OER and open forums for informal learning and the lecturers’ attitudes towards use for formal learning are explored. The findings suggest that one lecturer wanted to consider using open environments for formal learning and one lecturer did not. Although the findings in the main are positive, there is a suggestion that facilitative techniques (both human and activity based) need to be further developed to support and sustain learning communication with OER and associated open forums. This paper gives initial feedback about expected and actual usage of OER and open forums for co-operative and collaborative learning. (Abstract by author)

he popularity of ICT within teachers has operated a shift between an individual way of producing resources to be used in class and a social way of doing it. Nowadays teachers do not have to be passive users, but reflective practitioners. To do so it is necessary to foster collaboration between teachers and find a way to improve the circulation of knowledge. We believe that Online Community of Practice could be a place in which, not only teachers can share their knowledge on their professional domain, they can also work collaboratively to create-reuse-remix-share Open Educational Resources (OER) to be used by everyone. Furthermore, Online Communities of Practice are the perfect place where the individual creativity and the social creativity can dialogue and give life to new Best Practices. This paper present a project called CREA.ti in which the individual dimension of each teacher is linked to the social dimension of its practice. (Abstract by authors)

his study presents the findings of a quantitative study on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) in Higher Education and Adult Learning Institutions. The study is based on the results of an online survey targeted at four educational roles: educational policy makers; institutional policy makers/managers; educational professionals; and learners. The report encompasses five chapters and four annexes. Chapter I presents the survey and Chapter II discloses the main research questions and models. Chapter III characterises the universe of respondents. Chapter IV advances with a detailed survey analysis including an overview of key statistical data. Finally, Chapter V provides an exploratory in-depth analysis of some key issues: representations, attitudes and uses of OEP. The table of contents and the complete list of diagrams and tables can be found at the end of the report. (Abstract by author)

his paper relates the life story of a particular educational resource (and its lead author) that went from being closed to open and which exemplifies the value of reuse and reworking of educational resources in both arenas. It describes how the educational resource was itself a reworking of previous resources and has now been reworked and reused in a number of other settings, both closed and open. It also shows the amplification and networking effects of open educational resources. (Abstract by author)

Open Educational Resource (OER)
repositories are digital databases that house
learning content, applications and tools such
as texts, papers, videos, audio recordings,
multimedia applications and social
networking tools. Through these
repositories, they are rendered accessible to
learners and instructors on the World Wide
Web. They are becoming important
resources for both learners and instructors
as the quantity and quality of the OER
Repositories increases. The recycling and
re-use of OER Repositories in standards-
based repositories can significantly increase
the cost effectiveness of both online and
blended education. With a wise and
considered implementation and integration
of OER Repositories with the removal of
intellectual property barriers, we can reduce
what is perhaps the largest barrier to
participation in education, namely, the high,
and growing individual and societal cost,
while increasing quality and opening up
mass participation in learning. This paper
addresses the following research questions:

What types of OER repositories are
available on the Internet?
What features are more or less universal and
which are specific to certain types? (Abstract by author)

There are many critical issues surrounding access, quality and costs of information and knowledge over
the Internet as well as on provision of content and learning material. As it becomes clearer that the growth
of Internet offers real opportunities for improving access and transfer of knowledge and information from
universities and colleges to a wide range of users, there is an urgent need to clarify these issues with
special focus on Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives. There is also a need to define the
technical and legal frameworks as well as business models to sustain these initiatives. That is the
background to the OECD/CERI study which aim to map the scale and scope of Open Educational
Resources initiatives in terms of their purpose, content, and funding and to clarify and analyse four main
questions: How to develop sustainable costs/benefits models for OER initiatives? What are the
intellectual property right issues linked to OER initiatives? What are the incentives and barriers for
universities and faculty staff to deliver their material to OER initiatives? How to improve access and
usefulness for the users of OER initiatives? (http://www.oecd.org/edu/oer)

his paper describes the internal motivations and external drivers that led The Open University UK to enter the field of Open Educational Resources through its institution-wide OpenLearn initiative (www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). It also describes some of the emerging evidence of the impacts inside and outside the university. Through the rapid implementation and operation of the OpenLearn website, The Open University UK has been able to better understand and promote openness through open and distance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]