TUTORIAL SESSION

Open Educational Resources and their Importance for Elearning

Prof. Rory McGreal
Athabasca University, Canada
rory@athabascau.ca

Duration

3 hours

Abstract

The workshop is designed to disseminate knowledge about OER and the OER movement internationally. The UNESCO Chair programme is promoting the use of OER at the institutional, national and international levels with universities and colleges, with a focus on the developing world. OER are free and available learning resources that are made accessible on the Internet. Workshop participants are encouraged to share open content with other universities and colleges internationally. Students anywhere will be able to access the content wherever they have an Internet connection.
This workshop is supported by UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). UNESCO/COL Chairholder Dr Rory McGreal is holding this workshop to promote the OER concept ans develop an international network of institutions sharing resources as OER, for the benefit learners, teachers and thosewho are unable to attend traditional classes.”
Open Education Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials freely available online for everyone to use, including instructors, students, or self-learners. Examples of OERs include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.

Objectives

* Introduce the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) and the open licensing frameworks and the main issues and challenges in using OER;
* Explain the purpose of the UNESCO OER Chairs programme and the need for an international network;
* Present the UNESCO Guidelines on OER in Higher Education and get feedback from participants;
* Introduce the OER University concept and open discussion on how it can be supported;
* Explore how open licensing can help to improve the quality of elearning; and
* Discuss where and how policies and practices in education need to change in order to harness the potential of OER.

Timeline

Each of the six objectives will be allocated a half hour. Discussions will be encouraged in each topic area. The workshop will be organized as a dialogue between the presenter and participants as well as among participants themselves.

Target Audience

Familiarity with elearning, but no minimum background knowledge requirement.

Qualifications of the Instructor(s)

Rory McGreal is the UNESCO/COL (Commonwealth of Learning) Chair in Open Educational Resources (OER). He has a PhD in Educational Technology, taken online at a distance. He is also a professor and the Associate VP Research of Athabasca University – Canada’s Open University and member of the the Board of the Open Educational Foundation. He was previously the Executive Director of TeleEducation NB a bilingual (French/English) provincial elearning network and before that, a supervisor at Contact North, a distance education network in Northern Ontario. He has also worked abroad in the Middle East, Seychelles, and Europe. He has been honored with the Wedemeyer Award as Distance Education practitioner He researches the implementation and management of distance education systems and networks from technological, pedagogical and policy perspectives. His present research interests include the use of Open Educational Resources and standards in technology assisted learning, particularly in the development and application of learning objects on mobile devices for M-learning.
As the UNESCO/COL Chair in OER, he is an internationally respected leader in promoting the use of OER. The UNESCO Chairs are designed to act as “think tanks and bridge builders between the academic world, civil society, local communities, research and policy-making, serving as a prime means of capacity building through the exchange of knowledge and sharing in a spirit of solidarity as a strategy to enrich institutions.”
The main participants in the Chair network are universities and research institutions, in partnership with many important higher education NGOs, foundations, and public and private sector organizations. The UNITWIN network opens avenues for the higher education community to join forces with UNESCO to achieve the objectives of the global agenda.