Open educational resources

1. OER Initiatives in India
Dr.M.Deivam
Assistant Professor (C)
Department of Education
The Gandhigram Rural Institute (Deemed to be University)
Gandhigram, Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu – 624 302
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3. History of OER
• A large part of the early work in OERs was
funded by government institutions and the
William and Flora Hewlett Foundations.
• Between 2002 to 2010, the foundation
donated more than $ 14 million to
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) to develop the MIT Open
Courseware.
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4. Contd.,
• Believing that OERs can widen access to
quality education, particularly when shared
by many countries and higher education
institutions.
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
champions OERs as a means of promoting
access, equity and quality in the spirit of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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5. OER – Indian Scenario
• The term Open Educational Resources first came
into use at UNESCO’s Forum on the Impact of
Open Course Ware for Higher Education in
Developing Countries in 2002.
• According to UNESCO, Open Educational
Resources are defined as “technology enabled,
open provision of educational resources for
consultation use and adaptation by the
community of the users for non-commercial
purpose. 5

6. Contd.,
• According to Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) Open
Educational Resources are digitized materials
offered freely and openly for educators,
students and self-learners to use and reuse for
teaching, learning and research.
• OER includes learning content, software tools to
develop, use and distribute content and
implementation resources such as open licenses
(OECD, 2007)
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7. Contd.,
• In the present era India has taken several steps
for the development and welfare of OERs in
India.
• The National Mission on Education through
Information and Communication Technology
under the canopy of Ministry of Education is an
efficient step for the enhancement of OER in
India.
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8. OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER)
• OERs are learning, teaching and research
materials in digital form that reside in the
public domain or have been released
under an open license that permits free
access, use, adaptation and redistribution
by others with no or limited restrictions.
OERs help improve learning across the
globe.
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9. • They are important for developing countries,
where:
– students may not be able to afford textbooks,
because of high cost.
– students access to classrooms may be limited, and
– teacher-training programs may be lacking
– encourage equality and uniform learning. The OERs
will provide more opportunities for teaching and
learning practices.
• The high cost of printed textbooks is a big concern for
both students and their parents. If textbooks are
expensive, students will:
• find illegal PDFs online,
• not purchase them,
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11. • Open educational resource provide free, searchable,
access to course materials for educators, students, and
self-learners around the world. OERs are typically
distributed in public domain or with an open license that
allows others to share, adapt and use the content freely.
• The term open educational resource refers to learning
materials such as:
• Virtual Labs
• Interactive Videos
• Textbooks
• Audio-Video Lectures
• Animations
• Audio
• Collections of Journal Articles
• Digital Images
• Software Tools
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12. Existing OER
 Adapt: the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the
content itself (e.g., translate the content into another
language)
 Reuse: the right to use the content in a wide range of ways
(e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
 Remix :the right to combine the original or revised
content with other material to create something new (e.g.,
incorporate the content into a mash-up)
 Retain :the right to make, own, and control copies of the
content (e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
 Redistribute : the right to share copies of the original
content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g.,
give a copy of the content to peers). 12

13. Different Users of Open Educational
Resources
• Faculty/ Teachers
• Researchers
• Students
• Self-Learners
• Industry personals
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14. Designing New OER
• Language of the Resource (English Or/ And
Regional Language)
• Title
• Author
• Grade Level (Target group)
• Creation Date
• Domain
• Meet the requirement of some syllabus/
Curriculum
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16. OER Search Tools
• OASIS Website URL: https://oasis.geneseo.edu/
• OER Commons Website
URL:https://www.oercommons.org/
• XPERT Website URL :
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/
• CC Search Website URL:
https://search.creativecommons.org
• OER Dynamic Search Engine Website URL:
https://libguides.tcc.edu/ faculty/ OER/ search-
engines
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17. Advantages of OER
• Expand the use of alternatives to textbooks
• Anywhere any time for learning
• Social responsibility – provides education for all
• Lowers cost (even free in some cases) of course
materials for students
• Maximizes the use and increases availability of
educational materials
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18. Limitations of OER
• Quality issues. Since many OER repositories allow any user
to create an account and post material, some resources
may not be relevant and/or accurate.
• Lack of human interaction between teachers and
students. OER material is created to stand alone, and since
self-learning users may access the material outside of a
classroom environment, they will miss out on the
discussion and instructor feedback that characterize for-
credit classes and that make such classes useful and
valuable.
• Language and/or cultural barriers. Although efforts are
being made to make OERs available in multiple languages,
many are only available in English, limiting their usefulness
to non-English speakers. Additionally, not all resources are
culturally appropriate for all audiences. 18

19. • Technological issues. Some students may have
trouble using some OERs if they have a slow or
erratic internet connection. Other OERs may require
software that students don’t have and that they
may not be able to afford.
• Intellectual property/copyright concerns. Since
OERs are meant to be shared openly, the “fair use"
exemption from the U.S. Copyright Act ceases to
apply; all content put online must be checked to
ensure that it doesn’t violate copyright law.
• Sustainability issues. Since OER creators generally
do not receive any type of payment for their OER,
there may be little incentive for them to update
their OER or to ensure that it will continue to be
available online.
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20. Integration of OER in Teaching and
Learning process
• Teachers can make use of Open Educational
Resources (OERs) in their classroom teaching.
• Teachers find several course material related to
their subject area developed by other experts.
• Theses course materials, teachers can also
customize according to their student
requirement because of the freedom provided by
OER to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and
redistribute without asking for permission.
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21. Contd.,
• The teacher can encourage students for self-
learning by using OER. Many organizations have
developed organized resources centers for use by
teachers and learners.
• The teacher can promote learning among the
students by using OERs.
• The OER provides students opportunity to get
quality course material in their respective course.
The teacher may ask students to explore best
courses in their own discipline.
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22. OER INITIATIVES IN INDIA
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23. National Digital Library of India (NDLI)
• NDLI is an initiative of IIT Kharagpur and aims to
provide free access to digitized educational
content in English and other Indian languages
on a common platform. The project, started in
2015, and aims to bring under its fold 100
educational institutes and provide access to a
collection of one million digitised books and
journals in the first phase.
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24. OER - NCTE
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25. National Programme on Technology
Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)
It is a Government of India initiative a project
funded by Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD). The initiative was started
in 1999 with a prime aim of developing and
enhancing the basic knowledge of science and
engineering with the help of multimedia and the
internet. The main motive of NPTEL is to
empower students and prepare them for
competition on global level. It is a joint venture
by seven Indian Institute of Technology and
Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.
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26. E-PG Pathshala
For the development of postgraduate programmes
in India the Ministry of Human Resource
Development under the canopy of National Mission
on Education through ICT (NME ICT) has assigned
UGC a assignment for the development of e-content
in 77 subjects of postgraduate level .The E-patshala
covers many subjects in its broad spectrum across
the disciplines of Arts Humanities ,Languages,
Engineering and Technology, Life Science, Medical
and Health Science, Physical and Basic Sciences,
Social Science.It strongly advocates "Massive Open
Online Course"(MOOCS).
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27. Consortium for Educational
Communication (CEC)
• Consortium for Educational Communication
(CEC) is one among the University Centers set up
by University Grants Commission (UGC).CEC has
been primarily set up to address the needs of
higher education by the use of powerful
television media along with appropriate use of
Information and Communication Technology
(ICT).CEC produces educational programmes in
different subjects by coordinating with 21 Media
Centres. The e-content of CEC is in the form of
audio, video etc.
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28. e-Gyankosh
e-Gyankosh is a national digital repository meant
to store, index, preserve, distribute and share the
digital learning resources developed by the Open
and Distance Learning Institutions in India. The
items in e-Gyankosh are protected by copyright.
The course material is available in PDF format
that is downloadable freely. Resources can be
accessed through online. It provides access to
videos and text materials.
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29. National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT)
• National Council of Educational Research and
Training (NCERT) (http://www.ncert.nic.in/): NCERT
has made available school textbooks and reference
books online through its website to ensure easy
and free access by teachers and learners. The
books are in Hindi, English and Urdu. The e-books
are available as flipbooks and can also be
downloaded on the mobile phones. The material is
provided under copyright notice with restrictions
on further distribution and re-use.
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30. National Repository of Open Educational
Resources (NROER)
It is another project of OER. It was launched by
Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India with a
collaborative effort of Central Institute on
Educational Technology, NCERT in collaboration
with Department of School Education and
Literacy. The repository supports education via
audio, video, images and textual document on
various topics in various subjects which are
broadly mapped in 5 categories which are:
Math, Science, Social Science, Languages and Art
Education.
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31. National Institute of Open Schooling
(NIOS)
National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) is another
OER initiative of Ministry of HRD ,Government of India
it claims to be the largest schooling system in the world
.NIOS was established with a vision to develop
Sustainable inclusive learning with universal and
flexible access to quality school education and skill
development and a mission to providing relevant,
continuing and holistic education up to pre-degree
level through Open and Distance Learning System. (ii).
Contributing to the Universalisation of School
Education. (iii). Catering to the educational needs of
the prioritized target groups for equity and social
justice. This OER is meant for school level education.
NIOS as maintained online course material pertinent to
school and secondary school level. 31

32. SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active-Learning
for Young Aspiring Minds)
• Swayam platform is an initiative by MHRD, to
provide free Massive Open On-line Courses
(MOOCs) on all kinds of subjects. It is an Indian
Open Source platform based on Open edX for
providing blended MOOCs in native Indian
languages. Microsoft has been selected as the
technical partner for the project. Online courses on
SWAYAM platform shall be made available by various
partner institutions identified by the National
MOOCs coordinator. The project aims to launch
2,000 massive open online courses (MOOC) for over
30 million students this year. 32

33. SWAYAM PRABHA
The SWAYAM PRABHA is a group of 32 DTH
channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality
educational programmes on 24X7 basis using the
GSAT-15 satellite. Every day, there will be new
content for at least (4) hours which would be
repeated five more times in a day, allowing the
students to choose the time of their convenience.
The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC,
CEC, IGNOU NCERT and NIOS. The INFLIBNET
Centre maintains the web portal.
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34. Spoken Tutorial
• Spoken Tutorial is a multi-award winning
educational content portal. Here one can learn
various Free and Open Source Software all by
oneself. Our self-paced, multi-lingual courses
ensure that anybody with a computer and a
desire for learning, can learn from any place, at
any time and in a language of their choice.
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35. Shodhganga
• Shodhganga is a digital repository of Indian
theses and dissertations, set up by INFLIBNET
(Information and Library Network)Centre in
2010. This repository provides easy access to
theses and dissertations submitted in Indian
universities by doctoral and other research
students.
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36. ShodhGangotri
• ShodhGangotri is a repository of Indian Research in
Progress. This is an initiative by the INFLIBNET Centre
which was started in 2011.
• Under the initiative called “ShodhGangotri”, research
scholars / research supervisors in universities are
requested to deposit electronic version of approved
synopsis submitted by research scholars to the
universities for registering themselves for the Ph.D
programme Now it is expanded to MRPs/PDFs/ Emeritus
Fellowship etc. The repository on one hand, would reveal
the trends and directions of research being conducted in
Indian universities, on the other hand it would avoid
duplication of research. Synopsis in “ShodhGangotri”
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37. Project OSCAR
• Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations
Repository) (http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/): Project OSCAR is an
initiative by Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
• It is a large repository of web-based, interactive
animations and simulations, referred to as Learning
Objects (LOs), for teaching various concepts in science
and technology. LOs are on topics in various subjects at
the Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.
• The project also aims to provide training opportunities to
students in developing LOs, managing the back-end of the
repository, and conducting educational research.
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38. Agropedia
• Agropedia is an online knowledge repository, serving as one-stop
hub for information related to agriculture in India.
• The portal, designed as an agricultural Wikipedia provides localized
content in multiple Indian languages. It hosts wide range of
agricultural information organized in the form of knowledge objects
(text, image, audio, and video), and knowledge models represented
using concept mapping tools.
• The project is developed by IIT Kanpur in collaboration with a
number of institutions, with support from by Government of India
through the National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP)of the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The platform
provides space for interactivity, sharing of best practices, news
updates, and online library (gyandhara) with certified content.
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39. Thank You
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