The document discusses open educational resources (OER) and future research questions. It provides an overview of OER, including definitions, the five R's model of open licensing, and levels of openness. It also outlines the 2017 Ljubljana OER Action Plan, which focuses on building capacity, addressing language and cultural issues, ensuring inclusive access, developing sustainability models, and supportive policy environments. It concludes by suggesting areas for future OER research, such as the use of artificial intelligence in OER and integrating OER into institutional quality assurance protocols.

1. OER and Future
ResearchQuestions
GuestLecture
AllamaIqbalOpenUniversity(AIOU),Pakistan
Dr. IshanAbeywardena (@ishansa)
Adviser:Open Educational Resources at COL
ICDE Ambassador for the Global Advocacy of OER and
Core Member of the Global OER Advocacy Committee
iabeywardena@col.org | https://www.col.org/content/dr-ishan-abeywardena
October 23, 2017

2. WHAT are
OER?
“teaching, learning and research
materials in any medium, digital or
otherwise, that reside in the public
domain or have been released
under an open license that permits
no-cost access, use, adaptation
and redistribution by others with no
or limited restrictions”
(UNESCO Paris OER Declaration, 2012)
UNESCO. (2012, June 22). 2012 PARIS OER DECLARATION. Retrieved June 13, 2013, from unesco.org:
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/WPFD2009/English_Declaration.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Open_Educational_Resources_Logo.svg

3. OER
LANDSCAPE

4. WHYOER?
The content is openly available.
It can readily be found or
discovered.
Is openly accessible.
It is in a form which others can
take it away.
Is openly reusable.
The user can easily modify it
and is allowed under the
license to do certain things
with it without having to ask
the creator’s permission first.

5. The
FREEDOMS
Five ‘R’s model
Reuse
Redistribute
Revise
Remix
Retain
Hilton, J., Wiley, D., Stein, J., & Johnson, A. (2010). The four R‘s of openness and ALMS Analysis: Frameworks
for open educational resources. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 25(1), 37-44.

6. Levels of
OPENNESS

7. The
LICENCES

8. OER inan
INSTITUTION

9. Strategic
OER
Implementation
Abeywardena, I.S. (2012). A report on the Re-use and Adaptation of Open Educational Resources (OER): An Exploration of Technologies Available.
Commonwealth of Learning. Available at http://www.col.org/resources/publications/Pages/detail.aspx?PID=411

10. 2nd WorldOER
Congress
OER for Inclusive and Equitable Quality Education
From Commitment to Action
2nd World OER Congress| 18-20 September, 2017 | Ljubljana, Slovenia
Source: http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2792

11. Ljubljana
OER
ACTION
PLAN 2017
1. Building the capacity of users
to find, re-use, create and
share OER
2. Language & Cultural issues
3. Ensuring inclusive and
equitable access to quality
OER
4. Developing sustainability
models
5. Developing supportive policy
environments
Source: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ljubljana_oer_action_plan_2017.pdf

12. BUILDING
CAPACITY
 Building awareness and skills to use
OER
 Sharing OER
 Finding OER

13. LANGUAGE
&
CULTURE
 Gender-sensitive, culturally and
linguistically relevant OER
 Technologies that overcome
language barriers
 Culturally-sensitive and linguistically
accurate OER locally
 Collaborative development and
community engagement to boost
OER uptake in different languages
 Support strategies for overcoming
cultural barriers to ensure sharing of
knowledge

14. INCLUSIVE&
EQUITABLE
ACCESS
 Ensure access to OER in media
 Provide OER in accessible formats
 Support for public investments in
bandwidth infrastructure
 Ensure that OER is available in
formal, non-formal, distance and
blended learning environments
 Supporting quality assurance
mechanisms for OER

15. SUSTAINABILITY
MODELS
 Analyze the strategic opportunities OER
bring to governments and institutions
 Analyze the ways in which OER change
the processes associated with creation
and use of quality educational resources
 Define value added models using OER by
building community across institutions
and countries
 Explore how financial flows from
governments, donors and elsewhere will
support sustainable OER models
 Explore the creation of Public Private
Partnerships between different
stakeholders in OER.

16. SUPPORTIVE
POLICY
ENVIRONMENTS
 Develop policy that requires publicly funded
educational resources be openly licensed
 Ensure that sustainable financing models are
in place
 Provide incentives to teaching staff to publish
editable, accessible OER digital files in public
repositories
 Demonstrate in policy how effective use of
OER can support and benefit key
development priorities
 Use national and institutional policy as a tool
to reinforce a holistic approach and
coordinate actions from different
stakeholders
 Encourage the establishment of links between
OER policies and other open education
policies

17. MOVING
FORWWARD
with
Research
 OER seems to work in cycles.Visibility
in ones work depends on the current
trends.These trends are not necessarily
the most cutting edge. Work which is far
ahead of the current cycle seem to go
unnoticed.
 There is a lot of interest in the use of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in OER but only
limited practical expertise within the
community.
 Quality assurance (QA) is a buzzword
but there is little understanding of how
OER, especially in OUs, integrate into
institutional QA protocols.
 “QA” is so overhyped that the
practitioner tend to compromise fit-for-
purpose for it.

18. OER are just one part of an
already prominent open
movement. Ultimately, all
these movements should
converge into an Open
Culture where shared
knowledge forms the basis of
a much wiser human race.