WHAT ARE OER?
Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational resources, i.e. teaching and learning materials, which are provided free of charge. They may be passed on and (mostly) modified, which is determined with the help of Creative Commons licenses. In addition to free access to education, OER also serves the further development of teaching/learning materials for different target groups and disciplines. In this way, it is possible to gain insights into the teaching practices of others and to support the exchange of information.
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a special form of OER. In theory, an unlimited number of participants can be involved in this form of online course. In MOOCs, as in other courses, proof of achievement can be obtained. Typical components of MOOCs are e-lectures, online testing, forums, wikis and more. A MOOC thus combines various digital materials and social media tools as part of a didactic overall concept. The aim is for the participants to also develop content in a collaborative manner and to achieve partly self-imposed learning goals.
Critical-reflexive media education combined with concepts for the promotion of information and media literacy are of great importance in the OER theme. In particular, information scientists, librarians, media educators and other actors in this environment make a decisive contribution to the development or improvement of structured repositories in the OER community. discoverability, use and exchange of OER materials.
Initiatives in Germany and Austria are already well documented. Below we refer to the respective websites and offer a selection of further literature and links.
Link collection of German education servers to OER
Various white papers on OER
School, university, further education/adult education More
OER-MuMiW
Makers and multipliers in continuing training – Qualification measure for OER expert More
Mapping OER
Practical framework for Germany More
OER-Atlas 2016 – Open Educational Resources in German-speaking countries – an overview of actors and projects. Swiss projects are listed on p. 59 and the SIG OER on p. 80. more
Feasibility study
Building and operating OER infrastructures in education More
mooin
MOOC platform from oncampus (University of Applied Sciences Lübeck) More
HOOU
Hamburg Open Online University More
OERlabs
(Teacher’s Office) Training students together for OER (project of the University of Cologne) More
Jointly
Cooperation and support for OER projects and actors with a focus on IT, law, didactics and production More
Free University of Berlin
Digital teaching and learning resources More
OER repository
Virtual campus Rhineland-Palatinate
Self-test and gamification tools as OER More
OER Librarian Network Germany
Networking, exchange of information and experience, development of common action concepts More
Open Education Austria
Project of Austrian universities for the joint development of a nat. Infrastructure for OER More
iMooX
MOOC Platform of the University of Graz More
Recommendations for the integration of Open Educational Resources at universities in Austria
Working group “Open Educational Resources” of the Forum neue Medien in der Lehre Austria (fnm-austria). Ebner, Martin; Freisleben-Teutscher, Christian F.; Gröblinger, Ortrun; Kopp, Michael; Rieck, Katharina; Beautiful, Sandra; Seitz, Peter; Seissl, Maria, Ofner, Sabine; Zwiauer Charlotte (2016) More
The Open Science Movement and its Importance for Scientific Libraries: An Analysis of Position Papers and Development Perspectives
In: Berlin Handouts on Library and Information Science; 428. Berlin: Institute for Library and Information Science of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Gerdes, Thomas (2018) More
Find free teaching materials, use them legally, make and share them yourself. All about Open Educational Resources
Muuß-Merholz, Jöran (2018) More
Opening up Education. A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions
JRC Science for Policy Report; Inamorato dos Santos, Andrea; Punie, Yves; Castano Munoz, Jonathan (2016) More
Educational Resources” – innovative driving force for development and education? The state of implementation of a real utopia in the field of education
In: Elsen, Susanne; Aluffi Pentini, Anna (eds.): Social awakening, real utopias and work on the social. Bolzano: bu,press; 227-250. Arnold, Patricia (2013) View (PDF)
Open, Free, Good – Open Educational Resources
In: Blog of the author edacttik. Luka Peters on teaching and learning with digital media. Peters, Luka (2013) More
Open Educational Resources Guide for Libraries and Information Institutions
In: handbuch.io; Hanover: Technical Information Library. Bartsch, Caroline; Brauser, Melanie; Bursky, Julian; Kirtyan, Uta; Koschinski, Christoph; Mußmann, Wolf-Dietrich; Richter, Astrid; Stummeyer, Sabine; Zander; Carolin (2016) More
Open educational resources: freely accessible and usable
In: Wilbers, K.; Hohenstein, (ed.): E-Learning Manual. Expert knowledge from science and practice. Strategies, instruments, case studies. 39. Erg.-Lfg.; Ebner, M.; Schön, S. (2011) More
Open Educational Resources as a Lifelong Learning Strategy using the example of TU Graz
Ebner, M.; Stöckler-Penz, C. (2011) More
Open Access – Open Access, Open Educational Resources and Copyright
In: L3T; Mruck, Katja; Günter Mey, Peter Purgathofer, Sandra Schön, Nicolas Apostolopoulos (2011) More
Guidelines for Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education
Guide to Open Educational Resources OER in Higher Education; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2011) View (PDF)
The OER SchoolBook – Feasibility Study on the Use/Implementation of Textbooks as a Free Educational Resource
In: Ebner, Martin; Beautiful, Sandra (eds).: O3R – Contributions to open educational resources. Volume 8. Vlaj, Gernot (2014) More
What makes OER projects successful? An analysis of success factors of open education resource (OER) projects in the school context
In: Ebner, Martin; Beautiful, Sandra (eds).: O3R – Contributions to open educational resources. Volume 9. Stadler, Martina (2015) More
Academic teaching needs more “open educational practices” for dealing with “Open Educational Resources” – a plea
In: Journal of Higher Education Development. ZFHE, Jg. 8 / No. 4 (November 2013). Mayrberger, Kerstin; Hofhues, Sandra (2013) More
To OER or not to OER? A question for academic libraries
Paper persented at: IFLA WLIC 2016 Columbus, OH – Connections. Collaboration. Community in Session 101 – Poster Sessions. Stummmeyer, Sabine (2016) More
Open Education
In: Openness – Synergy. Specialist magazine for digitalization in teaching. No. 2, p. 14-19. Deimann, Markus (2016) More
Basics of OER
- The Cape Town Open Education Declaration (German Translation)
- Desirability of a standard-setting instrument on international collaboration in the field of open educational resources (OER): report on the outcomes of the 2nd World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress
- What are OER (German UNESCO Commission)
- OER German – Free Educational Content Explained (Damian Duchamps)
- “What is publicly funded must also be publicly accessible” (Interview with Jöran Muss-Merholz on Deutschlandfunk 30.10.2017)
- Free educational resources – an essential part of tomorrow’s teaching (presentation M. Ebner 2105)
- Open Educational Resources – Opportunities for Better Teaching? (Blog post TU Darmstadt 2015)
- Theme special from e-teaching.org on Digital Education Resources
- COER 2017 – MOOC to OER
- OER Actors at Universities – Overview Graphic (OER Content Buffet)
(Explained) Videos/Podcasts
- OER explains – the basics (bpb)
- OER compactly explained (project LOERn)
- COER13 – What are “Open Educational Resources” (OER)?
- Lecture by C. Spannagel on OER (2014)
- Lecture by M. Deimann on OER (2015)
- OER – Interview with Sandra Schön (2010)
- OER comprehensible (OER Conference 2014)
- Keynote by Peter Purgathofer on Open Science (2016)
Focus Quality of OER
- Quality development for OER – Checklists for image practice with open learning content
- Three checklists for quality determination of OER (Education Centre for Political Education 2018)
- Quality Development and OER – Current Approaches from an International Perspective (Lecture by O. Zawacki-Richter at Campus Innovation 2017)
- OER explains – about the quality of the materials (bpp 2016)
- State of the Art Review of Quality Issues related to Open Educational Resources (OER) (European Commission 2014)
- Blog post by Ulf-Daniel Ehlers on quality vn OER (2015)
Communities
Search for OER (Repositories)
- OER Commons
- OERsquirrel – Search for OER in German-speaking countries
- Link collection “Search for OER” by Gabi Fahrenkrog
- Teaching ideas of the edulabs community
- OER explains – this is how you can find OER on the net
- Where and how can I find Open Educational Resources? (Instructions for action wb-web.de)
- COER13 – Examples of Websites with Open Educational Resources
- ZUM-Wiki (Headquarters for Educational Media)
- Teachers online
- The Teacher Friend
- Serlo (Focus On Natural Sciences)
- Digital School Library (project of educa.ch)
- mi4u.ch (teaching ideas on media & computer science in the untericht)segu (learning platform for open history lessons)
- zebis (portal for teachers of the Central Switzerland Conference of Education Directors)
- Media at school – materials for teaching
- SODIS Content Portal (Metasearch)
Create OER yourself
- 10 useful tips to start with OER (bpb 2012)
- I would like to make my own materials available as OER (checklist of web-web.de)
- tutory – Create worksheets online
- OERup! Online training courses
- wOERksheets (app of TU Graz)
Search for images for OER
- With suitable images of free educational materials (e-teaching.org 2016)
- Link collection for free images (media pedagogy practice blog)
- Where can I find free pictures (wb-web.de)
- License notes for images from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons (license note generator)
Search for music for OER
OER Conferences
- #OERde (OERCamp, OER Forum, OER Awards)
- Overview of other events
MOOCs to OER
OER in continuing education and adult education