Open Educational

Resources

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 Overview

What are OER?

OER licensing

Examples of sources of OER

Finding and Using OER

 Setting the Scene

• Too few learning resources for students and lecturers in

African universities
• Many resources available are too expensive to be
purchased by students, or even universities.
• Conversely, also many resources, including African ones,
underutilised;
• Impossible to find a single resource that meets all needs
for all time

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 Setting the Scene

• Changing expectations of students (“clients”).

• Increasing diversity of students … who are
often more mature.
• Changes in HE point to need to access more,
and more diverse, learning resources.

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What are OER?

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This image is a resource

It’s an image that you

could use for teaching
and learning.
An educational resource
• What is the name of the
bird in the foreground of
the picture?
• Can you name 3 other
varieties of this kind of
bird?
An OER
• What is the name of the
bird in the foreground of
the picture?
• Can you name 3 other
varieties of this kind of
bird?

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Li
cense
Citation: Tony Mays 2011
A Remixed OER
• The yellow hornbill shown left is one of
four varieties of hornbills common across
sub-Saharan Africa. The other varieties are
the grey- and red- hornbills and the much
larger ground hornbill.
• As the name suggests, the large horny
bill is the key characteristic of the species.
What does this suggest about their typical
diet?

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License
Citation: Jane Kamau 2012
Photo: Tony Mays 2011
 OER
• Open Educational Resources are teaching, learning,
and research resources that reside in the public
domain or have been released under an intellectual
property licence that permits their free
use and repurposing by others.
• OER include full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any
other tools, materials, or techniques used to support
access to knowledge. (Hewlett Foundation, 
OER Defined)
 The OER Concept

• Note the emphasis in the definition is ours, as

we feel strongly that OER should:
 be free
 not require permission to use
 allow new users to adapt and find new ways to use
resources

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 Copyright and OER

• Copyright is a law that gives the owner of a work (for

example, a book, movie, picture, song or website) the
right to say how other people can use it.
• It helps the authors to be protected from being re-
copied of their works without permission and/or re-
copying their works for commercial purpose.
(Wikipedia)

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 Copyright and OER

• Open licensing (making a resource an OER) is a

flexible form of copyright.
• Openly licensing a resource does not cede copyright.
• So a resource can be ©, and be openly licensed.

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Creative Commons

Creative Commons
CC OER licensing licenses
OER Creative Commons: licenses

± X
Some rights reserved: a spectrum for OER

Public
Domain

least restrictive
± XX
most restrictive
All Rights
Reserved
 Other free resources on the Internet

• Unfortunately, most resources on the Internet are

closed resources, even if they are available for
free.
• Materials that are under full copyright,
• or which are not accompanied by a specific
license allowing anyone to copy, adapt and share
them, are not Open Educational Resources.
https://mythbusting.oerpolicy.eu/what-are-oer-and-what-they-are-not/

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 Other free resources on the Internet
• If you want to openly license your materials,
make sure that anything you include in them is
OER.
• If something is not OER, you can aks for
permission and include a Third Party Content
label (see workshop resources).

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 Open Access (OA) Journals

• Publications are free to users worldwide and

may be distributed without requesting
permission.
• OA allows access for researchers, teachers,
journalists, policy makers and the general
public without a subscription.
• Normally CC-BY-ND

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 Open Access Journals TVET

• Empirical Research in Vocational Education an

d Training
• International Journal for Research
in Vocational Education and Training
• Other OA VET journals can be found here
• Also check Directory of OAJ

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Examples of OER available
OER has the Potential
 UP
Student Student Login
Under & Post
Graduate
Courseware

Professional UP’s ClickUp

Vet Search Facility

Content
Content
(Blackboard LMS)
Public Web Database of PD
Access to PD materials with PD Test using
Materials Open Licenses Bb MC Tools
Option
On success
to
collect
PD
points Payment
History &
1x PD Registration Payment E-Mail
details CEatUP confirmation
(DNN) to CE, SAVC
and User
Bb Blackboard Platform (LMS) PD Login
CEatUP Continuing Education Unit at UP
LMS Learner Management System
MC Multiple Choice Assessment
PD Professional Development Digital Certificate (e-Mail)
UP University of Pretoria

Open Environment Controlled Environment

edX
 Others

• The Open University (UK)

• MIT
• etc.

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 How can we use OER?

• Look for what already exists and see how we can add
value: adopt, adapt, create.

• Employ same level of rigour as in selection of

traditional resources – source, fitness for purpose,
contemporariness, accessibility, licence … (see
evaluation of OER)

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 Possibilities include

• Mixing and remixing

• Adapting / localising
• Translating
• Extracting
• Re-using/re-purposing

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More about OER

https://www.oerafrica.o
rg/understanding-oer

https://www.oerafrica.o
rg/book/welcome
(FOC)
 Using mini-tutorials within FOC
• How to Search for Open Content using Google
• How to Conduct More Effective Online Search
es
• How to Search for Open Content using Creativ
e Commons Search
• How to Search for Open Content in YouTube
 Demonstrations
• Google Advanced Search
• https://www.google.com/advanced_search

• YouTube videos openly licensed

• www.youtube.com

• Google Scholar
• https://scholar.google.co.za
(mostly not openly licensed!)
Use Google Scholar to get references correct

• You will need to keep a record of the reference

for any items you will cite.
• Particularly for academic texts
• Find in G S
• Click on the quotation icon & choose APA.
 Next ….

• Evaluating OER
• Adapting OER

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 This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

Citation:

Adapted from: Mays, T., & Ngugi, C. (2017). Open Educational Resources for Activity-
based ODeL and Flexible Provision. OER Africa/Saide

Tony Lelliott
tonyl@saide.org.za

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