Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Open Courseware (OCW) and Open Educational Resources (OER) – the pros & cons
Open Courseware (OCW) and Open Educational Resources (OER) – the pros & cons
Based on “Get it out in the open” Times Higher Education http://bit.ly/1XLGXz) -24 September 2009 -
Advantages of making educational courses and resources open and freely accessible:
- supports self-motivated learners and provides pathways between informal and formal learning (accredited)
- increase the quality of teaching resources and ensures information is up to date as the information is “on show” to the world, including other teachers, trainers and academics
- this in turn provides a 'free' peer review process
- allows learners to 'try before they buy' or enrol in a course
- reduces replication and duplication of resources as teachers, trainers and academics can use, re-use and re-purpose existing quality resources
Disadvantages of making educational courses and resources open and freely accessible:
- the expense of updating existing resources to suit an online environment
- identifying copyright issues
