In follow-up to my previous post on OERs, I should have mentioned the meeting on The OER University that Wayne Mackintosh is organizing in Otago, New Zealand, on February 23 (you can register as a remote participant if you don’t have the fare to New Zealand).
The OER for Assessment and Credit for Students Project will provide opportunities for these OER learners who are interested in earning formal academic credit for their learning. This project will contribute to the design and development of the OER university.
Both UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning are sponsors of this project, and you can see the video of the ‘welcome’ speech by Sir John Daniel, President of CoL, here:
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
Hi Tony,
I agree, the OER movement could do with a healthy dose of the research and experience from (ODL) open distance learning. ODL is rooted in a similar philosophy (open learning), but with more experience in the design, development and delivery of asynchronous learning opportunities.
We have every opportunity to scale this experience by an order of magnitude now possible with open content licenses and the open web. The planning meeting for the OER university concept aims to translate the experience of ODL into scalable and sustainable futures for OER.
See: http://wikieducator.org/Towards_an_OER_university:_Free_learning_for_all_students_worldwide
Lets hope that we can repeat the history associated with the fundamental transformation we witnessed with the inception of ODL. Single-mode distance teaching universities did not exist prior to the industrial revolution. Perhaps the OER university concept is the equivalent for a knowledge-based economy.
Exciting times.