Evaluating open educational resources: Lessons learned

It was only ten years ago that MIT announced its OpenCourseWare initiative, and in 2012 the Paris Declaration on OER (Open Educational Resources) was announced by UNESCO. Over this decade, there has been a proliferation of open educational resources (OER) worldwide, including the publication of open courses that anyone may access on the Internet. This phenomenon continues to expand, but mostly without the provision of increased levels of service beyond the simple publication of course materials online. In spite of the open Creative Commons licensing under which many of OER materials are published online, actual adoption and adaptation of these materials by another institution wishing to incorporate them into a different educational context poses numerous challenges. This discussion gives an overview of the types of challenges encountered in reusing OER, and provides recommendations for institutions desiring to participate more fully in reusing and repurposing these resources. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.