In situ editing: Repurposing open educational content

Introduction

Nowadays the internet is increasingly populated with educational websites that offer materials for use and re-use. These materials are called open educational resources (OER, also known as ‘open content’) and are resources such as text, graphics, audio or video, made available free of charge. They are usually produced by educational institutions and published online to the general public for immediate use, or for repurposing according to the users’ needs. OER can also be created by individuals, so the production of OER is not exclusive to educational institutions although largely dominated by them.

In this unit you will look at some institutional OER initiatives, such as MIT’s open courseware, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative and the Open University’s OpenLearn. You will gain an insight into how different OER initiatives design and present content for their audiences.

You will also get the opportunity to repurpose a small amount of OER from the OpenLearn website. You will try to identify the appropriate audience for the material, and repurpose it to fit the needs of that audience. In this unit you will also have the chance to apply your learning design knowledge to think of the best ways in which to repurpose OER to meet the needs of specific audiences.

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Technology-enhanced learning: practices and debates (H800) [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]