2 An introduction to OER

Activity 1

About an hour
  • To get a sense of the global and governmental context of OER, explore this presentation by Sir John Daniel, a former vice-chancellor of The Open University, where he sets out the context of the 2012 Paris Declaration on OER.
  • Search on ‘Creative Commons’ if you’re not familiar with the concept, and read/skim some of your hits.
  • Read one of Martin Weller’s blog entries from early in 2013 – Openness has won – now what? – where he argues that:
    • ‘it’s hard not to conclude that openness has prevailed… Whether it’s open access publishing, open data, MOOCs, OERs, open source or open scholarship – the openness battle has largely been won.’

    Later that year, he argued that ‘it’s a mistake to talk about openness as if it’s one thing’.