Policy Brief

Audit of higher education in Scottish universities

Brief addressed to: Education policymakers in the Scottish government and institutions

The subject of the brief: Audit of higher education in Scottish universities

Date: July 2016

Location of Research: United Kingdom

Executive summary:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning resources that are publicly accessible, may be used and updated by anybody, and are not restricted in any way. When used effectively, OER may provide free, elevated learning resources to everyone in the country. OER can assist governments in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in providing accessible and affordable quality education and encouraging possibilities for self-improvement for everyone. This policy brief outlines available educational materials and potential initiatives to promote open learning in the higher education sector.

What are Open Educational Resources (OER)?

OER are educational resources that are publicly available and may be freely modified by the general audience. Training, studying, and resources in the public sphere or made available through a property rights license that allows for unrestricted use and reinvention by others are known as open educational resources or OER (General, 2016). As a result, OER may be used by instructors and administrations who support the education system to distribute efficient instructional resources to their citizens (and beyond) for practically no cost (General, 2016). Many contend that administrations should actively encourage OER since sharing information and insight is at the heart of education (General, 2016). By switching to this paradigm, educational possibilities will become more egalitarian worldwide, and social benefits will be promoted without compromising the standard of instruction.

The development of OER is possible because:

•Virtually all instructional resources are "born digital," making them cheap and easy to keep, copy, and disseminate.

•The public may easily share digital material online, thanks to the internet.

• Open licensing (General, 2016).

Findings

Why are OERs required?

OER is required to guarantee that all instructors and students, in all nations, with all levels of money, have access to advanced educational resources. Higher education and tertiary students are sometimes compelled to buy pricey textbooks for their academic subjects(General, 2016). These students frequently lack the funds to purchase these textbooks (General, 2016). Thus they do not and most of the time, administrations buy the instructional materials for K–12 schools.

How might OER benefit teachers?

OER enables teachers to customize lessons to each student's unique requirements, guarantee that materials are current, and make sure that money does not impede obtaining excellent educational materials (General, 2016). Around the world, OER is being utilized in official elementary, secondary, and university education and workforce development, and student engagement.

Is OER of a high caliber?

Studies at all educational levels demonstrate that students who utilize OER do equally well and frequently even better than their counterparts who use conventional resources. Additionally, many OER is created using exacting peer review and development procedures similar to those employed by traditional educational publishers (General, 2016). Therefore, it's crucial to remember that a resource's effectiveness is not always affected by whether it is open or closed. Being transparent makes it possible for teachers to utilize the tool more efficiently, improving student learning and results (General, 2016). OER, for instance, may be updated, modified, and enhanced locally to meet the requirements of students. For example, OER can be translated into a native dialect, modified to meet local science norms, and made accessible for pupils with hearing impairments (General, 2016). Therefore, students who utilize OER do equally well and frequently even better than their counterparts who use conventional resources.

An Open Educational Licensing Policy is what?

The concept behind open education licensing is that all publicly financed educational resources—those purchased with tax dollars—should be freely licensed by nature. An available licensing provision in a federal grant or agreement that mandates publicly financed educational resources to be freely licensed is known as an open education licensing policy (General, 2016). Grantees (or taxpayer-funded entities) must share information created with public funding widely and under an open license to receive public cash.

Options for policy

• Licensing new resources as OER can assist lower the cost of replication and provision of services to learners.

• Existing OER may be considered before engaging in the advancement of new materials (General, 2016).

Limitations to evidence/conflicting evidence:

OER is still in the infant stages with many benefits, necessitating a review of the barriers preventing wider use. According to research, for OERs to be more widely accepted, there is a need to raise the visibility of OER repositories, ensure that the information is of high quality, and foster interactive online communities (General, 2016). While instructors share their lesson plans casually with their coworkers inside their organizations and with their pupils, this does not frequently happen on a global scale or through formal channels (Kurelovic, 2016). When it does, there is relatively little usage of appropriate licenses (Kurelovic, 2016). Uncertainty surrounding the ownership of instructional content's copyright, which is whether it belongs to the organization funded by the national budget that is paying the teacher's salary or to the teacher who created it and invested his knowledge, expertise, and time in it, is one of the barriers preventing OER from being used in a broader scale.

Conclusions:

Authorities have the chance to use open educational resources (OER) to give all of their inhabitants' access to free, top-notch learning resources since OER is gradually becoming a part of regular education. Administrations will be better equipped to guarantee accessible and solid education and create possibilities for lifelong learning for everyone with widespread support for the use of OER. Everyone will be able to receive the schooling they seek when all educators are committed to providing genuinely free access to their educational materials and when "open" rather than "closed" is the default setting for all publicly financed educational resources.

Reference List

General, A., 2016. Audit of higher education in Scottish universities | Audit Scotland. [online] Audit Scotland. Available at: https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/publications/audit-of-higher-education-in-scottish-universities . 

Kurelovic, E., 2016. Advantages and limitations of usage of open educational resources in small countries. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 2(1), p.136.