History of OER

History of OER, Part 1

The MIT OpenCourseWare Links to an external site. project is seen as the first recognized OER project, though the open education movement predates this event with roots in open source, open and distance learning, and open knowledge. David Wiley coined the term "open content" in 1998 and OER was first used at UNESCO's 2002 Forum Links to an external site. on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries. In September 2007 a meeting in Cape Town led to the Cape Town Open Education Declaration Links to an external site. release on January 22, 2008.

The OER movement comprises four main categories (from SPARC Links to an external site.).

  • OpenCouseWare (OCW): OpenCourseWare is the digital publication of high-quality educational materials that are freely and openly licensed, and are available online to anyone, anytime. They frequently include course planning and evaluation tools along with thematic content. OpenCourseWare initiatives range in scope from mirroring traditional classroom sized endeavors, to the emerging MOOC (massive open online course) model, which enables large-scale participation by anyone with Internet access.
  • OER publishers: The rapid rise in the cost of textbooks, combined with the high demand for affordable alternatives, has led to the emergence of new open publishing efforts for textbooks and other OER. This category also includes initiatives geared toward developing specific collections of OER, such as the Khan Academy and Saylor Foundation.
  • OER repositories: Digital repositories have evolved into a convenient place to find, share, and remix OER from a variety of sources. They range in scope from portals and gateways that provide access to information on OER and aggregated content resources to institutional repositories with source content and tools to develop OER.
  • Publicly funded initiatives: Increasingly, policymakers on the local, state and national levels are developing policies that encourage the creation and adoption of OER. Approaches vary from directly funding the creation of OER to conditioning federal or state research dollars to require that any Education Resources produced as a result of that funding be made openly accessible. (See POERUP Links to an external site. and OER Policy in Europe. Links to an external site.)

History of OER, Part 2

When OERs were introduced to the education world in 2002, skeptics questioned whether an open resource model would work. Faculty, college administrators, and others were concerned whether OERs could match the quality and authority of textbooks and supplemental materials published by the established textbook providers. 

In the following years, as more organizations and institutions started open publishing programs, and Creative Commons began its licensing platform to certify and kick-start the open licensed model, some educators still questioned how effective OERs could be and whether they could live up to their promise as free or low-cost replacements for traditional textbooks.   

Today, the evidence is starting to mount that OERs really can have a positive impact on the educational system, from K-12 through postgraduate programs. And these impacts are both financial and performative. 

A TedTalk from 2006 by Richard Baraniuk, The birth of the open source learning revolution, Links to an external site. shares a vision and framework for the open community, and Connexions, which became OpenStax.

Attributions

Open Education Handbook/History of the OER Movement Links to an external site.is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Links to an external site.

Open Educational Resources: (OER Overview) Creative Commons Links to an external site.is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Links to an external site. © 2019, UMGC.

The birth of the open source learning revolution Links to an external site. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Non Derivative 4.0 International license. Links to an external site.