A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources/Appendix 8

In evaluating the policy framework of an institution, the following steps may be useful.


 * 1) Explain the purpose of the policy review.
 * 2) Collect information about the mission, strategic plans, teaching and learning, human resource and ICT policies and procedures.
 * 3) Establish the context and indicate whether the vision, mission and strategic planning are collaboration and OER ‘friendly’.
 * 4) Identify challenges and opportunities.

For example:

5.Identify key policy positions

For example:

Having analysed some key challenges relevant to OER and collaboration in materials development, it is now possible to explore key policy positions and objectives, in order to assess their relevance. This is presented below:

6. Identify Issues for consideration

For example:

Some key issues for consideration emerge from the above review. These are as follows:

1. A policy is clearly required to govern materials development. It will be useful to ensure that it takes account of the above analysis to create a policy environment supportive of collaboration and sharing and to ensure rigour in the management of the university’s intellectual property. Some additional observations are worth noting to feed into development of that policy:
 * The Human Resource Management policy must include references to copyright or intellectual property.
 * Workshop feedback suggests that materials development does not explicitly count when considering job re-categorization and promotion, performance-based incentives, and letters of recommendation and this may need attention. It would be useful if performance appraisal could include contributions of OERs.
 * It is unclear whether or not job descriptions/employment contracts take account of the need to transfer copyright to the institution.

2. It will be important to include open licences (such as the Creative Commons framework) when organizing and executing training of staff and course writers on copyright issues and plagiarism. This will serve to deepen knowledge of the options available to manage intellectual property effectively.

3. It will be useful for the institution to begin its commitment to sharing resources with others on a limited basis in order to test the potential and explore the policy implications through action research.