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 study published in 2010 showed that, of the total output of peer-reviewed articles, roughly 20% could be found as Openly Accessible. It is worth noting also that, increasingly, the performance of senior academics is based not only on their research outputs but also, and more importantly, on their citations. It seems logical therefore, from both a social and a personal perspective, to open access to research outputs as widely as possible.

In parallel, a notion emerged of 'Open Source' learning materials, facilitated by growing exploration by educators and educational content developers of the possibilities of developing digital materials that could be designed to allow easy reuse in a wide range of teaching and learning situations. Thus, the notion of OER has 'Open Source' parallels in several areas: OER and Open Source Software have many aspects in common, a connection first established in 1998 by David Wiley, who introduced the concept of open content by analogy with Open Source. As already noted, the term OER itself was first adopted in 2002 at a UNESCO forum on Open Courseware (OCW), university educational materials that are shared freely in an open virtual learning environment.

OER: An economic value proposition with potential for educational transformation
Bringing these two dimensions – the pedagogical and the digital – together, the concept of OER has emerged as having powerful transformative potential. Pedagogically, the concept is underpinned by the notion of using resources as an integral method of communication of curriculum in educational courses. However, it is the ease with which digitized content can be shared via the Internet that has the potential to unleash the full power of resource-based learning without bankrupting educational systems. Importantly, as with 'Open Source', the key differentiator between an OER and any other educational resource is its licence. Thus, an OER is simply an educational resource that incorporates a licence that facilitates reuse – and potentially adaptation – without first requesting permission from the copyright holder.

Importantly, OER is not synonymous with online learning or e-learning. Indeed, particularly in developing country contexts, it might be anticipated that many educational resources produced –while shareable in a digital format (both online and via offline formats such as CD-ROM) – would be printable. Thus, a very high percentage of resources of relevance to education might be shared digitally as Rich Text Format (RTF) or similar files (for purposes of adaptation) and packaged as Portable Document Format (PDF) files (for purposes of printing).