Page:A Review of the Open Educational Resources Movement.pdf/5



In 2002 the Education Program of the Hewlett Foundation introduced a major component into its strategic plan Using Information Technology to Increase Access to High-Quality Educational Content. This review begins with this plan as a baseline. Hewlett program officers were motivated to initiate the component after thoroughly examining content for K through 12 and post-secondary levels and finding it “alarmingly disappointing.”

In 1992, when the World Wide Web was launched, open information resources rapidly became freely available, although they were of widely varying quality. With rare exception, the available materials neither promoted enhanced learning nor incorporated the latest technological and pedagogical advances. Educational institutions and publishers, lack of quality assurance for the content, and information overload also impeded the educational impact. During the 1990s, the funding for information technology in education primarily emphasized access to computers and Internet connection and the basic literacy for their use.

The intent of this new Hewlett Foundation program component was to catalyze universal access to and use of high-quality academic content on a global scale. In the spirit of the work of Nobel economist Amartya Sen, the plan is intended to be a strategic international development initiative to expand people’s substantive freedoms through the removal of “unfreedoms:” poverty, limited economic opportunity, inadequate education and access to knowledge, deficient health care, and oppression. The original goal for this program follows: