Page:Guidelines for Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education.pdf/16

 Recognise the important role of educational resources withininternal quality assurance processes. This should include establishing and maintaining a rigorous internal process for validating the quality of educational materials prior to their publication as OER. Consider creating flexible copyright policies. Such policies could make it simple for staff to invoke some-rights-reserved copyright or other licensing permutations when this is deemed necessary. These policies could be part of a wider institutional process to ensure that robust, enforceable IPR, copyright and privacy policies are in place and accurately reflected in all legal contracts and conditions of employment. Undertake institutional advocacy and capacity building. Ongoing awareness-raising, capacity-building (staff development) and networking/sharing for both women and men can be carried out to develop the full range of competences required to facilitate more effective use of OER. These activities could aim to encourage a shared vision for open educational practices within the organisation, which would ideally be aligned to the institution’s vision and mission and linked to incentives. Ensure ICT access for staff and students. This means striving to ensure that academic staff and students have ubiquitous access to the necessary ICT infrastructure, software and connectivity to access the Internet and develop or adapt educational materials of different kinds. This should include software applications, such as Web content editing tools, content management systems, templates and toolkits that facilitate the creation and use of adaptable, inclusively designed educational resources. It might also entail developing a repository of the work of academic staff and students that could serve as a powerful teaching and learning resource, while raising awareness of the distinction between appropriate sharing/collaboration and plagiarism. Staff and students should also have access to training/professional development and support to use these systems. Develop institutional policies and practices to store and access OER. This includes the capacity to store, manage and share resources and content, both internally and externally, so that academic endeavours build on a growing base of institutional knowledge. This might be done most cost-effectively as part of a coordinated national strategy or in partnership with emerging global OER networks and repositories based on open standards. Review institutional OER practices periodically. Such reviews will help the institution determine the value of its policies and practices. They could include reviewing the extent of the use of openly licensed educational materials in higher education programmes. They could also include assessing the effects of this use on the quality of educational delivery and