OERu/Planning/MarComs guidelines for partners

To get the most value from the relationship with the Open Education Resource universitas (OERu), we’ve created this quick guide of useful resources and background info. Should you need additional information, please contact Wayne Mackintosh (wayne@oerfoundation.org) or Dave Lane (dave@oerfoundation.org).

First and foremost, OERu is about sharing information and providing affordable opportunities to people around the world who want to learn. The content we create is sharable under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which gives everyone and anyone the opportunity to share and adapt the materials (with attribution) for their own purposes, including commercial.

Co-Branding

Link: OERu marketing and communication files

Much of the collateral we’ve created has been designed to be co-branded by our partners. This is a great opportunity to demonstrate your connection with OERu and gain access to a larger audience. You’ll find a space to add your institution’s logo on the following pieces :

• Course posters – (available as SVG or AI files), so you can add the information about the course(s) that your team has assembled and ready to share.
  1. Example course poster (pdf) with OERu and Otago Polytechnic branding
  2. Example micro-course poster (pdf) with OERu and Otago Polytechnic branding
• Rack Card – (SVG or AI) OERu-branded collateral to promote OERu course offerings
  • Example rack card (pdf) with Otago Polytechnic branding
• Slideshow template – OERu-branded template that can be used when presenting OERu partnership internally or to prospective learners. The embedded logo can be replaced with your own
• Learner recruitment video - The OERu “explainer” video was intentionally designed for partners to brand their OERu course contributions. You can request source files and associated visual assets which your own multimedia production team can remix. Alternatively, for a nominal fee you can commission Mohawk Media to assist with incorporating your brand. Three options are available:
  1. Partner logo as channel “bug” overlay through the video plus logo on end plate.
  2. Channel logo overlay, end plate plus in-screen branded content of one of your OERu courses plus branded certificate page.
  3. As for 1) above plus two in-screen branded course pages and certificate page.
  4. See Otago Polytechnic branded example on Youtube
• 7 Things You Should Know About OERu – (PDF) an informative brochure that provides background info about OERu. The embedded logo can be replaced with your own
• Business Model Canvas – (PDF) planning document that can be used by your team to define your business needs regarding your partnership with OERu
• Business Model Canvas brochure – (PDF) brandable document that can be used to accompany the Business Model Canvas

Ideas for managing your brand association with OERu

The OERu has a large international footprint and partnership with our network can raise your institution's brand awareness on a global scale . To help you achieve consistent results, we’ve assembled this list of OERu-partner best practices:

1. Ensure you have designated a responsible staff member to manage your partner page on oeru.org. It is important that you keep your pages and associated OERu course information current. Please contact Wayne Mackintosh (wayne@oerfoundation.org) or Dave Lane (dave@oerfoundation.org) to ensure you have login credentials on our content management system.
2. Profile your association in the OERu international network through appropriate copy and links on your internal and external enterprise websites.
3. Designate a media liaison from your institution to join the OERu list for the Marketing, Communications and Partner Engagement. Share media releases relating to your open education initiatives and we will help distribute your open news.
4. Liaise with partners in your own jurisdiction to consider national or provincial marketing strategies. Consider tactical sponsored content campaigns to widen your brand exposure through your association with the OERu.
5. Encourage selected staff members to become OERu Ambassadors. We have a wide range of excellent marketing and communication materials to assist Ambassadors identify prospective OERu partners to join our network, As a charitable collaboration, your efforts in widening participation from like-minded institutions will ensure greater returns for your own organisation; building the inventory of open online courses for local reuse without incurring design or development expenditure
6. Notify your student recruitment, registration and foundation studies departments so they can look for opportunities to promote involvement with of the OER. For example, learners who do not have the required admission requirements and would typically be turned away from your institution could be directed to OERu.org, providing them with an opportunity to improve their learnings while maintaining a positive relationship with your institution. . (Remember, as all partners retain decision-making authority over all aspects of assessment and accreditation you could offer local assessment services for existing OER courses, or possible credit transfer or advanced placement for courses assessed by other OERu partners.)

Social Media

We’d love to be included in your social media strategy, and will do our best to help cross promote your OER related activities. We have been using the hashtag #OERu to ensure our content is consistently easy to find and follow, and recommend you do the same.

Our current social media spaces:

• Facebook
• Twitter·
• Google+
• YouTube
• LinkedIn

Key Terms

What is OER?

The Hewlett Foundation defines Open Educational Resources (OER) as, "Teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge."

What is OERu?

The Open Education Resource universitas (OERu) was established in 2011 to facilitate access to free online courses for students around the world. An extensive, international network of socially motivated institutions contributes to the creation of Open Educational Resources (OER) and provides affordable opportunities for learners to gain academic credit towards recognised qualifications.

Please note: While the acronyms for OER and OERu are similar, the names are different. We are Open Education Resource universitas – there’s no ‘al’ on education; resource is always singular; and universitas is always lower case.

What is an ‘universitas’?

This term draws on the original etymology of ‘universitas magistrorum et scholarium,’ which roughly means ‘community of teachers and scholars,’ and reflects the spirit of OERu as a global network of accredited universities, polytechnics, community colleges, and educational agencies cooperating on open education approaches.

Media Kit

We will keep current versions of our branding materials and media information online at[1]OERu.org/media. Here you will find print-ready OERu logo files, leadership information, media contacts, and boilerplate content for media release(s).

Should you have any questions about OERu, or how you can use OERu materials to support your institution, please don’t hesitate to contact us.