OER1001/regional-relations-in-asia-and-the-pacific/1/introduction-to-asia-and-the-pacific/1/defining-asia-and-the-pacific/resources

The principle resource that you will use in this course is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Open educational resources

An important feature of this course is that it uses Open Educational Resources as the content basis for your studies. Open Educational Resources (OER) are digital materials that are freely available to educators, students and self/lifelong learners. OER are increasingly being integrated in open and distance education as they are not subjected to the same copyright constraints as other materials. Therefore, they are more accessible and freely available to most students. There are a number of ways to search for OER and the first e-learning activity (e-tivity) for this course will introduce you to OER and where to look for course content online.

Pedagogy of discovery

This brings us to another important feature of this course which is the course pedagogy. In OER1001, we use the ‘pedagogy of discovery’ (including self-discovery) to engender a free-range learning pedagogy. This pedagogy incorporates self-directed content gathering and analysis rather than content that is pre-selected by the examiner. This approach is deliberate in order to allow you to seek out information and areas of study of personal and direct interest or relevance to your own interests or career path.

For example - perhaps you want to visit Japan or you plan to teach English there after completing your university studies. The pedagogy of discovery used in this course will allow you to focus your studies on Japan so you can enhance your knowledge and understanding of Japanese history, society, culture and foreign relations.

The image on this page is a familiar looking keyboard, however when you look more closely you will see that it has been altered so the typist can enter Japanese characters.