Course overview
What's it about?
Access to education is a fundamental human right. Open educational resources (OER) provides a viable solution to widening access to education for all students worldwide. In today's world, where the cost of replicating digital information is near zero, we have unprecedented opportunities to realise the vision of education for all. In this course we will explore the meaning of OER and the free legal tools at our disposal to share teaching materials. This course supports the implementation of the UNESCO 2012 Paris OER Declaration which encourages member states to release teaching materials funded with public money under open licenses.
What will I learn?
This course is designed for educators and students who want to learn more about open educational resources, copyright, and Creative Commons licenses. This course will help you to:
- Reflect on the practice of sharing knowledge in education and the permissions educators consider fair and reasonable;
- Define what constitutes an open educational resource (OER);
- Explain how international copyright functions in a digital world;
- Distinguish the types of Creative Commons licenses and explain how they support open education approaches;
- Acquire the prerequisite knowledge required by educators to legally remix open education materials and help institutions to take informed decisions about open content licenses;
- Use social media technologies to support your learning;
- Connect with educators around the world to share thoughts and experiences in relation to copyright, OER and Creative Commons.
What's involved?
You will participate in an open international online course for 10 working days (2 weeks). You will need to allocate about 1.5 to 2 hours per day for the duration of open course. The course is divided into five sessions inclusive of suggested learning activities:
- Why open matters in education
- Defining open educational resources
- Your educational rights to copy
- Refining your copyright using Creative Commons
- Choosing the right open license
Learners aiming for the Certificate of Achievement and/or credit towards the Open Education Course elective will need an additional 20 hours of self directed study to complete the assessments for this course.
Prerequisites
Anyone is free to participate in this course. An internet connection and basic web browsing skills are recommended with the ability to create a blog and microblog account (instructions and self-study tutorials provided.)
Learners aiming to submit assessments for formal academic credit will need to meet the normal university admission requirements of the conferring institution (eg language proficiency and school leaving certificates). Learners aiming for the 3rd year Bachelor level are advised to have completed the majority of their 2nd year level subjects to have sufficient capability and experience for preparing assignments for 3rd year level of Bachelor study.
