Week 10 – A7: Exploring OERs

3 OER initiatives were explored in this activity;

1. MIT Open Courseware (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
2. Open Learning Initiative (OLI, Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
3. OpenLearn (The Open University, UK)

1. MIT Open Courseware – A large number of courses are available here with each course a Syllabus, Calendar, Lecture Notes, Assignments, Exams, Study Materials.

* use of the Creative Commons use license

2. Open Learning Initiative – This initiative holds a repository of topics  which includes on-line materials, student roster, assessment and gradebook. All is open to use for teachers whereas individual students need to pay a maintanance fee if taking a course for credit. Otherwise course material is free to browse through.

3. Open Learn – publicised as ‘free online learning’.  The site emphasises on the ability for educators to appropriate and reuse the available material.

But how much is this form of studying valid for today’s society ? Studying is ideally done for personal glorification but what happens when a person is searching for a job? there’s obviously the need of certification which shows that the individual has gained this percentage of knowledge in this area of knowledge.  Therefore when considering OER initiatives I’m a bit sceptical about their usage by formal students. I believe that such repositories are probably used as an addon to the learning happening in the formal classroom. On the other hand these initiatives surely are a boost to life long learning were an individual can easily pick and follow a topic of his choice.