The Open Educational Resources Movement: Current Status and Prospects

Abstract The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which aims to provide high quality teaching and learning resources to teachers and learners everywhere for free, is growing rapidly supported by foundations and institutions across the world. Over 100 institutions have joined the OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative started by MIT. As it grows, the OER movement has encountered both opportunities and barriers. Foremost among the opportunities is the sharing of high quality learning materials produced in developed countries with developing nations. The OER movement is systematically seeking to equalize access to OER, remove barriers, understand and stimulate use, and find models of sustainability. This paper describes those efforts and the immediate prospects for the continuation and expansion of them. It also describes the benefits to institutions, faculty, and students that are being derived from the OER movement and calls for the further involvement of APRU member institutions with OER.