Hi John. In our OER Guidance for Schools, we identify the following benefits (in G1: Open
Education and the Schools Sector):
http://schools.leicester.gov.uk/ls/open-education/Why use OER in schools?
Open Educational Resources enjoy a range of social, educational and financial benefits.
OER can
support schools and school staff in increasing access, fostering collaboration and
ensuring value for
money.
By openly licensing learning materials, schools can provide additional value — making
publicly
funded works available for public benefit, through open and free exchange.
Education benefits from good resources, and reusing existing OER frees up time that can be
spent
on other aspects of teaching and learning.
At the school level, use of OER (instead of paid-for resources) can help reduce costs, and
get the
most out of existing budgets. Schools can benefit by increasing their capacity through
connecting
to OER networks of educators and expertise. OER (and Creative Commons licences) provide a
framework on the basis of which schools can collaborate and share flexible learning
materials (such
as worksheets, course or textbooks) alongside innovative and effective practice. Use of
OER enables
schools to work together. Releasing resources under open licences promotes the often
outstanding
work that staff and schools are doing.
From an educator’s perspective, OER use and creation
can bring educators together and support
school staff in achieving shared goals.
Through sharing resources in common areas of interest,
working with OER can help develop school communities. Being able to draw on multiple
sources,
new approaches and expertise invigorates teaching and can increase quality.
OER increases the pool of resources available for activities in the classroom. This can
support
differentiation more easily, and increase the variety of classroom activities, as well as
help provide
extension tasks.
OER also provide a range of benefits from a student perspective. They can increase the
availability of free-to-access resources and supplementary materials available to
learners. They
can support independent and informal learning, providing educationally focused materials
in areas
young people are interested in learning more about, which might not be covered by the
school
curriculum, or might be taught on courses they aren’t able to take. OER also make
resources
available to learners globally who may not be as well supported as UK learners.
And we also provide policy benefits information in G4: Openly Licensing and Sharing Your
Resources (particularly under 'OER school policies and processes'). You can
download all of our guidance, policy and resources docs here:
http://schools.leicester.gov.uk/ls/open-education/ (including a walk through for using
Wikipedia's Book Creator tool)
The guidance has been produced for schools, but has also already been 'translated'
for the further and higher education sectors:
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/oer-schools-guidance-resources-from-leicester-city-c…
more quantitative terms, you'll want to check out the OER Hub's OER Impact maps:
http://oerresearchhub.org/evidence/oer-impact/
Best wishes, Josie
From: john cummings <mrjohncummings(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Education <education(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, 7 September 2015, 12:42
Subject: [Wikimedia Education] [wikimedia-education] What benefits can educational
organisations get from adopting open licenses?
Hi all
Can people tell me are there any good online resources on what benefits educational
organisations can get from adopting open licenses? Please feel free to braindump as many
as you like, I've helped make a tool for collating Wikimedia related resources
including ones for advocacy and this seems to be an area that I can't find much on.
They do not have to be Wikimedia related, just generally about the effects of open
licensing content.
Thanks
John
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