Screen Shot 2014-02-14 at 2.47.14 PM

Today marks the start of Open Education Week. The week is a celebration of the global Open Education Movement to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning.

Throughout this week our OER Research Hub project will provide you with an overview of the field and highlight some of the challenges faced by the open education movement. Through the week’s events and highlighted resources, we hope to reach out to a wider audience to demonstrate what kind of opportunities open education has created and what we can look forward to.

This week’s line up of activities include:

Webinar: Considering Accessibility of OER for Diverse Learners – a session in which we discuss issues relating to accessibility of OERs for learners with disabilities.

Webinar: Exploring the Battle for Open – we look at the success of the ‘open’ approach and explore tensions about the direction that open education is taking.

In terms of resources, our project will be sharing some of its research findings on the impact of open educational resources (OER) and promote some of our tools aimed at gathering data from around the world to help develop a fuller picture of the difference that OER makes:

  • Librarian survey – results of an investigation into how librarians use OER, and some of the challenges they face when doing so.
  • Flipped Learning Network infographic – An infographic based on the results of a survey to find out how flipped educators are using and thinking about open educational resources (OER)
  • OER Impact Map – an open invitation for anyone working with OER to add their project; share data and view what others have shared.

Our collaboration with different organisations and institutions around the world has allowed us to gain a deep insight into the issues surrounding the field, so we look forward not only to sharing with you throughout this week, but also your participation in our events and contribution to our calls for action.