This book explores open educational resources and open education through research conducted on this topic globally. This book engages with intersections between open educational resources, social justice and equality, as well as policy in terms of open educational resources. Numerous examples of open praxis are also included, ranging from open educational resources courses to the affordances of artificial intelligence, data-driven learning, and open textbooks in this context. Furthermore, chapters range from providing a broad overview of open educational resources international and regional initiatives in Africa, to cases of work done in the United States, New Zealand, Israel, and Hong Kong. The role of Wikipedia and Wikidata is also prominent. Finally, this book includes unique contributions, focusing on open educational resources and feminist pedagogy, as well as disabled learners’ motivations for participating in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Academics and researchers working in the field of open education and higher education in general will understand the importance of this work.

The report offers a comprehensive overview of the rapidly changing phenomenon of Open Educational Resources and the challenges it poses for higher education.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2014! Sponsored by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), this one-of-a-kind book demonstrates the best tools, resources, and techniques for discovering, selecting, and integrating interactive open educational resources (OERs) into the teaching and learning process. The author examines many of the best repositories and digital library websites for finding high quality materials, explaining in depth the best practices for effectively searching these repositories and the various methods for evaluating, selecting, and integrating the resources into the instructor’s curriculum and course assignments, as well as the institution’s learning management system.

This book covers original research on the implementation of open educational practices through the use of open educational resources at the university level. The emphasis on open education in this book is on contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning specifically within a South African milieu. The envisaged chapters cover conceptual and review research and empirical work focussing on open educational practices and the use of renewable assessments. The work starts off with an overview of an institutional-wide open education project that prompted the research followed by research on open education in terms of various modules in the health science, music education, law, philosophy, dietetics, anthropology, French language learning, journalism and political science. There is a clear gap in the literature on open education in terms of open educational practices, specifically in terms of contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning in a South African context. Despite the existence of some general works on open education in terms of policy, social justice and open textbooks, this book will be unique in exploring the intersections of openness, specifically with contextualisation, student agency and self-directedness.

This insightful collection of essays explores the ways in which open education can democratise access to education for all. It is a rich resource that offers both research and case studies to relate the application of open technologies and approaches in education settings around the world. A must-read for practitioners, policy-makers, scholars and students in the field of education.

Institutions of higher learning are providing access to free and low-cost open resources to support students with prior college-level learning during every step of their educational journey. This unconventional approach to education removes traditional barriers to college credit by placing learners in an open environment, which encourages accessibility to higher education and fosters independent and critical thinking. By providing learners with free resources, more learners have the resources needed to be successful in college. Prior learning assessment is an excellent way for students to demonstrate the skills and knowledge gained throughout the course of their lives. By developing a portfolio of artifacts that support prior learning outside of the classroom, learners reduce the time and money needed to complete a degree. Open educational resources, prior learning assessment, and competency-based learning offer the potential to provide access to higher education to those who may not have the opportunity to earn a college degree. As the costs of higher education continue to rise, these flexible, open approaches to learning can bridge the equity gap and provide more opportunity to earn a college degree. Enhancing Higher Education Accessibility Through Open Education and Prior Learning provides a comprehensive resource book on open resources and prior learning in order to provide access and equity to higher education. The chapters pull together resources and case studies that exemplify alternative means to higher education. Highlighted topics within this book include remote e-learning, online fundraising, smart learning and assessments, effective learning, and faculty mentorship. This book is essential for curriculum designers; administrators; policymakers; government executives; professors and instructors in higher education; students; researchers in adult education, competency-based education, social justice, and open educational resources; and practitioners interested in open educational resources and accessibility in higher education.

This volume takes a comprehensive and broad look at e-text programs across a wide spectrum of programs, institutions, and policies in three parts. The first part showcases several policy papers to contextualize the discussion and highlight the reasons for IAE programs’ structure and the obstacles they face for implementation. The second part is an in-depth exploration of various case studies that provide a detailed description of IAE programs, including information about program elements, program structure, program size, and insights into how programs are operationalized, and their shortcomings and benefits to students and stakeholders. The final part is a selection of research papers that offer evidence-based support for the adoption of IAE programs in terms of student success, access, engagement, costs, and a variety of other student and institutional outcomes. There are approximately 300 institutions of higher education that currently have some form of Inclusive Access or Open Educational Resources E-text (IAE) program in the United States, but there is little scholarship that engages on the topic of assessing these programs’ effect on student success. The results of the research studies included in this volume will inform faculty, administrators, and policy-makers who seek to support the development, adoption, and implementation of IAE programs based on their potential positive effects on student success and other outcomes.

Education is the key to economic, social and environmental progress, and governments around the world are looking to improve their education systems.