The Potential of Open Educational Resources (OERS) in Higher Education Curriculum and Course Materials Development

Abstract

Open education resource (OER) is defined by UNESCO as “technology-enabled” open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for noncommercial purposes.’ These resources are freely available for use by educators and learners, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees. With the explosion of knowledge and increasing sophistication of technology, higher education programmes need to be frequently reviewed and developed to keep pace with the needs of society and the learners. Taking into consideration the currently situation (increasing number of diverse learners) in higher education institutions, where the core activities are teaching, research, and consultancy; the curriculum development activity has become a more tedious work and require assistance from other existing source of materials and technology. OER has a big potential in assisting educators and curriculum developer to adapt and customize the resources to fit the institution needs and save more time in teaching, research and consultancy.

Key words: Open Educational Resources (OER), Higher Education Institutions (HEI), Open Courseware, Information Communication Technologies (ICT), Curriculum, National Research and Education Network (NREN).