• Appreciation of the “walled garden” of online resources provided by their teachers, but a continuing need for training in searching for and evaluating online materials (information literacy). • Reluctance to make their own work publicly available on the Web, especially where it is formally assessed. (p. ii) Similarly, another recent study in the UK (Bacsich, Phillips, & Bristow, 2011) reviewed relevant literature on learner use of online educational resources (whether openly licensed or not) and found it to be immature, with a lack of metareviews and most studies not generalising beyond their particular context. The lesson here is that OER are new to all concerned, including students, and students may be as confused as others as to what OER are and what they can do with them. This is particularly true in relation to copyright. For most students, just being able to access a resource online may be enough for their studies. They may not worry about downloading copyrighted material if they feel it is just for their own studies. And few are bothered about being able to modify a resource in accordance with the open license conditions attached to it, particularly as there are many myths and issues surrounding copying, plagiarising and proper referencing of sources. Nevertheless, here are some of the uses that students have made of OER that have been noted and recorded at UKOU and in the wider literature. I have also divided those different uses of OER between three main groups: prospective students (those seeking to register for a degree), registered students (on a degree course) and alumni (students who have graduated and now are working or seeking work).
How Prospective Students Use OER Most HEIs are interested in attracting students to enrol. Most are also interested in attracting those students whom they think will be able to cope with and benefit from that study. They usually manage that process through selection procedures, normally using previous educational achievements as a major factor.
OER as Showcase HEIs often have distinctive missions and different histories in terms of their teaching, research, and community or public service profiles. Those missions and histories are reflected in the publications and informational literature that they produce to “market” their courses and the institutional ethos, publications that sit alongside the academic outputs of the institutions, such as research papers and public lectures. OER from an HEI are another academic product that highlights something about that particular HEI. This can be seen in the way that MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) reflects MIT’s desire to share knowledge globally,5 how OpenSpires reflects the campus-based, research-led ethos of intellectual debate at Oxford University,6 and how OpenLearn reflects the open and distance learning, social justice mission of UKOU.7 The latter can be seen in this forum posting from “Jim” soon after the launch of OpenLearn: Fantastic! As a graduate of the OU and continuing learner I am so pleased to see the launch of such a fantastic resource.
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