Open Educational Resources and Repositories
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The "Open Educational Resources" world
The origin of the concept
At the conclusion of the 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries, organized by UNESCO, the participants expressed their satisfaction and their wish to collaboratively develop a universal educational resources available for the whole of humanity, to be referred to henceforth as Open Educational Resources.
The idea was to promote an open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.
Note: you can read the Report of the Forum (English version - French version)
Since then, a movement of thought has developed that considers it necessary to allow everyone free access to knowledge for educational purposes.
However it is really only since 2007, following the publication of 3 important documents on this subject, that the importance of OER become central to the political agenda of many countries around the world. Many now strongly believe that it is extremely important to involve teachers not only in the debates surrounding the production and sharing of OER, but above all, in the active production of educational content.
In the following, there are references to website with free learning content and to documents (click on the pictures or follow the link if you want to download the publications; they are in English)
Following these publications, the Council of Europe specifically highlighted the strategic importance of policies that promote the adoption and development of OER in the school system.
Even the United Nations have highlighted the strategic value of OER.
If you are interested in better understanding the relevance of OER for international policies, please refer to the booklet: "OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES. THE WAY FORWARD. DELIBERATIONS OF AN INTERNATIONAL
COMMUNITY OF INTEREST", by Susan D'antoni (in English only).