Open Educational Resources
Open University’s new OpenLearn program provides learners with online curricula and a collaborative learning community.
Since 2001, the Foundation has invested close to $70 million in Open Educational Resources; today we support a $33 million portfolio of over sixty-eight grants. Through these investments and other strategic activities, we have helped build a field that promises to equalize access to knowledge and educational opportunity. In 2006, our grantmaking strategy focused on:
- Sponsoring high-quality open content. We supported work to make exemplary models of academic content open and freely usable on the Internet.
- Removing barriers to the use of open content. We expanded and evaluated Foundation-supported portal projects and worked to lessen intellectual property constraints.
- Stimulating the use of Open Educational Resources. We established effective continent-based distribution hubs and extended global awareness of this field through conferences, forums, and partnerships.
- Improving grantee communication and transparency.
2006 Highlights
The growing movement to make educational materials available to anyone with an Internet connection marked a milestone when Great Britain’s venerable Open University launched a new online collection of curricula as well as software to enhance its use. The new Web-based program, called OpenLearn, will give students and teachers access to 5,000 hours of curricula on everything from the arts to science and technology, and at levels ranging from those suitable for a beginning student through postgraduate study.
Among the other Open Educational Resources projects we have underwritten in whole or in part are MIT’s OpenCourseWare program, which has published virtually all MIT courses on its Web site; Carnegie Mellon University’s Open Learning Initiative, a highly interactive approach designed to measure the effectiveness of the teaching; the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa project, which provides digital and printable material to train up to half a million teachers in nine countries; and Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that helps creators of intellectual property preserve a range of rights while sharing content.
In September 2006, the Foundation-supported Open Educational Resources portal was unveiled, providing a single access point through which users can freely search, browse, evaluate, and download education content from many reputable sources. We also convened a meeting of portal developers—both our grantees and other significant players in the field—to encourage cooperation and explore how to make these access points more effective.
In July 2006, we launched the inaugural edition of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Open Educational Resources Newsletter to further collaboration and keep the field up-to-date on our funding priorities and grantees’ work.
2007 Goals
- Support the development and adaptation of exemplary Open Educational Resources content
- Explore alternative digitization processes
- Promote the ease of use of open content through portals
- Remove intellectual property constraints
- Address barriers of culture and language
- Develop a deep understanding of the demand for free, accessible, high-quality content
- Establish effective distribution hubs
- Work to develop awareness and partnerships in the field
For more information, please visit the Foundation Web site.
