Chapter 12 - Sharing Existing Teaching Materials as OER: Key Considerations from Practice

Sharing of higher education teaching materials under open licenses is a growing global practice. Several models of adapting and sharing existing materials include: institutionally-driven initiatives that result in materials being shared, mostly through repositories; cascade models that have a strong mentoring component; use of network repositories; and conversion of commercial teaching resources for sharing as open educational resources (OER). The processes followed in these models are similar in many respects. They typically include authoring of teaching resources for classroom teaching, making the decision to share resources openly, adapting resources for open sharing (which includes copyright audits), replacing copyrighted content with OER, seeking permissions to reproduce content, HTML authoring, packaging materials, quality assurance, and sharing OER by hosting them on multiple platforms. The case studies presented in this chapter, drawn from OER initiatives in Africa, the UK and the USA, introduce an empirically informed discussion of varied methodologies of producing and sharing existing teaching materials. Particularly, the case studies point out the technical, pedagogical and legal considerations that should guide OER production and sharing. The chapter highlights that both minimalist and well-resourced and supported approaches provide opportunities for improved access to quality teaching materials in under-resourced contexts. Importantly, early adopters of OER in higher education are developing practice models and frameworks that will make it easier for those who adopt open sharing practices in the future.