Plenary Hall, 30 November : Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning Dr David Wiley delivered the last keynote address at the Forum where he elaborated on the concept of “open”. He argued that “open” did not necessarily mean free.
As the Internet already offers access to free reading resources and content, the definition of “open” is more for the permission to perform the five Rs: retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute.
He then presented his studies on the impact of using open educational resources (OERs) against learning outcomes, course throughput rate, cost and revenue. The findings showed that using OERs improved efficiency through open as opposed to using the traditionally published materials (TPM).
He illustrated the emergence of this new model in the US where higher educational institutions are beginning to award degrees in which the learning is highly dependent on the use of OERs, thus eliminating the need for students to buy textbooks.
Dr Wiley said OERs actually opened the window of opportunity for people to explore and learn new things without having to worry about copyright issues when accessing online contents.