Creating Re-usable Open Educational Resources

Abstract

This paper outlines the work of two publicly funded projects at a UK university that created open educational resources (OERS) and an open access repository to locate and download these resources.. The OERs offered by EVOLUTION project have been designed in a format aimed at being familiar to academics in order to facilitate the re-use and re-purposing of these objects. The re-useable OERs have been developed at two levels; learning activities and re-usable materials. The paper progresses by outlining the model for developing learning objects and designing for re-usability that is accessible for non-technical academic staff. Some issues surrounding the project will then be addressed, the main one being the issue of sustainability of the materials. The paper will also address re-use in different contexts including different subject disciplines and non-UK institutions. It concludes by discussing the use of the model to develop materials in other contexts and outlines the plans to maintain EVOLUTION.