For a long time, continuing education has been dominated by a regime of intellectual property. Most learning materials have been restrictively licenced as they were seen as the (social) capital for trainers, coaches and other adult educators.
This situation led to a strong barrier for the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in adult education contexts. Even though, OER offer immense potential for continuing education and even for self-employed trainers. Therefore, it is the main target of the project “OER Content-Expert” to explain basic principles and advantages of OER for this specific audience.
Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, it is part of the program line to develop and implement trainings to sensitize multiplicators for OER in various educational settings. In particular, it is aimed at freelancer who have no or little prior knowledge about OER. Using a blended learning scenario, learners are introduced to the idea and possibilities of OER:
Kick-off: This is for a first introduction to OER in a 3h workshop taking place at one of 20 cities in Germany.
First Online-Phase: A MOOC, lasting 8 weeks with a workload of approximately 3h/week.
Workshop: After learning the basics of OER, participants will work on an individual OER project at a workshop (2 days).
Second Online-Phase: This is intended as a preparation for the examination and for the finalisation of the individual OER-project.
Examination: A presentation of the individual OER-project is given in an online setting. An expert jury will provide feedback. The formal evaluation will, if the participant is successful, result in a certification.
At the moment (October 2017), nearly 400 participants are enrolled in the MOOC and 61 have received a certificate.
Slides:
http://bit.ly/oeglobal18oerexp
