OER’s, MOOC’s and LIS Education

Abstract

Open Educational Resources are teaching learning and research materials in any medium-digital or otherwise that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by other with no or limited restrictions. The new definition explicitly states that OER can include both digital and no-digital resources. Also, it lists several types of use that OER permit, inspired by 5R activities of OER.
In regard to LIS education, I feel this new phenomena more than challenges it has brought in opportunities in strengthening the course curriculum across the schools in the developing world, schools of LIS invariably face several challenges, one among these is the acute shortage of teaching faculty to teach various subjects. I think here MOOCs can play an important role by bringing in collaboration in building the courses on subjects mutually beneficial to schools. Secondly, schools may use some of the courses already available online from different universities in the respective subjects to augment learning skills of students by encouraging them to enroll for such courses and providing discussion on the topic in a flipped classroom environment.