BIG OER v little oer

I thought that instead of just writing about the differences, I would try something different instead. It is basic I know (and not a patch on other presentations) but it is a start. I can see this as being a useful way of sharing snippets of information with my own students – and it makes for good revision. As Weller says, “people learn from each other’s shared efforts”.

What I like about Martin Weller’s take on this is that open education resources, whether produced by institutions or individuals (or preferably both), form the basis for sharing.  As he says, ‘openness is a prerequisite of networking’ and open education resources rely on ‘critical mass content’. The more choice there is the better it is for the learner to be able to choose what suites their requirements, be it an open course to fulfil their desire to learn something new or open resources to explain a particular issue at work.

The point is that the two are not competing with one another, instead they are complimentary; the drawbacks of one are the benefits of the other. As a lawyer, it is a bit like the sources of the constitution; their are legal rules (statute, case law etc.) and then their are conventions (prime minister chosen from the majority party) which develop over time to fill in the gaps left by the legal rules but without which the constitution would not operate effectively.