COL, in collaboration with Odisha State Open University (OSOU), India organised a national workshop on ‘Promoting Quality Open Educational Resources (OER)’ from 17 to 19 June 2019.

Thirty eight participants from 14 state open universities across India were in attendance. The workshop provided an opportunity to share resources and aimed to widen access to education and raise educational quality by increasing awareness of the quality of OER using a range of criteria.

The workshop was opened by Dr Srikant Mohapatra, Vice-Chancellor, OSOU who highlighted the importance of quality assurance in OER and stated that the development of an OER policy, which OSOU has already adopted, is the first step towards ensuring quality. He added, “As OER is widely used within open universities, it is important that these follow a standard measure of quality. We are thankful to COL for supporting this workshop, where participants from other open universities in India are also attending.” Mr Andrew Moore from South Africa facilitated the training.

COL’s Education Specialist: eLearning, Dr Sanjaya Mishra said, “This workshop will help build capacities among some of the faculty members of all the open universities in India. This is important from the national perspective, where OER is getting mainstreamed and more institutions are using free and openly available educational resources. Developing skills in identifying quality of OER is key to developing high quality learning materials that could be used both in distance/online and face-to-face situations.”