A Look at the Future of Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) have been traditionally defined as educational contents that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution. As the nature of educational content changes with new technology, however, so does the nature of OER. This paper explores the impact of four major types of technology on our understanding of OER: cloud infrastructure, open data, artificial intelligence, and decentralized networks. It is argued that these technologies result in a model of dynamic and adaptive resources that will be created at the point of need and will draw on constantly changing requirements and data sources. They will be created through distributed community-based processes, and they will support a pedagogy based on supporting student experiences rather than content transmission. As a result, the emphasis on content publication and licensing will decrease, while questions of access and interoperability will move to the fore.