There is a major movement in Higher Education around the world to make educational resources available  via publication on the  web. In some countries the term OER is used meaning Open Educational Resources. About ten years ago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology generously made its courseware available to all and used the term OpenCourseWare (OCW). Currently the MIT OCW site has the  material for a remarkable 1981 courses available online. This includes lecture notes, lectures, assignments, images, videos, project examples, examinations etc. Link  Many other universities have followed this example and become a part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCWC). The  Consortium is currently a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware. Link. An issue with OpenCourseWare is that it is bascially content. In discussion with the leaders of the MIT OCW site, it was suggested that there needs to be a place where users of OCW can reflect on what can be done to optimise the learning experience using OCW content. Currently there is a link to this website on the Learning and Teaching Resources site of the MIT OCW website. Link

At the 2010 meeting of OCWC in Hanoi (Link), Adrian Lee presented a paper on the topic of the Guidelines and OCW. This may be downloaded below. A special interest group has been formed to take the issue of the pedagogy of Open Course Ware further and eventually the OCWC site will contain a number of resources to help educators and self learners using OCW. This section has ben included in this website, firstly to inform peope about the OCW movement but also to indicate that as author of this site I intend to devote considerable energies to help the use of OCW or OER in ways that are based on the Guidelines on Learning that Inform Teaching. E.g If we agree that active engagement helps learning (Guideline 1), what are some clever strategies to help individuals actively engage with the wonderful material provided free by MIT and the other Universites in OCWC? Anyone who would like to contribute ideas please email adrianlee2@mac.com