Teachers' toolkit for creating and re-purposing OER using FOSS/Preface

In a society that is becoming increasingly digital, it is no surprise that educational processes are also getting impacted by digital technologies (popularly known as Information and Communication Technologies, or simply ICTs). A significant development in the educational domain has been the rise of Open Educational Resources (OER), with the promise of delivering quality education. An essentially, digital phenomenon, OER seek to leverage the possibilities of digital methods for accessing, creating, modifying and sharing educational content. OER has redefined the copyright regime, stimulating the sharing of content with license to re-use, modify and share or publish. While the advantages seem obvious in terms of increased availability of curricular materials and reducing costs of education, research suggests that OER seems to have not achieved its potential for adoption.

There is need to promote the creation, revision, publishing and adoption of OER across the world. One way to do this, could be to make available more digital tools for people to use, to create, revise and publish OER. The “Hands-On Toolkit for Teachers to Create, Re-purpose and Publish Open Educational Resources (OER) using Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)”, aims to promote the creation, re-purposing and publishing of OER using FOSS applications.

A tool-kit to create, re-purpose and publish OER

The toolkit has been developed by IT for Change, an organization working with teachers and school systems on the use of FOSS for OER creation. The development of this course material was supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, Burnaby, Canada as part of the Grant #2015-2585 generously made by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, USA.

This toolkit is aimed at native and non-English native speakers, hence the language has been kept simple and accessible.

The toolkit is available in two formats. One is this print edition, (soft copy through a PDF format, which you can use for printing, if you need a hard copy). The second format is an on-line edition in the form of a “Wiki book[3]”. The Wiki book edition will also be shared off-line on a DVD, with the printed version of the tool-kit, which will enable user to read the digital version without internet connectivity.

Along with the tool-kit, a custom software distribution which contains the FOSS desktop tools covered in the handbook is shared as a DVD, which you should install on your computer, to create, re-purpose and publish OER.

In line with the philosophy of OER, the toolkit is released under the CC-BY license, and the custom software distribution is released under the General Public License (GPL). The CC BY license enables you to make copies of the tool-kit with or without modifications and distribute it for profit or without profit. The GPL license enables you to make copies of the software applications with or without modifications. Modifications if any, to the software, can be re-distributed only as FOSS.

Copyright

©2017 by the Commonwealth of Learning. Except where otherwise noted, Teachers' toolkit for creating and re-purposing OER using FOSS is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. By using the content of this publication, the users accept to be bound by the terms of use of the Commonwealth of Learning’s Open Access repository (http://oasis.col.org).

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to promote the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.

Images: All images used in this toolkit, unless otherwise specified have been created by the author. Most of these are screen shots of the FOSS applications discussed in the toolkit.

Disclaimer: The ideas and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author; they are not necessarily those of Commonwealth of Learning and do not commit the organization.

Caveat: This course material was published to support the learning of students. Neither IT for Change nor the Commonwealth of Learning grants any degree, certification or credits based solely on your completion of this course material.

Acknowledgement: The development of this course material was supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, Burnaby, Canada as part of the Grant #2015-2585 generously made by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, USA.

Author

IT for Change, Bengaluru

393, 17 Main, 35 Cross, Jaya nagar IV T Block, Bengaluru 560041. India

Phone – 91-80-26654134, Mail , Website

Acknowledgements

The toolkit was written by a team of editors, subject experts and technology experts from IT for Change.

Authors – Gurumurthy Kasinathan, Director and Sriranjani Ranganathan, Deputy Director

Content support - Rakesh B., Technology Associate and Venkatesh T.Gowda, Program Associate

Technical support - Yogesh K.S., Technology Associate

Formatting support - Harish - Technology Assistant and Sunil C., Program Assistant

Graphics - Smriti Khera, Research and Communications Assistant

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The Teachers' toolkit for creating and re-purposing OER using FOSS tools is licensed under CC BY 4.0 license