Open Educational Resources: Basic concepts, challenges, and business models

Besides research, education isthe raison d’êtreof each university.Education can help closeequity gaps and maintain social cohesion between and within countries. In this context, the digitisation era offers new opportunities, for example, in the form ofdistance and online learning. However, innovations can also come with challenges, such as employed and unemployed peoplerequiring to adapt to a progressing working environmentat ever shorter intervals(life-long learning). Consequently,it is increasingly important to gainfree access toup-to-dateeducational materialsabout a wide range of subjects and at multiple academic levels. In this document,we introduce the concept of Open Educational Resources(OER). We start with establishing a definition of OER, what is needed to call educational materials OER,andthe differences in comparison to related concepts,such as Massive open online courses. We then address the question of who can benefit fromOER. Itreports on the incentivesto publish OERtaking into accountthe perspectives of the involved stakeholders, i.e., the general public, universities and lecturers, and students. Afterwards, we pay attention to the challengesthat come with OER.Subsequently,we provide a list of potential business models around OER, their underlying concepts, benefits, limitations, and projects making use of them.Wealso considerthe paradox that OER are not intended to generate revenue but that ignoring income can make OER unsustainable.The document concludes by outlining possiblestepsto realize OER(e.g., organizing a round table to initiate a discussion about how to realise OERat the faculty level).