Abstract:

Open Education Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, openly licensed and can be used, reused and in a digital environment (SPARC, 2023). By creating OER, educational institutions make knowledge, expertise and technological discoveries accessible to the world and make steps towards more sustainable education for the future generations.

Creating and using OER continues to grow in popularity among higher education insititutions as a way to reinforce innovation as well as empower learners. However, little is shared about actually using these resources in formal educational contexts, like on-campus courses. Moreover, lack of training for lecturers has been found to be among the most deterring factors from the use of OER (Appiah et al., 2020). Similarly, the experiences of instructors who teach and prepare courses using OER has not been studied much (Mcbride and Abramovich, 2022). Sharing good practices can help fill in this gap by inspiring other teachers and help them find a creative way of integrating OER in their courses and make use of this rich pool of knowledge that is freely accessible.

TUDelft provides multitude of opportunities for teachers to create OER as well as informing them on the already available OER online. Besides the support in creating OER, teachers at TUDelft also receive advice on using those resources in the courses they teach. Blended leaning advisors at each faculty help teachers design their courses, using OER; create engaging learning activities and consequently innovate in their teaching methods. The current paper elaborates on the practice of OER use and creation, showcasing some successful courses at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TUDelft.

Keywords:

Open Education, blended Design, Blended, Course Design, OER.