OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCES FOR LIFELONG LEARNING OF TEACHERS: LITHUANIAN CASE

In the context of an ever increasing pace of change, prompted by the developments in information and communication, and also, other technologies, the landscape of pedagogical practice changes. Teachers are compelled to use the technologies, and some of them need additional support to integrate ample opportunities provided by a vast ocean of resources in a meaningful way.

In the context of modernisation of Education, the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) is becoming a priority. Open Educational Resources offer an exclusive advantage when compared to other educational resources for several reasons: enable increased quality assurance for the learning materials used by learners; enable innovation, creativity and sustainable use; allow legal extensive use of the resources free of charge and also create opportunities for lifelong learning and support continuous professional development.

Therefore the authors of the paper will focus on two dimensions of lifelong learning that are inevitable if teachers engage more intensively in using OER. Firstly, they have to learn to filter information in order to find the useful and reliable materials, and secondly, they have to be responsible in uploading materials for other professionals’ use. That incorporates also the moral and professional obligation to monitor students’ work. Another dimension is very often an overlooked one, the one, that the project LangOER (http://langoer.eun.org) focused on: and namely the fact that teachers (also, the representatives of many other professions) are not fully aware of the legal aspects of OER. That is, the teachers have to be informed about the procedures to upload and to download materials with respect to legal framework on authorship. This dimension is often overlooked, and however, it is an important aspect for making an OER practice a reliable one. As far as Open Educational Resources are concerned, it is crucial to discuss legal aspects of their use. There is a threat to violate authors’ rights in the process of teaching. It is important to know what authors’ rights are established by legal acts and contracts, what nature authors’ rights are, in what cases use of authors’ pieces can be treated as violation of authors’ rights, how to avoid violations of authors’ rights, how authors’ rights are defended, etc.

The paper will present data from an empiric study, completed in Lithuania, where teachers shared their ideas on how much of the materials they use are OER, and much of the materials they produce they later designate as OER.