Report: Open Educational Practices and Resources

This report gives a very interesting overview of the current state and possible trends in open educational practices and resources. The report was compiled by the "Open e-Learning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS)" project funded by the European Commission.

One of the important messages of the report is that educational practices have to change considerably in order to make the best use of open educational resources. Barriers identified in the report include:

• Prevalent teacher centered teaching practices
• Need for mechanisms to recognize and reward researchers and educators actively engaged in the area of open educational resources
• Need for solid business models for developing and distributing open educational resources
• Need for support of communities of practice to foster continuous user contributions

The report is published under creative commons and can be downloaded at: http://www.olcos.org/cms/upload/docs/olcos_roadmap.pdf.