Use of Open Educational Resources in Distance Education –

Opportunities and Challenges in Indian Scenario

Sujata SantoshIndira Gandhi National Open University

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Overview of the presentation Education Scenario in India OERs in Distance Education OER Initiatives in India OER initiatives in IGNOU Policy Initiatives at National Level Policy Initiatives at Institutional Level Challenges related to the use of OERs in India

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Introduction

OERs are a global phenomenon and have become significantly important in education systems across the world.

(Venkaiah, 2008; Geith and Vignare, 2008; Rolfe, 2012; Abeywardena, Tham & Raviraja, 2012)

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Education scenario in India

India has a large and complex education system with around 700 universities and 35,000 affiliated colleges.

Despite more than 20 million students in these institutions, this constitutes only a fraction India’s population which makes to college.

With one-third of the population being illiterate, providing access to adequate learning resources of good quality is a huge problem.

(UGC, 2013; MHRD, 2013)

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Higher Education in India

GER in Higher Education in India is 20.4 percent (MHRD, 2013)– 79 percent are in under graduate level

– 12 percent are in post graduate level

(Source: MHRD, 2013)

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Focus of Higher Education in India

Access Equity Excellence

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Challenges faced by the Education System in India

Paucity of good teachers Inadequate infrastructure Lack of well-equipped libraries Lack of good quality instructional materials

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OERs in Education

The National Knowledge Commission (2007) has recommended increasing the amount of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Access (OA) to address these pressing problems.

The widespread availability of high quality educational resources is imperative to change the paradigm of teaching for the better and improve the overall quality of education.

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Distance Education scenario in India

Distance Education in India caters to a wide range of learners with varied learning styles, preferences, with heterogeneous cultural backgrounds, economical status and geographical locations.

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Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in India

• enhancing the gross enrolment ratio• democratization of higher education to large

segments of the Indian population• reaching out to the unreached• providing opportunities for up-gradation of skills and

qualifications• meeting the demands of lifelong learning

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Distance Education scenario in India

Total enrolment in higher education estimated at 28.56 million.

Distance enrolment constitutes 12.5% of the total enrolment in higher education

(UGC, 2013; MHRD, 2013)

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Distance Education scenario in India

14 open universities – 1 National Open University and 13 State Open Universities

166 Dual Mode providers of higher education

28 Distance Education Institutes

17 Open Schools

(UGC, 2013; MHRD, 2013)

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OER Initiatives in India

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Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC)

an inter-university centre set up by the University Grants Commission (UGC)

22 Educational Multimedia Research Centres (EMRCs)

produces TV programmes on syllabus-based topics

Learning Object Repository (LOR)

Digital Video Repository (DVR)CEC Home Page

(http://cec.nic.in/Pages/Home.aspx)

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National Science Digital Library (India)

National Science Digital Library Home page(http://nsdl.niscair.res.in/jspui/)

an initiative of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

provides free access to supplementary curriculum based content to address the information needs of the undergraduate students of science.

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Project Ekalavya

eKalavya Home Page(http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/)

an open source educational initiative by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

content development in Indian languages.

an endeavour to provide an interactive platform for the creation, absorption, dissemination and usage of knowledge.

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Project OSCAR (Open Source Courseware Animations Repository)

Project OSCAR Home Page(http://oscar.iitb.ac.in/)

An initiative by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

is a large repository of web-based, interactive animations and simulations, in the form of Learning Objects (LOs), for teaching various concepts and technologies.

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National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL)

NPTEL Home Page(http://nptel.ac.in/)

a joint initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

aims to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by providing easy access to curriculum based video and web courses.

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NME-ICT Web portal — Sakshat

Sakshat Home Page(http://www.sakshat.ac.in/)

Launched in 2009 by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD).

provides one-stop access to e-content, e-journals and e-books.

aim is to leverage the potential of ICT, in providing high quality personalized and interactive knowledge modules over the internet for all the learners.

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National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER)

NROER Home Page(http://nroer.gov.in/home/repository)

an initiative by Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD)

is a learning repository for open educational resources.

offers digital resources such as videos, audio, interactive media, images, wiki pages, and documents, for all school subjects and grades in multiple languages.

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Agropedia

Agropedia Home Page(http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/)

is an online knowledge repository for information related to agriculture in India.

This national portal is designed as an agricultural Wikipedia

provides localized content and hosts wide range of agricultural information.

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ePathshala

ePathshala Home Page(http://epgp.inflibnet.ac.in/)

is an initiative of the University Grants Commission (UGC)

provides free access to standardized e-textbooks for postgraduate courses in different universities of the country.

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OER Initiatives in IGNOU

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eGyankosh

eGyanKosh Main Page(http://www.egyankosh.ac.in)

Launched in 2005 by IGNOU.

access to around 95 percent of the self-instructional print material (around 2481 courses) of IGNOU.

Wiki for collaborative content generation.

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IGNOU – YouTube Channel

IGNOU-YouTube Channel(http:// www.youtube.com/user/egyankoshIGNOU)

Online access to more than 2,200 courses and 2,000 video lectures.

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Flexilearn

FlexiLearn Main page (http:// www.ignouflexilearn.ac.in)

a personal learning space

Any one can register and explore courses for free.

More than 936 open courses made available for self guided and self-paced learning.

(At present inactive.)

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Policy Initiatives at National Level

National Policy on Education in 1992 emphasized the use of educational technology to improve the quality of education

IT Action Plan by Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development in 1998 stressed on the use of emerging new technologies in education

Tenth Five Year Plan (year 2002-2007) emphasized knowledge and use of new information and communication technology for ensuring quality in teaching and research.

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Policy Initiatives at National Level National Knowledge Commission (2007) - recommended

making use of globally available OER and Open Access (OA) for increasing the widespread availability of high-quality educational resources.

National Mission on Education through ICTs (NMEICT), launched by the MHRD in 2009 - leveraging ICTs to provide quality, personalized, interactive knowledge modules over the Internet/ intranet to all learners in higher education institutions, any time anywhere

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Policy Initiatives at National Level Twelfth Five Year Plan emphasised creation of knowledge

based resources.

India Vision 2020 emphasized development of virtual labs and open access content repositories.

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Policy Initiatives at institutional Level ICT Policy IPR Policy Policy and guidelines related to the e-learning platform

and content Awareness raising and Capacity building of the faculty Infrastructure and resources Incentives and rewards

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Impediments to the use of OERs

Technical barriers such as lack of broadband access. Economic barriers such as inadequate resources to invest in

the required hardware and software. Social barriers such as a lack of the skills needed to use

technology. Policy-oriented barriers such as the lack of clear policy in

institutions regarding OER. Legal barriers such as the time and expense associated with

gaining permission to use.

(OECD, 2007)

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Challenges Related to the use of OERs in Distance Education in India

Lack of awareness

Lack of skills

Need for a culture of sharing and openness

Infrastructure and Technologies

Institutional Policies

Quality of OER

Standards and guidelines

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Challenges Related to the use of OERs in Distance Education

Sustainability of OER Initiatives

Copyright

Knowledge and Use of Open Licensing

Localization of Content

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References Abeywardena, I.S., Tham, C.Y. and Raviraja, R (2012). Conceptual Framework for

Parametrically Measuring the Desirability of Open Educational Resources using D-index. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(2), 104-121. Available at: www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1177

Geith, C. and Vignare, K. (2008). Access to education with online learning and Open Educational Resources: Can they close the gap? Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(1). Available at: http://www.oerafrica.org/ResourceDownload.aspx?assetid=140

Rolfe, V. (2012). Open Educational Resources: Staff Attitudes and Awareness. Research in Learning Technology, 2012, 20. Available at: http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/14395/pdf

Venkaiah, V. (2008). Open Educational Resources in India: A Study of Attitudes and Perceptions of Distance Teachers. Available at: http://wikieducator.org/images/d/d7/PID_386.pdf

MHRD (2013). All India Survey on Higher Education. New Delhi: Government of India

University Grants Commission (2013). Higher Education in India at a Glance. New Delhi: UGC. Available at: http://www.ugc.ac.in/ugcpdf/208844_HEglance2012.pdf

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