Is “game changer” accurate?
The title uses a popular phrase, so a plain answer comes first. Open educational resources have changed some things: they gave teachers a legal way to reuse and adapt materials, gave students an option that costs less, and made “open” a standard part of education policy discussions. They have not replaced conventional publishing or schooling, and the extent of their effect on learning is still debated. “Significant, uneven and incomplete” describes the record better than “game changer”, and this history tries to keep to that.
Before the term existed
Sharing teaching materials is not new. Teachers have long swapped notes and lesson plans, and libraries have lent books for centuries. What changed from the late twentieth century was the combination of digital copying, the internet and a legal framework for sharing.
Two developments in software and publishing set the scene. The free software movement of the 1980s and the open-source software movement of the late 1990s showed that people could build valuable things and give them away under licenses that required sharing to continue. In the late 1990s, some people began applying the same thinking to written content and proposed open content licenses. These ideas fed into later debates about the role of open-source software and open data in education.
The early 2000s: naming and licensing
Several things happened close together.
- Universities begin publishing course materials. In the early 2000s, some institutions announced projects to put course materials online for anyone to read, an idea that became known as open courseware. The aim was often described as sharing knowledge and, in some cases, showing what the institution offered.
- Creative Commons. The organization was founded in 2001, and its first set of licenses was released in December 2002. These gave authors a simple, standard way to say what others may do with their work. This was crucial, because without clear licenses, materials posted online were still legally restricted.
- The name. At a UNESCO forum held in 2002 on open courseware in higher education in developing countries, participants adopted the term “open educational resources”. The term spread, and its meaning broadened from course materials to many other kinds of educational content.
Mid-2000s to 2010s: broadening and organizing
Over the following years the movement became more organized and the range of resources grew.
- Declarations and statements appeared that set out principles for open education. One example is the Cape Town Open Education Declaration of 2007, and later the Paris OER Declaration of 2012, produced at a UNESCO congress.
- Open textbooks became a major focus, partly in response to student concern over the price of course materials. For many people, the practical story of OER is the story of open textbooks.
- Repositories and collections appeared to catalog materials, though discovery remained difficult.
- Learning management systems and online platforms made it easier to share material, though they also raised questions about who controls the content.
- Massive open online courses became widely known in the early 2010s. The term had appeared a few years earlier, and a wave of attention followed around 2012. Despite the shared word “open”, these courses were often free to join but not always openly licensed, which sometimes caused confusion between the two ideas.
Policy attention
Governments and international bodies took more interest over time. Some countries and regions introduced funding programs or policies on openly licensed materials produced with public money. In 2019, UNESCO’s member states adopted a recommendation on OER, which set out areas of action such as building capacity, supporting policy and encouraging international cooperation. A recommendation of this kind carries moral and political weight rather than legal force, and implementation varies from country to country.
Digital divide and the limits of reach
From the start, supporters hoped open materials would extend education to people who lacked access. In practice, digital resources depend on devices, electricity and connectivity, and the digital divide limits who benefits. In some contexts, offline copies and printed materials have been used to reach people without reliable internet.
What actually changed
It is reasonable to say that:
- Openly licensed materials now exist in large numbers across many subjects and levels, though coverage is uneven.
- Students in some courses pay little or nothing for core texts.
- Many institutions, funders and governments now have an OER policy or program of some kind.
- The idea of teachers adapting and sharing materials is more widely known than before.
What did not change as much
- In many systems, conventional commercial materials remain dominant.
- The effect on learning is modest or unclear in much of the research. Studies are mixed and often compare costs more than outcomes.
- Awareness among teachers is still limited in many places.
- Projects often struggle to find long-term funding, a theme that runs through the economics of openness.
- Some of the early hopes, such as large-scale peer review and reuse by thousands of teachers, have been realized only in part.
A fair way to read the history
The rise of OER is best seen as a gradual shift in norms and options, produced by licensing, technology and a lot of effort by individuals and organizations, rather than as a sudden revolution. It matters most in the places where cost or flexibility was a real constraint, and least where existing arrangements already worked well. Anyone assessing its future would do well to look at actual use and evidence rather than slogans, whether positive or negative.