Open Education 2017

OERs have emerged as one of the key teaching-learning practices that have enhanced the quality of education. In 2008, Indian Government's National Knowledge Commission called for a Š—“National e-content and curriculum initiativeŠ— to enhance and promote OER creation and adoption. The National Mission on Education using ICT also stressed on creation of OER under the scheme. Since then India has undertaken several major projects through national level repositories that create content at every level of education, from primary to higher education. Despite the fact that the OER movement aimsξfor reducing time and cost of technology-enhanced learning environment, its accomplishment and sustainability rely on large-scale participation by educators. This demands consciousness and awareness about the concept of OER among educators and policy adoption of OER by institutions. Our earlier studies have shown that though several faculty of various Indian Universities possess a positive attitude towards OER and are willing to create, adapt and share their content; a larger percentage of educators and academicians often do not believe in sharing their knowledge. Various reasons, such as substantial lack of technical skills, minimal understanding of copyright and licensing, and lack of institutional policy have been recognised. We believe that with more ICT skills and knowledge of OER, the localised needs of academicians can be met which could assist in the promotion of OER. The present paper discusses these reasons along with the current status of OER in India. Various aspects, such as adoption of OER in India, the extent of awareness among educators about OER, various barriers and constraints faced by content creators in creating/adopting OER, the status of strategies adopted at the institutional level, will be discussed. We will also discuss means that could lead to successful implementation of OER and making OER mainstream in Indian higher education.