OER university gains momentum

The Open Education Resources Tertiary Education Network (OERTen) is an international innovation partnership of like-minded institutions, collaborating on the implementation of the OERuniversity (OERu) with the aim of providing more affordable access to higher education.  At the UNESCO Global Forum in Paris earlier this year, Sir John Daniel, President of the Commonwealth of Learning, and his colleague from UNESCO, Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić, presented research findings predicting that global participation in higher education would rise from the current 165 million students enrolled currently to a peak of 263 million in 2025.  Accommodating the additional 98 million students in conventional institutions would require more than four major universities of 30,000 students to open every week for the next 15 years!  Clearly conventional delivery models cannot address this growing global demand.  The OERu aims to create a sustainable alternative.