Many universities in the German-speaking area have already implemented policies to promote OER (see Policies List). The term OER refers to educational resources that are available free of charge to a broader public under an open licence, and that thus permit reuse by others. OER may be individual, stand-alone resources or full courses (see the UNESCO definition). Creative Commons licences have established themselves as the standard for the labelling and distribution of OER.

OER can be reusable in many ways. While suitable teaching or learning resources for one’s own subject area can enrich, supplement, and deepen courses, they may also offer an opportunity to inspire and restructure the (re)design of one’s own teaching and to make it more competence-oriented (e.g. in accordance with the principle of the flipped classroom). By making a didactic and methodological mix of learning offerings available, student engagement can be increased, and a mix of scientific work methods and informal learning processes can be achieved. Furthermore, offering a broad range of supplementary materials allows students to engage with the topic in a needs-based way, thereby promoting independent and individual learning, for example via personal learning pathways to prepare for exams, engage with topics in depth, or compensate for varying levels of knowledge on the part of students. This is especially true when the students themselves are encouraged to extend the pool of resources together with the teachers or to adapt the OER to their own learning processes.

Especially when entering university teaching, OER can be useful for newly appointed professors and newly recruited lecturers. Falling back on tried-and-tested resources, and thus not having to start from scratch when developing teaching concepts and materials, can make entry into university teaching easier.

OER realise great potential when they are adapted and extended. For example, they can be translated easily into other languages (by means of AI), thereby creating potential for internationalisation. Or the content can be transferred from the universities to other educational partners, for example in scientific further education or adult education.

In principle, publishing one’s own teaching/learning resources and teaching concepts as OER can serve to establish one’s reputation in university teaching, just as scientific publications do in the area of research. Sometimes, having OER in one’s CV also becomes more relevant for specific jobs. By making OER available, one can actively contribute to a diverse and sustainable educational landscape.

For some university teachers, sharing teaching/learning materials, teaching concepts, or exam questions still raises questions, uncertainties, or reservations: Where can I search for suitable resources? How do I know that these resources are good? Is there not a lot of work involved in adapting these resources to my own teaching? What legal aspects must I consider if I want to publish my own resources? Who is going to answer my questions? To establish or promote a culture of sharing in higher education, and thus the use and creation of OER, various measures are needed on several levels. They include, for example:

• Advisory services and specific contact persons on site
• Information material, self-learning courses, consultation hours, etc.
• Training and further training offerings on the creation and use of OER
• Exchange and networking formats for teaching staff in order to make inter alia good practice examples visible
• Incentive systems, for example funding programmes, awards, teaching credits for special achievements relating to OER in higher education
• National and international events relating to OER
• Trained assistants who support the adaptation and creation of OER

One essential cornerstone that may (or may not) pave the way for these measures can be laid with an OER policy. With such a policy, which targets university teachers and/or other staff members, universities can not only show that they are committed to OER, openness, and a culture of sharing but also how and with what measures they want to achieve these goals at their institutions. OER policies typically include the following content (see also the policy template provided by the Lower Saxony state portal twillo):

1. The university’s position in relation to OER (includes inter alia a preamble, understanding of OER, goals, target groups)
2. The university’s recommendations (“obligations” of the target group, inter alia choice of licence, attribution, open data formats, quality assurance)
3. The university’s offerings (what support does it want to ensure in relation to OER, e.g. the granting of rights of use; responsibilities and contact persons; an OER repository; training offerings; further measures)

However, the pathway to and the content of OER policies are as different and diverse as the higher education landscape itself. If a university wants to embark on the path to an OER policy, the same questions always arise: Where and how do we start? What should the policy contain or regulate? What legal aspects should be considered? What stakeholders should be involved?

Clearly defined answers to these questions are few, but there are experiences of how universities have answered these questions individually for themselves. These experiences have now been compiled in the form of a clearly structured and interactive OER Policy Kit by a working group composed of representatives from twillo, the ORCA.nrw network, and the HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen. Over a period of six months, the six-person working group compiled the experiences of universities that have already published an OER policy or are in the process of doing so. During the writing process, feedback was sought from networking meetings of OER policy actors, and this feedback was incorporated into the OER Policy Kit.

The finalised OER-Policy Kit provides guidelines for action that are intended to serve as a practical guide through the jungle that is the OER policy development process (Figure 1). Irrespective of the point at which a university finds itself – whether it needs a suggestion for a policy draft or it wishes to organise a participatory process or to first inform management about the pros and cons of an OER policy – the OER Policy Kit tries, despite the existing differences between universities, to provide a general orientation, concrete tips and examples, as well as useful information material on the various stages.

The questions that arise when developing OER policies, which relate to free access to teaching/learning resources, are similar to those that arise when designing open access policies, which are aimed at making scientific publications and research data freely accessible. Many of the challenges and stages in the process of preparing and implementing an open access policy are the same as those that arise in the case of OER policies: definition of goals and measures, involvement of relevant stakeholders, consideration of legal aspects. The OER Policy Kit can therefore also provide helpful answers to questions regarding the process of developing an open access policy and can thus be used as a guide. Indeed, by simultaneously promoting OER and open access, universities can establish a comprehensive culture of openness that covers both teaching and research.

Thus, if your university wishes to embark on the path to openness and to anchor this wish in the form of a policy, you should take a look at the OER Policy Kit. All files for reusing the policy kit can be found in this Git repository: https://github.com/twillo-lehre-teilen/OER-Policy-Kit. If you find the kit useful, or you have suggestions for improvement, we look forward to your feedback either by email to support.twillo@tib.eu or in the form of a comment below this post.

Czerwinski, S., & Hörmann, I. (2024). Openness an Hochschulen verankern mit dem OER-Policy Kit. open-access.network. doi.org/10.64395/e9zv7-6h247.