A MILLION HITS AND MORE: WHAT MAKES AN OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE (OER) VALID AND RELIABLE?

This research analyses the usage of a particular collection of OERs (www.ucdoer.ie) over a three-year period and appraises the instructional design, discipline context and dissemination. The UCDOER site was created as on online course in 2012, aimed at practitioners in Higher Education and has evolved into an open educational resource used by c.25,000 individuals a month, with over 4 million page visits a year. A dilemma faces many institutional Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) - they hold a wealth of hidden treasures! There are many tools within these systems that may offer opportunities to collaborate, communicate and facilitate interactions. However, because of the nature of their design unsavoury elements may occur: content may not 'genuinely' be repurposed from one system to another (i.e. lack of interoperability), meaning that individual teachers and institutions become 'locked in' to these systems (Jones, 2008, Nielsen et al, 2011). This paper provides a constructive guide to developing and sustaining OERs.