The usage and uptake of OER in the Caribbean Higher Education Institutions – building a Policy Framework

Paula C. Morais. External Senior Expert, ASTECGlobal Consultancy, Ireland

Keywords: Open Educational Resources; Higher Education;Public Good; Caribbean region; Policy

AbstractThe problemsAlthough some higher education institutions are already

integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) in educationalcontext around the Caribbean region, there is still a lack ofawareness towards OER and a systematized approach to theirdevelopment and usage in the Caribbean region. Furthermore,there were not as yet studies to support the draft of OERPolicies and initiatives by the Caribbean Governments and, inparticular, the Ministries of Education, to promote OERuptake in the countries.

The importance of this studyMore and more governments are considering Open

Educational Resources as a public good that requires beinglegislated and considered when funding education. Moreover,higher education institutions and bodies are also reviewingtheir existing educational policies to integrate OER in them,by changing the types of licensing, participating or creatingOER repositories.

All contracts and grants funded by the CaliforniaCommunity Colleges Chancellor’s Office will be made availableunder the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).

The European Commission announced a new Initiative“Opening-up Education”, launched on September 2013, “itacknowledges that openness has the potential to widen accessto education and to improve, amongst others, access, cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning”. It alsoaddresses the potential of OER and its policy objectives“Increased use of Open Educational Resources (OER), ensuringthat educational materials produced with public funding areavailable to all”.

The Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN) andthe Caribbean National Regional Education Networks (NREN)swere supported through the ACP Connect Project, financed bythe European Commission, from April to October 2013, with theaim to successfully launch them, linking through C@ribNET, toeach other and to the international research and educationnetworks. To fully achieve this, it is fundamental to havededicated high capacity broadband networks in place, atnational and Caribbean level, supported among others byInformation Communication Technologies (ICT), Open DistanceLearning (ODL) and OER Policies. This study appears underthis project.

In the Caribbean region, the use/development of OpenEducational Resources is still in a very embryonic stage.

Description of research methodConsidering the embryonic status of OER adoption in the

Caribbean region, this study followed a dual qualitative andquantitative analysis, with three key moments: desk review ofcurrent literature and studies on the use, impact of OER inTertiary Educational Institutions (TEIs), around the worldand in particular in the Caribbean region; application of twosurveys (NREN and TEI surveys); and semi-structuredinterviews with institutional champions identified in thesurveys, by the institutions.

Results There were 23 respondent Higher Education Institutions

from 4 Caribbean countries.Each of the analyzed countries presented different needs

and timeframes for the introduction of OER at a policy level.It was also emphasised the need to introduce thematicCaribbean OER repositories, thus addressing and highlightingthe Caribbean cultural specificities.

Institutional OER policies are not in the largest TEIsplans, in surveyed institutions.

The main reasons considered by the respondentinstitutions for the adoption of OERs in their institutionswere as part of Open Education Policy, in place enabling useof Open Access and open source software and as part of theeducational strategy. The reason considered the lessimportant was Public Good.

The main barriers for the adoption of OERs in therespondent institutions range from required investment, the

quality of Open Educational Resources and the teachingculture. The human resources changes to integrate OER shouldaddress staff alignment and teamwork.

The main type of license being used is Copyright,followed by Creative Commons and Public Domain. It seems thatthere is a misconception regarding the different types oflicensing available. It is not clear the difference betweenPublic Domain and making content available publicly,maintaining a copyright license.

ConclusionsAt policy making level, it is critical for CARICOM and

the Ministries of Education to clarify their approach toPublic Good and advocate it around the Educational System,thus creating the required buy-in by all the key stakeholdersto make it a reality in the Caribbean Region. Thisclarification will allow to create a broader perspective asto openness, open education, and the required motivation forchange and orientation/adoption towards a knowledge economy.

Create licensing mechanisms that will allow for abroader range of licenses. The current licensing systems inthe Caribbean countries do not support Creative Commons.

Promote and galvanize the creation of OER repositoriesat national or Caribbean level, addressing thematic areas.These OER repositories may showcase knowledge unique to theCaribbean region, thus placing them internationally as OERreferences.

Strengthen the capacity of local Tertiary EducationalInstitutions (TEIs) to use Open Educational Resources (OER),supported, for instance, on Open Education Policies.

When planning awareness raising strategies a major focusshould be put into OER training, coupled with the developmentof networks and communities of practice to build on thesharing/learning started previously.

Acknowledgement A special thank you to the CKLN, in particular Candia

Alleyne, Jackie Cousins and David Edwards, and J-TEC teamswithout whom it would have been impossible to distribute thesurveys and obtain such an overwhelming response, in a timelymanner, with the exams and Summer vacation lurking.

Reference CitationCKLN, Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network.

Retrieved November 20, 2013 from www.ckln.org

 Communication Opening up Education: Innovative teachingand learning for all through new Technologies and OpenEducational Resources. European Commission. RetrievedNovember 20, 2013 fromhttp://ec.europa.eu/education/news/doc/openingcom_en.pdf

Full paper

The importance of OERMore and more governments are considering OERs as a

public good that require being legislated and taken intoconsideration when funding education. The adoption of OERpresents benefits at national and institutional levels byproviding opportunities to diversify curriculum offerings ina cost effective manner, and simultaneously position theHigher Education Institutions in the global learning market,with unique contents1. The cost of developing high qualityeducational materials is lowered significantly when sharedacross several institutions becoming a cost effectiveapproach. Open textbooks can also reduce the average amountspent up to 80%, presenting an enormous cost reduction forgovernments, when subsidizing textbooks, and parents.

Moreover, higher education institutions and bodies arealso reviewing their existing educational policies tointegrate OER in them, by changing the types of licensing,participating or creating OER repositories. OERs decrease thedevelopment costs of their content, increase the quality andmedia diversity of educational content, enhance theinstitutions reputation, position their offering among newstudents and communities, crate new educational partnershipsand alliances, and provide a marketing tool to recruit newstudents.

In the USA, all contracts and grants funded by theCalifornia Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office are madeavailable under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CCBY).

The European Commission announced a new Initiative“Opening-up Education”, launched on September 2013, “itacknowledges that openness has the potential to widen accessto education and to improve, amongst others, access, cost-

1http://wikieducator.org/Educators_care/ OER_Benefits_and_myths#cite_note-1

efficiency and quality of teaching and learning”. It alsoaddresses the potential of OER and its policy objectives“Increased use of Open Educational Resources (OER), ensuringthat educational materials produced with public funding areavailable to all”.2

The Commonwealth of Learning has been actively promotingthe adoption of OER by the Caribbean Ministries of Education,leading several high level workshops during which nationalOER Policies were drafted.

MethodologyThe study involved a dual qualitative and quantitative

analysis of the status of OER adoption in the CaribbeanRegion, with 3 main activities: i) a Desk review of currentliterature and studies on the use and impact of OER in TEI,around the world and in particular in the Caribbean region;ii) application of a joint survey administered to the NRENwith a question specifically oriented to OER; and iii) aninstitutional survey.

Due to time and geographical constraints, theinstitutional survey was answered by a small sample of 23Institutions, from 4 countries.

The Commonwealth of Learning has been promoting theintegration of OER in educational context in the Caribbean,through the integration of OER into broader ICT policies ineducation, as a way to promote organizational change. Theinstitutional survey addressed the ICT Policy, followed byOER Policy and OER use and development in the institutionssurveyed.

There were 23 respondent institutions. The distributionof the survey differed between Jamaica and the rest of thecountries. In Jamaica, the survey was sent to 80institutions, through J-TEC, with a response rate of 23.75%(19 respondents). In the other countries, the survey was sentto 3 NRENs and the 9 member countries of the OECS REN, whichdistributed the survey later. In all 4 surveys were received,2 from British Virgin Islands, 1 from Trinidad & Tobago and 1from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

For the purposes of this study, the definition of OpenEducational Resources provided by Hewlett Foundation, in 2007is considered.

2 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-859_en.htm

 "Teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the publicdomain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permitstheir free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include fullcourses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software,and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access toknowledge." (Atkins, Brown and Hammond, 2007).

Study limitationsThis study has two major limitations that must be taken

into consideration by policy makers in particular, andreaders in general. 1) The sample is not representative ofthe Caribbean Higher Education Institutions universe, posinglimitations to extend the results obtained to othercountries, and even within the TEIs respondent countries. 2)The persons responsible for fulfilling the institutionalsurveys may not represent their institutions views on ICT andOER Policies.

OER in the CaribbeanAlthough some higher education institutions are already

integrating OER in educational context around the Caribbeanregion, there is still a lack of awareness towards OER and asystematized approach to their development.

The Commonwealth of Learning has been promoting theintegration of OER in educational context, in the Caribbean,through the adoption of OER into broader ICT policies ineducation as a way to promote organizational change. Severalhigh level workshops have taken place, and a national OERpolicy template has been developed and presented in thedifferent countries.

Although some institutions are already playing a moreactive role in developing OER, most institutions are stilljust reusing and remixing existing content. The institutionshave also been investing in training teachers in OER use anddevelopment.

In 2007, the University of West Indies (UWI) was one ofthe first signatories of the “Cape Town Open EducationDeclaration: Unlocking the promise of open educationalresources”.

In 2010, the UWI, Open Campus, in Barbados, launched ajoint project with Athabasca University to understand if OERwas available in sufficient quantity and quality to supportthe development of university courses. This project concluded

that it was possible to create courses supported by OERcontents albeit the variable quality and the medium variety.

In Jamaica, the Bethlehem Moravian College has alreadydeveloped some OER course materials, in addition to using andremixing OER, in different subject areas includingMathematics, Sciences, Social Sciences, Education, andBusiness and Management. The Mico University College is alsoin a similar situation having already developed main coursematerials as OER, and have used full course materials, testsand software. The Portmore Community College has been usingOER as supplementary course material, additional readings andassessments in Mathematics, Computing and Engineering andSciences. The G. C. Foster College of Physical Education andSport reused and remixed OER Education thematic content asadditional readings, from Curriki.org and OER Commons.org.

In the British Virgin Islands, The Learning ResourceCentre from H. Lavity Stoutt Community College is in theprocess of developing a collection of main course material,as well as textbooks and tests, in the subject area ofsciences and environmental sciences.

The University of Trinidad and Tobago, have been usingOER course materials and textbooks in Sciences andEnvironmental Sciences, Agriculture, Food Technology,Mathematics and in basic Sciences, such as Chemistry.

On 15 October 2013, at the 23rd Annual Meeting, theMinisters of Education of the Organization of EasternCaribbean States (OECS) endorsed the COL/UNESCO opentextbooks initiative. This initiative came out of regionalpolicy workshops organized jointly by COL and UNESCO in 2012and 2013. Other recommendations emanating from the workshopsinclude the drafting of policies in open licensed content andthe creation of a regional OER repository.

Caribbean NREN and OERIn April 2013, the NREN survey was sent to the NREN

Heads addressed by the ACP Connect Project. The NRENs Headsare nominated by the Ministries of Education of theircountries. A qualitative analysis of the surveys that werefulfilled by 5 Heads of NRENs is presented next.

It is to be noted that the NREN´s heads survey wasdeveloped along with the other consultant team for the ACPConnect Project, with the objective to obtain a common andglobal overview of needs and expectations, in the short and

medium term in the areas covered by both consultancies. Forthe purposes of this study, only the response regarding OERspecifically was analysed: “What are the prioritizedactivities and products/tools you would like to seeimplemented, in/by/for your NREN, in the short (2-6 months)and medium term (1-2 years) (kindly specify) in each of thefollowing areas?...Open Educational Resources”

From the analysis of the respondents, the followingconclusions were reached regarding the prioritization of OERin the short and medium term: 1) Each country presentsdifferent needs and timeframes, from short (to 6 month) tomedium (1 to 2 years) timeframes, although most of the NRENsconsider it a short term priority. 2) There is a need toinvolve different institutions from all education levelsusing a sharable repository “Establishment of a Datacenterwith sharable data for the benefit of primary, secondary andtertiary educational institutions”. 3) The capacity of localTertiary Educational Institutions (TEIs) to use OpenEducational resources (OER) needs to be strengthened. 4)Research and sharing occur at institutional level with alimited availability of shared open educational resources atnational level. 5) There is a need for specific OER contents,with the creation of varying thematic databases andrepositories that could cover such diverse topics as WI slaverecords.

Caribbean Higher Education Institutions and OERThe institutional survey was developed to identify the

current ICT and OER Policies implementations at institutionallevel, as well as the OER practicum panorama in theinstitutions.

Profile of the respondent institutionsThere were 23 respondent institutions from four

different countries: Jamaica, British Virgin Islands, StVincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

It is worth noting that some of the respondentinstitutions come from the small Island states of St Vincentand the Grenadines and British Virgin Islands demonstratingtheir involvement in moving forward with ICT in Education andOpen Education.

These institutions were mainly Community Colleges (9respondents), followed by Universities, Teachers Colleges.

Libraries (2 responses), a Vocational Educational TrainingInstitution and a Statutory Agency have also responded to thesurvey.

Graph 1 – Type of Institution

UniversityCommunity CollegeLibraryVETStatutory AgencyTeacher College

From these 23 institutions, 65.2% were publicly ownedwhile 34.8% were privately held institutions.

Graph 2 - Legal type

Public Private0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

The majority of the respondent institutions have between“21 to 250” staff, followed by small sized institutions with

“1-202 and medium sized institutions with 221-502 staff.Three big universities, 2501-20002 staff also participated inthe survey.

Graph 3 - Institution size

Staff 1 to 20

Staff 21 to 50

Staff 51 to 250

Staff 501 to 2000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The “1-20 staff” institutions are mainly private, whilethe remaining three groups are mainly public entities. Thelevel of involvement and response from small private entitiesto this survey is worth noting.

Graph 4 - Respondent institutions per size andownership

Staff 1 to 20

Staff 21 to 50

Staff 51 to 250

Staff 501 to 2000

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

PublicPrivate

Most of the respondents occupied very high levelmanagerial positions, such as Academic Dean, Principal, VicePresidents, Executive Director, Head of e-College, Heads ofDepartment, Directors. The surveys were also filled in by aChief University Librarian, a Network Member and teachers.

ICT Policy As previously highlighted, the Commonwealth of Learning

has been integrating OER policies into broader ICT ineducation policies which provide a greater opportunity topromote the idea of educational change. Simply adding ICTsand OER onto existing approaches will just add to teacherworkload and costs and will ultimately fail. Furthermore, theultimate goal is to develop learners for knowledge-basedeconomies.

Based on this high level policy approach already beingimplemented in the Caribbean, the survey also questioned theinstitutions on whether there were ICT policies in place and,if so, what did they cover. The question was also asked aboutthe areas which were considered for inclusion in the ICTPolicy.

60.9% of the institutions have an ICT Policy in place,while 30.4% are planning to define it, and only 8.7% do nothave any policy and are not planning to have one.

Graph 5 - Areas Addressed in ICT Policy

05

10152025

PlannedNoYes

To the question "Which areas does your ICT Policyaddress?”, the institutional ICT policies mainly address“Infrastructure and technical support”, followed by “Staffprofessional development” and “ODL and e-Learning”. “Studentassessment” is the least considered area.

It is interesting to note that “Research” is a key area,with five of the institutions planning to integrate it intheir ICT Policy, although currently it is the second leastconsidered area.

In the “Others”, the respondents also have in place,user policies, internet and mail use.

Regarding the type of systems and applications theinstitutions have in place, the majority of the institutionshave “student registrations applications” (16), “Open AccessJournals” and “Library Subscriptions” (15), and “VirtualLearning Environments” (14).

The internet in the institution is mainly used by theadministrative staff, with 74% having between 100% to 75%access to it. The teachers are the next group with the mostinternet access (65.2%), followed by the students (56.5%).The researchers are the group with the least access to theinternet. This may be due to several factors, namely the lackor diminutive research in the institutions analyzed.

This is also aligned with the IESALC, UNESCO findings“Low legitimacy of scientific activity, where scientificknowledge is not fully valued nor supported.” (UNESCO, 2008)

Open Educational Resources PolicyThe Open Educational Resources are becoming

strategically relevant for governments andeducational/training institutions around the world. TheCaribbean educational institutions still have a long way togo to catch-up with the current OER trends.

From the respondent institutions only one of them has anOER Policy in place. Eleven institutions are planning toimplement OER policies while the other eleven are notconsidering it.

Graph 6 - OER Policy in the institution

YesNoPlanned

When analyzing the respondents’ size and the uptake ofOER Policy in the institutions, the “501 to 2000 staff”organizations, being two public institutions and one private,as previously analyzed, are not implementing or planning toimplement OER Policies in their institutions, from theresponses provided.

In the “1 to 50 staff” institutions, one has already anOER Policy in place, while two are planning to implement andtwo are not.

Of the “51 to 250 staff” institutions, six are planningto put in place an OER Policy, while 3 are not.

As previously analyzed there are eleven respondentinstitutions that are planning to implement an OER policy,with one having already implemented it. The main areasalready covered by four institutions are OER awarenessstrategies, strategic investments in the development,

acquisition and adaptation of high quality learning material,integrating OER and adopt flexible copyright policies.

In terms of key areas to be implemented the “OER as anintegral part of the Quality Assurance process of educationaland research materials” tops the rank, with ten of therespondents considering it, followed by “strategicinvestment”, “flexible copyright policies” and integrate theuse and development of OER “in Human Resources Policies”.

Graph 7 - Areas covered by OER Policy

OER awareness strategies

areas Investment

flexible copyright policies

Quality assurance

CoP

HR Policies

0

4

8

12

YesNoPlanned

The main reasons considered by the respondentinstitutions very important for the adoption of OER in theirinstitutions were as part of “Open Education Policy”, inplace enabling use of Open Access and open source softwareand the “educational strategy”. The reason considered theleast important was “Public Good”.

Graph 8 - main reasons for the adoption of OER

0510152025

Not at all importantNot very importantFairly importantVery important

Considering the current international trend to adopt OERas Public Good by national and regional governments, as wellas by public and private educational institutions, it wasfurther analyzed by institutions size and ownership type.

The three bigger educational institutions (staff 501-2000) present a mixed approach to Public Good, from veryimportant to not very important, while all the smaller ones(staff 1-20) consider Public Good as very important.

Graph 9 - Public good Per Institution size

Staff 1 to 20

Staff 21 to 50

Staff 51 to 250

Staff 501 to 2000

01234567

Not very importantFairly importantVery important

Graph 10 - Public Good and Ownership type

Not very important

Fairly important

Very important

012345678910

PublicPrivate

These results require further analysis and reflection,at Caribbean level, involving more countries andinstitutions, to determine whether this represents a commontrend among the major educational institutions. And if itdoes, the reasons for public good not to be considered veryimportant for all major (at least public) educational playersin the region.

In case the Public Good approach is considered criticalfor the Caribbean region and the different Caribbeancountries, this may have an impact on policy making and therequired advocacy by the Ministries of Education.

The main barriers for the adoption of OER in therespondent institutions range from “required investment” tothe “quality of Open Educational Resources” and the “teachingculture”. These are the three main factors that hinder OERadoption. According to the survey, the least importantbarriers to OER adoption (not very important) are the “lackof skills of staff” and “trusted resources”.

Graph 11 - main barriers for the adoption of OER

Investment

Quality of Resources

Trusted Sources

lack of skills

Teaching Culture

Copyright Issues

Revenues Generation

0

4

8

12

16

Not at all importantNot very importantFairly importantVery important

The strategies considered the most effective to raiseawareness towards OER are according twenty respondents,focused on “staff development”, “capacity building” and“online training”, with the “OER support centers” beingconsidered very important by only thirteen of therespondents.

The “establishment of networks and Communities ofPractice” is considered as very important.

When planning awareness strategies to raise awareness, amajor focus should be put into “OER training”, coupled withthe “development of networks and communities of practice” tobuild on the sharing and development started at those moreformal learning moments.

Graph 12 - investments more relevant to integrate OERin the development of high quality content

048

1216

Not at all importantNot very importantFairly importantVery important

The definition of content standards, with the“integration of OER licensing” is the most importantinvestment according to the respondents, followed by“reusing, adapting and remixing existing OER” and the“creation of Communities of Practice”.

Some of the respondents considered as not very importantthe “development of OER content”, “changing quality assuranceprocesses”, and “create Communities of Practice” as not veryimportant.

When considering the relevance of investments tointegrate OER, there is a clear focus in using existing OERas they are, or adapting and remixing them according to theidentified needs.

Moreover, the “broader spectrum of licensing” isconsidered only very important by 12 respondents.

When asked which changes considered more effective tointegrate OER in the Human Resources policies, therespondents considered “staff alignment and teamwork”, as themost important.

Moreover, the “job descriptions” and “Rewards orIncentives” appear next in terms of importance, in the sameproportion.

One of the respondents also pointed out the “need toregularize training in this area and adjustments to thedefinition of work hours, hence assigning time for thedevelopment of such resources.”

Developing, reusing, remixing and sharing OER – PracticumThis fourth part of the survey aimed at understanding

what was, and is the level of development, reuse, remix andsharing of OER within the Caribbean educational institutions.

The institutions are mainly reusing and remixing OER(39.1%), although only three (13%) of them are alreadydeveloping and sharing their own OER content.

From these institutions, 39.1% is planning todevelop/share OER and 26.1% to reuse and remix.

It is to be noted that ten (43.5%) of the respondents donot have, intend or plan to develop and share OER, whileseven (30.4) do not have, intend or plan to reuse/remix OER.

Graph 13 - Percentage Institutions alreadyreusing/remixing and developing/sharing OER

% reuse/remix % develop/share05101520253035404550

YesNoPlanned

The main subjects areas where OER are being used are:“Sciences and Environmental Sciences (including Geography)”(34.8%), followed by “Mathematics, Computing and Engineering”with 26,1% of the respondents claiming to have used/developedthem. “Social Sciences”, “Education” and “Business andManagement” OER are used/developed by 21.7% of therespondents.

The subjects least used or developed are “Media” and“Arts”.

It is planned develop /use OER relating to “Mathematics,Computing and Engineering” by 26.1% of the respondentinstitutions, followed by “Social Sciences” and “Education”,with 21.7% and “Business and Management”, 17.4%.

Agriculture, food technology, and basic sciences havebeen other subjects where OER have been used/developed.

As for the type of licensing used, 35% of therespondents use a “copyright license”, followed by 21.7% thatuse “Creative Commons” licenses or “Public Domain”.

After analyzing the overall of the surveys and theirresponses regarding OER, it seems that there is amisconception regarding the different types of licensingavailable. The difference between Public Domain and makingcontent available publicly, while maintaining a copyrightlicense is not clear. This analysis was reinforced during theCapacity Building OER development and use Workshop, whichtook place in Jamaica, in July 2013.

Moreover, 17.4% are planning to make available theircontent via a “Public Domain” licensing, while only 8.7% arecontemplating to use a “Creative Commons” licensing.

The respondents are mainly using “Streaming videos” and“software” as OER, with “textbooks” following with 26.1%.26.5% and 17.4% of the respondents have developed “Coursematerials” and “tests” as OER. Furthermore, 39.1% areplanning to use/develop modules, 34.8% full courses andstreaming video, 30.4% tests, other tools, materials.Surveys as OER are also used by some of the respondentinstitutions. As part of Open Education, there are alsoreferences to Open Source Learning Management Systems,software programs and applications.

The institutions have been developing OER to beintegrated as “supplemental course content” (17.4%) and as“main course” (13%) in their educational contexts. The OERhave been mainly used as “supplemental course content”, as“additional reading” (26.1%) and as part of “research”(21.7%). Furthermore, the institutions are planning touse/develop OER as “main courses” (47.8%), followed as“additional readings” (43,5%), and the remaining three withsame weight, “supplement course content”, “assessment” and“research”.

Graph 14 – OER educational context used or planned touse

0

20

40

60

DevelopedUsedPlanning to use/develop

Main RecommendationsIt is critical for Caribbean governments to create a

policy context conducive to the full adoption of OERs inparticular, and Open Education in general, by TEIs.

Furthermore, these recommendations must be consideredfrom a systemic perspective and their analysis extended tothe whole educational system. OER may represent a huge shiftin the Caribbean Knowledge and Research Economy.

By utilizing the existent C@ribNET infrastructure, theEducation Ministries and Higher Education Institutions areable to promote Regional OER Repositories in general andthematic areas, decreasing the costs of high qualitycontents, which represent a large percentage of theMinistries of Education budgets.

Policy makersConsidering the current international trend to adopt

OERs as a Public Good by international funding agencies,governments and educational institutions, it is critical forCARICOM and the Ministries of Education to clarify theirapproach to Public Good and advocate for it within theEducational System, thus creating the required buy-in by keystakeholders to make it a reality in the Caribbean Region.This clarification will allow for the creation of a broaderperspective as to openness, open education, and the requiredmotivation for change towards a knowledge economy.

Create licensing mechanisms that will allow for abroader range of licenses. This is critical for thedevelopment of OER. The current licensing systems in theCaribbean countries do not support Creative Commons, and theregion is in fact, the only one that does not have a countryrepresented in CC Affiliated Network.3

Promote and galvanize the creation of OER repositoriesat national or Caribbean level, addressing thematic areas.These OER repositories may showcase knowledge unique to theCaribbean region, thus placing them internationally as OERreferences.

Strengthen the capacity of local TEIs to use OERs,supported, for instance, on Open Education and Open DistanceLearning Policies.

When planning awareness raising strategies, a majorfocus should be placed on OER training, coupled with thedevelopment of networks and communities of practice to buildon the sharing and learning started previously.

Higher Education LeadersIt is fundamental to either integrate OER as part of the

institutional policies, or create specific OER policies. OERs also need to become part of the Human Resources

policies, particularly in terms of staff development andteamwork, and should be closely related to the development ofLeadership skills.

Furthermore, it is critical to change the teachingculture, not only to accommodate the use and development ofOERs, but also in order to better align the institution withthe knowledge economy.

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