Study documents the possibilities of combining competition and promotion for open resource textbooks

On 6 November 2017 the Düsseldorf Research Institute for Social Development (FGW) published its study exploring the perspectives of open education resources (OER) in (socio) economic education in North Rhine-Westphalia and in Germany. The authors of the study, Maximilian Heimstädt and Leonhard Dobusch, evaluated pertinent literature and 18 interviews with a wide range of representatives from the field of educational media. These evaluations were used as the foundation for recommendations within six possible policy scenarios based on social studies and economics teaching in schools in North Rhine-Westphalia. The core assumption of the advice is that ‘state-approved OER textbooks … [solve] problems related to digital learning materials, such as legal uncertainties and poor quality’ and should therefore be encouraged. The study concluded that schemes involving open calls for tender for pilot OER books and the development of ‘blank’ OER textbooks were both to be highly recommended.

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Sources

Image: Picture from Jonathasmello / CC BY 3.0
Information source: irights.info 07.11.17,