The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its latest Open Educational Resources (OER) report yesterday: Open Educational Resources: A Catalyst for Innovation, Educational Research and Innovation. (PDF)

The report covers the following topics:

1. OER in educational policy and practice
2. OER as a catalyst for innovation
3. Fostering new forms of learning for the 21st century
4. Fostering teachers’ professional development
5. Containing educational costs
6. Improving the quality of educational resources
7. Widening the distribution of high quality educational resources
8. Reducing barriers to learning opportunities
9. Research on OER and the challenge of the extended lifecycle
10. Securing the sustainability of OER initiatives
11. Public policy interventions to improve teaching and learning through OER

Authors Dominic Orr, Michele Rimini and Dirk Van Damme describe the report as:

[following on] earlier work by CERI on OER, which resulted in the publication Giving Knowledge for Free in 2007, and an OECD country questionnaire on OER-related policy and activities in 2012. It seeks to provide a state of the art review of evidence on OER practice and impacts, and evaluate the remaining challenges for OER entering the mainstream of educational practice.

Creative Commons is also pleased to see OECD using a CC license on its report. We look forward to seeing more OECD reports openly licensed in the near future.

This report is a welcome contribution to overall OER strategy and open licensing policy recommendations to governments; and will be helpful in educating national governments, policy markers and educators about the benefits of OER specifically and open education more generally.

See also: OECD’s blog post.