Lincoln University joins open education network

Lincoln University yesterday announced its membership of the Open Education Resource university network (OERu).

The OERu is a programme of the Open Education Resource Foundation aimed specifically at universities around the world who are working to make quality teaching resources available globally at no cost.

Penny Carnaby, Lincoln University’s professor of digital knowledge systems, says open access essentially means making publically-funded resources – like many of those produced within a university – publically available.

“Within the University’s recently-publicised strategic plan there is a clearly-stated reference to giving open access to course materials,” she says.

“Making our intellectual capital available publically isn’t new to Lincoln with many, many published papers and our successful demonstration farms feeding back to industry, but what we are talking about with open access and our membership of the OERu is making available all relevant teaching material and research data for the use of others now and for posterity.”

Lincoln University also introduced an open access policy earlier this year.

“The open access policy does not replace the University’s IP policy as it is recognised that some material will not be suitable for public release due to commercial sensitivities,” says Carnaby.

“It also doesn’t supersede any copyright issues as owners of the material will be able to license it under Creative Commons, ascribing how the material can be used.  What it does do is give a framework for Lincoln to open up teaching and research material to enable access by a far larger, global audience for the greater education of mankind.”