Quality improvement of the use of OER in higher education - challenges and consequences

In English A paradigm shift is emerging in universities especially regarding how personalized and collaborative mobile learning should be addressed. Recently three international benchmarking projects on quality of e-learning in higher education have been carried out by Lund University in Sweden. These showed that quality has to be valued from a holistic perspective and to a higher extent from learning dimensions and the learners’ perspectives. Benchmarking was emphasized as a powerful strategic tool to assist decision-makers in improving the quality and effectiveness of organizational processes and thereby striving for excellence in the higher education arena. The studies also showed that other quality dimensions have to be considered, since web 3.0 and collaborative learning will radically extend learning environments. The classroom will move out into the world, instead of (as in earlier technical revolutions) the technology being integrated into the traditional classroom. Furthermore a recent Swedish project on OER in universities indicated that the issue of resource sharing opens up much wider questions of a structural and cultural nature. Collaborative, ubiquitous-/open learning and cloud learning environments in addition to demands from millennium learners entering universities will profoundly impact on the current university arena. This paper will elaborate on challenges and consequences on the emerging OER movement, especially regarding quality from the learners’ perspective and the needs of a changing cultural educational paradigm towards openness, personalisation and collaboration and encouraging benchmarking in the use of OER and search for good practice.