Journal for Educators, Teachers and Trainers

Abstract

At present, there is great interest over the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) in all of its forms: OpenCourseware repositories OCW, spare open resources, or even more recently as Massive Online Open Courses (also called MOOC). This panorama has generated considerable debate about their effectiveness in terms of learning, sustainability and especially the role that higher education institutions play in this context. We understand that most of the students are interested in making the most of their education (formal and informal), and that will require universities to recognize their skills and abilities. In this article we start from the point of view of the university as a certifying OER-based institution, and we describe the different scenarios that arises. First of all the institution should know what is facing and what are the existing scenarios. From the experience of the European project OERtest, in which five higher education institutions have conducted a pilot on this issue, we can offer some conclusions regarding the feasibility of certifying and award credits to a student (internal or external to the institution when this service is requested.