Pass the SoLT

This week I attended the second OERu meeting in Dunedin where foundation partners came together to discuss and plan their next steps in this innovative open educational resources initiative. You can read more about the OERu initiative on the related Wikieducator website. About 10 partner institutions have signed up as foundation members of the OER network, including Athabasca University, Empire State College, Thompson Rivers University, University of Canterbury, University of Southern Queensland and University of Wollongong, but I was attending as an observer as Massey University has not yet committed itself to the OERu concept.

Based on discussions that took place over the two days, it is doubtful that Massey will join as a foundation partner. However, we wish those people and institutions involved all the best as Massey remains committed to providing access to high quality tertiary education, especially in the developing world. I was grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to the meeting (thanks Wayne) and I will be very interested to see if the partners can overcome many of the challenges confronting such a creative solution to the wider provision of tertiary education.

If you are interested in finding out more information, then most of the sessions are were recorded on uStream. The breakout panels generated lots of interesting discussion and certainly identified many of the opportunities along with a number of serious challenges. I will be watching the initiative with interest over the next 12 months.