Given the learning outcomes of a curriculum, which outcomes are candidates for COTS OER and what strategies can we use to make use of these COTS OER within that curriculum? What are the challenges and how do we manage differences in level (academic versus professional bachelor level).
It is more and more important to be able to focus on distinct factors that make our education stand out showing our own identity. Also we would like the student to be able to create his own study plan and according to that plan be able to master the learning outcomes that are required for a successful education.
In the industry we also see a focus shift to not to reinvent the wheel as we call it. Examples are reuse of Common Of The Shelf (COTS) components and software (Open Source) which are available freely (as in freedom to use and change, not necessarily free of charge).
The rise of OER (Open Educational Resources) like for example MIT OpenCourseWare brings the same situation to education. We could see the OER as a way to access COTS generic courses like introductory level C programming which we could reuse within a generic programming curriculum.
We will try to find an answer to what is needed to integrate OERs into our courses in such a way that the development effort for a course is minimized and that students are able to independently follow the courses based on these resources. This is particularly relevant when didactical choices like blended learning or flipping the classroom are used.
