Publishing NUI Galway Open Educational Resources (OERs) for Effective Learning

NUI Galway is to provide Ireland's first OER service and publishing platform for students and staff. The OER platform will create and promote open, free, and reusable OER learning materials. Led by the Library, with the Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching (CELT) and the Students' Union (SU).

This project directly addresses one of the flagship goals of NUI Galway's strategy of Open NUI Galway to “promote the use and production of Open Educational Resources”.

Create and publish your own OERs (due to launch in mid-2021)

A pilot project to create NUI Galway OERs has been funded. OERs reduce costs and barriers for students while making learning easier and more accessible. Studies have found a direct link between OERs and higher test scores, lower failure rates, and lower drop-out rates. OERs also make course material more effective while promoting professional contributions of students and the academic community to teaching and learning in their field.
The pilot project is generously supported by the NUI Galway Student Project Fund.


Express your interest in creating or working with OERs

The main project aim is to enable and encourage a culture of open publishing of learning materials in NUI Galway. The Student Project Fund has funded a two-year pilot of an OER service for the University, led by the Library with CELT and the SU.

The project will provide the infrastructure and service for publishing open, free, and reusable NUI Galway authored learning materials. The project is a cross-campus effort with multiple stakeholders. The project plans to deliver the following:
- an OER online platform for students and staff,
- a cross-campus working group to focus on the continued governance and development of the service,
- OER grants to support the development of OERs,
- an OER service led by the Library,
- partnership arrangements agreed with Students' Union, CELT, and related stakeholders, and
- several NUI Galway OERs created, published, and reused locally and globally.

For more information see https://libguides.library.nuigalway.ie/oer/nuigalway-oers. Expressions of interest from those interested in creating or facilitating the creation of OERs are welcome.
The expected launch of the OER service and platform is in mid-2021.