1. International programs
1.1. Europe – Learning Resource Exchange for schools (LRE) is a service launched by European Schoolnet in 2004 enabling educators to find multilingual open educational resources from many different countries and providers. Currently, more than 200,000 learning resources are searchable in one portal based on language, subject, resource type and age range.
1.2. India – National Council Of Educational Research and Training digitized all its textbooks from 1st standard to 12th standard. The textbooks are available online for free. Central Institute of Educational Technology, a constituent Unit of NCERT, digitized more than thousand audio and video programmes. All the educational AV material developed by CIET is presently available at Sakshat Portal an initiative of Ministry of Human Resources and Development. In addition, NROER (National Repository for Open Educational Resources) houses variety of e-content.
1.3. US – Washington State's Open Course Library Project is a collection of expertly developed educational materials – including textbooks, syllabi, course activities, readings, and assessments – for 81 high-enrolling college courses. All course have now been released and are providing faculty with a high-quality option that will cost students no more than $30 per course.
1.4. Bangladesh is the first country to digitize a complete set of textbooks for grades 1-12.Distribution is free to all.
1.5. South Korea has announced a plan to digitize all of its textbooks and to provide all students with computers and digitized textbooks.
2. idea
2.1. The idea of open educational resources (OER) has numerous working definitions.
2.2. he term was firstly coined at UNESCO's 2002 Forum
3. tensions that exist with OER
3.1. Nature of the resource
3.1.1. Several of the definitions above limit the definition of OER to digital resources, while others consider that any educational resource can be included in the definition.
3.2. Source of the resource
3.2.1. While some of the definitions require a resource to be produced with an explicit educational aim in mind, others broaden this to include any resource which may potentially be used for learning
3.3. Level of openness
3.3.1. Most definitions require that a resource be placed in the public domain. Others require for use to be granted merely for educational purposes, or exclude commercial uses
4. eLearning standards
4.1. Sharable Content Object Reference Model
4.1.1. is a collection of standards and specifications for web-based electronic educational technology
4.2. Learning Object Metadata
4.2.1. is an open standard for metadata describing learning objects , which in 2002 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers