The Open University of Sri Lanka's Institutional Policies and Strategies towards the use of Open Educational Resources

Abstract

This paper examines the policy initiatives taken by the Open University of Sri Lanka during the past three years to popularize the development, re-use and adaptation of Open Educational Resources (OER). The paper has used the published and unpublished records and materials to unearth the status-quo pertaining to the use of OER at the OUSL and notes the underlying reasons for its unenergetic performance. The OER initiatives, accordingly, has made a limited headway only in the re-use and adaptation of OER materials by some faculty members while the transformation of the existing materials into OER format has not made a headway. The paper explains the underlying reasons for this limited success and outlines how and why the OER options have not been optimally utilized at the OUSL.