The Paris OER Declaration 2012 states that publicly funded educational resources should be made available under an open license to the public. This creates a need to foster the creation, adoption, and implementation of policies supportive of effective OER practices. Governmental and institutional policy makers play a crucial role in setting policies that help to shape the direction of education systems, and these policies can accelerate or impede the adoption and creation of OER. Several countries have already adopted OER policies3, and the presence of country policies that are supportive of OER can be used as a gauge to determine levels of commitment to OER.
The lack of such frameworks can limit and delay the process of adoption or may even discourage institutions from pursuing OER undertakings. Furthermore, commercial interests, lack of awareness, and absence of strong leadership may limit the development and implementation of supportive OER policies. Once governments and institutions have decided to adopt an open license policy (requiring the outputs of grants or contracts be openly licensed), it is also important to provide implementation guides and professional development for how to implement the open policy.
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