The Guidelines were developed in 2011 by UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) after broad consultations with stakeholders in all regions of the world, to support governments, higher education institutions/providers, academic staff, student bodies and quality assurance/accreditation and recognition bodies and to foster the potential of OER to improve higher education systems.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified, and shared. These Guidelines outline key issues and make suggestions for integrating OER into higher education.

Their purpose is to encourage decision makers in governments and institutions to invest in the development of policies for the systematic production, adaptation and use of OER in the mainstream higher education in order to improve access to high quality of curricula and teaching and to reduce costs.

The Guidelines are also Available in the following languages:

• English: Bibliographic reference | PDF | ePub
• French: Bibliographic reference | PDF | ePub
• Spanish: Bibliographic reference | PDF | ePub
• Portuguese: Bibliographic reference | PDF | ePub
• Russian: PDF
• Vietnamese: PDF (translation by Nguyen Thi Hue National Radio of Viet Nam, Hoang Minh Nguyet, UNESCO Hanoi)

Download the Arabic version of the “Guidelines for Open Educational Resources in Higher Education” on this link.