Open educational resources are receiving more attention in higher education, including at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). This fits the ambition to make knowledge visible, create impact in society and work together on better education. But how do we ensure that good learning materials do not stay within a single course or programme, but are used more widely?
Via the Npuls grants Get Connected and OpenUp, the University Library (UB) is working on open educational resources and the reuse of learning materials within EUR. Since May this year, Gina Kim has been working as Scholarly Communications Steward, Open Educational Resources (OER). In the coming years she will fully focus on this topic. In this article, she explains what has already been developed around open educational resources and what will be worked on next.
Npuls is the National Growth Fund programme in which all public universities, universities of applied sciences and vocational schools (mbo) work together on a future-proof education sector. EUR is also actively involved in this programme.
What do we mean by Open Educational Resources?
In education, many different learning resources are used: presentations, assignments, video and audio recordings, infographics, textbooks and more. Traditionally, these materials stay 'closed': a teacher creates them for a specific course, and that is usually where their lifecycle ends. Open Educational Resources (OER) are digital learning materials that are shared openly. They are freely accessible to everyone (including people outside the academic community) and have an open licence (often a Creative Commons licence). This allows others (lecturers and students/learners) to use, adapt and reuse the material. As a result, the lifespan and possibilities of these materials are greatly increased.
Teachers can build on existing high-quality learning materials instead of always having to reinvent the wheel. Gina gives the example of a course that has achieved strong results for many years: when the materials from this course are shared openly, they can also have an impact on other courses and programmes. For students, open educational resources improve access to quality content and increase the chance that each student finds a format that suits their learning style.
Erasmus Gets Connected
In May 2025, the University Library (UB) received a Npuls incentive grant focused on sharing and (re)using digital and open learning materials. Through the project Erasmus Gets Connected, work was done on an infrastructure for open educational resources: the connections, platforms and support needed to share materials. At EUR there were already strong, but fragmented, examples of digital open educational resources. Gina mentions Dr Marleen de Moor (ESSB), co-initiator of the statistics platform Sharestats. On this platform, four universities openly share 5,000 exam questions. Until recently, EUR was only partly connected to the national OER infrastructure, and there was no clear helpdesk for teachers with questions about open educational resources. The Get Connected project made it possible to take big steps forward in all these areas over the past year.
Connection to edusources
As part of Erasmus Gets Connected, the first step was to create a better connection with edusources, the national platform where teachers can find and share open educational resources. Gina explains that edusources can be used across Dutch higher education (universities, universities of applied sciences and vocational colleges), and that shared materials are easy to find there. Through the underlying repository of edusources (Sharekit), teachers can upload and share their own learning materials. Existing collections, such as Sharestats, can also be added, making them visible through edusources. Together with other materials shared by EUR teachers, almost two hundred unique open educational resources from the EUR community can already be found on edusources. Teachers can also join communities that develop and share collections together.
Open textbooks via Wikiwijs
The second focus was on open textbooks. After an extensive exploration, the team chose Wikiwijs, explains Gina. This is an open platform where teachers can quickly and easily write and publish their books, without long publishing processes, and where students can use these materials for free. Within the project, a publication workflow was developed to guide teachers through the steps needed to publish an open book or chapter. One concrete outcome is the book De levende bibliotheek, which is now available as an open textbook and can also be found via edusources.
OER support
Erasmus Gets Connected has also led to the creation of an OER support desk within the UB. Teachers who want to share materials openly, create an open textbook or explore what is possible can contact Gina for advice on licences, platforms and practical steps.
OpenUp
Now that Erasmus Gets Connected has been completed, the UB is taking the next step with the OpenUp grant awarded in June. OpenUp is a Npuls scheme that supports institutions in shaping and realising their ambitions around digital and open educational resources. While Erasmus Gets Connected mainly focused on technical connections and initial services, OpenUp aims to build a sustainable OER culture: policy, support, communication and collaboration. The project will make good use of the Npuls networks that promote knowledge sharing and cooperation. The OpenUp project starts this September and will run for three years.
Policy and infrastructure
With Gina as project lead, the UB will develop a clear OER vision and policy. This will set out what open educational resources are, what role the UB plays, and what kinds of support teachers and faculties can expect. It will include guidelines for sharing and using open materials, a quality framework to help assess open educational resources, and a package of training courses and (video) materials. The infrastructure will also be expanded further, including for video OER. In this work, issues such as discoverability, metadata, copyright and privacy play an important role.
Awareness and collaboration
A key part of OpenUp is visibility and awareness. This means mapping existing OER within EUR, sharing good examples and actively opening conversations with faculties and programmes. Concrete plans will be developed to raise wider awareness of open educational resources. Collaboration is another important focus: connecting teachers within EUR and learning from other institutions in the Netherlands that are further ahead in this area, for example through Npuls networks and the CLI.
What does this mean in practice?
For teachers and educational support staff, these developments mean that using and sharing open educational resources will no longer be isolated activities, but part of a growing structure with support. Teachers who want to use open materials can find resources from colleagues via edusources and adapt them for their own teaching. Those who want to share openly can start working with these tools themselves, or contact the UB for advice. Open educational resources can also be used in curriculum development, blended and online teaching, and in designing varied learning pathways that better match different student learning styles. Over the coming years, training courses and materials will be made available to support the use of open educational resources.
Teachers as drivers of OER
The University Library sees open educational resources as a powerful way to improve the quality, accessibility and impact of education at EUR. One central goal is to give teachers and faculties strong support in working with open learning materials.
Research among teachers carried out during Erasmus Gets Connected shows that there is a lot of interest and willingness to use open educational resources. At the same time, basic knowledge is often missing: how to get started, what the options are and what rules apply. The UB wants to fill this gap with practical support, information and advice. “But the success of OER at EUR ultimately depends on our teachers and education professionals. They are the ones who have to bring it to life by creating and sharing materials, actively looking for resources from others, and building communities around disciplines and didactics. In this way, we can discover the many ways in which open educational resources can enrich teaching and learning experiences,” Gina emphasises.
Budget holders and decision-makers also play an important role in embedding the results of projects such as Erasmus Gets Connected and OpenUp in a sustainable way, in terms of time, attention and resources. Gina puts it like this: “So that with open educational resources we not only get off the ground, but can also keep flying.”
The foundations are in place: an infrastructure via edusources and Wikiwijs, a support desk at the UB, and a multi-year project focusing on policy and awareness. The next step is for teachers and educational support staff, with backing from management and support from the UB, to start working with open educational resources. This is exactly where Gina will focus her efforts over the coming years within the OpenUp project: at the point where doing and connecting come together.
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