[OERu] How to become an OERu Outreach Partner

Join the OERu Outreach Programme for free and share in the many benefits the OERu has to offer!

Dear [First Name]

Thanks again for your interest in the OERu Outreach Programme.

Today, I would like to:

highlight the key benefits of joining the OERu Outreach Programme for qualifying institutions,
point out where you can find additional information, and
summarise the application process.

Attached you will also find a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for prospective Outreach Partners to review.

Benefits of joining the OERu Outreach Partnership Programme

There are many benefits for institutions in the developing world to consider joining the OERu Outreach Programme, but a few stand out:

Free access to all OERu open online micro-courses for our first year of study, which can be used as additional support materials for your students or reused for local courses, in support of face-to-face or your own online learning offerings. (Access is unrestricted. Learners are not required to register an account, and Outreach Partners do not incur any fees or online hosting costs.)
Join a global OER collaboration of like-minded institutions and raise your international brand profile.
Participate in the OERu decision-making processes.
Build local capacity in open educational practices and the implementation of open source technologies for next generation digital learning environments.

Our network will derive two significant advantages from the outreach initiative:

Increase the number of learners who can benefit from our open source course materials, thus helping the OERu to achieve its mission of sharing knowledge freely on a global scale.
Enrich curricula through South-North knowledge-sharing.

Need additional information?

We appreciate that your institution may need additional information about the operation of the OERu Outreach Partnership Programme, to assist with your consideration of joining our collaboration. We have prepared answers to a number of Frequently Asked Questions, and have published these on the OERu.org site. Please consult the following link if you have any questions:

Additional information: https://oeru.org/outreach-partnership-programme

In the event that there are still any unanswered questions, please post these on the community.oeru.org forum using the following link:

Forum link:

https://community.oeru.org/c/oeru/outreach-partnership
(You will need to create an account on the community.oeru.org site if you don’t already have one).

How to to submit an application to join the OERu Outreach Partnership Programme

The application process requires that an executive leader, with the authority to commit your institution, must sign the MOU attached. Please provide the contact details of the designated person who will function as the focal point for all communications with the OERF for this MOU on the signature page.

Please email a scanned copy of the signature page to: wayne@oerfoundation.org.

Please retain a hard copy of the MOU for your records (we do not require a hard copy to be mailed to the OER Foundation (OERF)). Once we have confirmed that you are a qualifying institution, we will return a scanned copy of the signature page, signed by the OERF, for your records.

Next steps

Once the OERF returns the signature page, you will officially be a member of the OERu network. We will assign the OERu Focal Point to an ‘onboarding’ email campaign to support your integration with the OERu. This will include:

Working with your institution to prepare your partner page for publication on the OERu.org website.
Announcing your partnership with the OERu.
Collaborating with your institution to publish a page on your institution’s website, that profiles your membership of the OERu.
Guidelines for selecting OERu open online courses to support your learners.
Instructions on how to register and participate in the OERu’s online working groups and supporting technologies, used for our collective decision-making processes.

The team at the OERF look forward to welcoming your institution to the OERu Outreach Partnership Programme!

With kind regards

Wayne Mackintosh (PhD)
Director, OER Foundation
UNESCO / ICDE Chair in OER.
Email: wayne@oerfoundation.org

About OERu

See how the OERu works and find out about the many benefits that partners enjoy as they open new doors to higher education. You can explore the OERu’s history, from when it was founded in 2011 up to the present, by visiting our dynamic timeline. The OERu is establishing a leadership role in transnational micro-credentialling, with pathways to achieving academic credit towards university qualifications.