Exploring the Literature on Utilization of Open Educational Resources in Nigeria

Abstract

This chapter looks at open educational resources (OER), the evolution and conceptualization, the empirical literature so far on utilization of OER in Nigeria, potential determinants of OER utilization, and the future pathways for OER as essential learning resources for functional education and training in the 21st century. The open access movement calls upon researchers and academics to provide open access to their research works by either publishing their findings in open access journals that provide open access to their contents online or by depositing their work into repositories that make their content freely available over the internet. Open educational resources (OER) are now at the forefront of education, knowledge, and skills acquisition across the universe. This implies that OER can be used in all learning environments for addressing learning needs of different classes of individuals in the society. There should be priority attention in developing ICT infrastructures at all levels of education in Nigeria, which is expected to facilitate unhindered exploitation of all kinds of existing OER across the universe.