Sharing and reusing rich media: lessons from The Open University

OpenCourseWare and Open Educational Resources comprise many types of assets including rich media. However dynamic rich media offer different opportunities and challenges for learners, teachers and higher education institutions alike than do more static items such as text. The Open University in the UK has been extensively developing and using rich media in its distance teaching programmes since it was established in 1969, often in partnership with the BBC. As new media technologies have arrived so has the capabilities of The Open University to create rich media. This paper describes these developments and then discusses the approaches required to guide them in a way that both serves the university and the wider higher education community. It concludes that rich media are an essential part of the developing OCW/OER landscape and that openly sharing them brings defined benefits to an HEI beyond their traditional student body