Openness of learning and educational resources

As part of the Finnish academic community, Jamk is committed to Jamk’s principles of open science and research (see the Jamk Open Science and Research webpage). Open learning and open educational resources are an important part of these principles.

“We promote open learning and teaching practices. Instruction is developed together with students, teaching staff and business life. Students can make individual choices and we support this by recognising prior learning acquired both at the university and in other ways. We develop the active role of learners in the planning of their own learning.”

“Together with the staff, we develop the awareness of Jamk employees of Open Educational Resources and related copyrights and licenses. We encourage the sharing of data related to the planning and organisation of education as open materials through Jamk’s website and in national data resources. Open Educational Resources should be distributed on high-quality publishing platforms with an editorial process and guaranteed lifecycle and information security.”

From the perspective of curricula and personal learning plans, this means that we strive to enable and support students’ individual choices by approving studies completed at other higher education institutions in line with accreditation practices, and by allowing cross-institutional studies. In addition, we acknowledge and recognise competence acquired in other ways in accordance with the Degree Regulations. We comply with national recommendations on the quality of open learning and teaching practices and the accessibility of open learning environments.

When planning courses, implementation plans and pedagogical manuscripts, we assess what kind of Open Educational Resources can be utilised in a course and what kind of OER we can produce ourselves.

What are Open Educational Resources?

According to the policy on the openness of learning, Open Educational Resources are pedagogically meaningful study modules that can be utilised in learning (Openness of learning and educational resources 2022). According to the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi), Open Educational Resources (OER) are various forms of digital or other education-oriented materials. They are licensed under an open license or distributed freely. They can be used free of charge, but their modification or redistribution may be restricted to a limited extent. Licensing is done with Creative Commons (CC). CC licenses define the conditions under which a resource can be reused; they do not transfer copyrights.

The Jamk OER platform offers the opportunity to publish educational resources for widespread use. The description data of the OER published on the platform is also added to the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi). For more information on publishing on the OER platform and for help with producing educational resources production, visit the Open learning materials page.

The author(s) of an educational resource determine the access rights to the resource under a Creative Commons license. CC licenses define the conditions under which a resource can be reused; they do not transfer copyrights (Open licensing guidelines 2020). Licences for open educational resources complying with the national recommendation include CC BY 4.0 and Creative CC BY-SA 4.0, which give the right to free access, reuse, re-application, modification and redistribution (Openness of learning and educational resources 2022). With the CC BY licence, you are mentioned as the author of the educational resource, and other users are free to use your educational resource as part of their learning, teaching and education needs. The original author, license and place of publication have to be mentioned in connection with any new, modified material. The CC BY-SA licence is otherwise the same as the CC BY licence, but it sets the limit that any variations and reworking cannot be published other than with the original licence. (Frequently asked questions aoe.fi, 22 June 2023.)

You can find and publish your educational resources intended for open use in the Library of Open Educational Resources (aoe.fi).

Sirpa Tuomi ja Jari Parkkinen 3.8.2023