The development of the information society and the widespread diffusion of information technology give rise to new opportunities for learning. At the same time, they challenge established views and practices regarding how teaching and learning should be organized and carried out. Higher educational institutions have been using the internet several years. Yet, until recently, much of the learning materials were locked up behind passwords within proprietary systems, unreachable for outsiders. The open educational resource (OER) movement aims to break sown such barriers and encourage and enable freely sharing content.

Open educational resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared. These guidelines outline key issues and make suggestions for integrating OER into higher education. Their purpose is to encourage decision production, adaptation and use of OER and to bring them into the mainstream of higher education in order to improve the quality of curricular and teaching and to reduce costs.