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"Although the Open Education Resources (OER) movement began almost a decade ago, the Australian higher education sector seems to still be resisting this movement. This project aims to develop a "Feasibility Protocol" to enable and facilitate the adoption, use and management of OERs for learning and teaching within higher education (HE) institutions in Australia. This project will also explore how OERs will enhance teaching and learning, enable and widen participation for key social inclusion targets in higher education, promote lifelong learning and bridge the gap between non-formal, informal and formal learning in Australia. This is very important for the development of Australian education nationally and internationally because it will support educational institutions that are currently limited by the lack of guidance regarding OERs, speed up the process of appropriate adoption of OERs and provide additional venues for universities to pursue innovative strategies to better support current students, attract new ones and be internationally recognised and competitive."

Michael Wesch, TEDx talk: TEDxKC talk synopsis: Today a new medium of communication emerges every time somebody creates a new web application. Yet these developments are not without disruption and peril. Familiar long-standing institutions, organizations and traditions disappear or transform beyond recognition. And while new media bring with them new possibilities for openness, transparency, engagement and participation, they also bring new possibilities for surveillance, manipulation, distraction and control. Critical thinking, the old mainstay of higher education, is no longer enough to prepare our youth for this world. We must create learning environments that inspire a way of being-in-the-world in which they can harness and leverage this new media environment as well as recognize and actively examine, question and even re-create the (increasingly digital) structures that shape our world.