Abstract
This paper describes the functionality, scalability, and cost of implementing and maintaining a suite of open source technologies, which have supported hundreds of thousands of learners in the past year, on an information technology infrastructure budget of less than US$10,000 per year. In addition, it reviews pedagogical opportunities offered by a fully open digital learning ecosystem, as well as benefits for learners and educators alike.
 The Open Education Resource universitas (OERu) is an international consortium made up of 36 publicly funded institutions and the OER Foundation. The OERu currently offers first-year postsecondary courses through OER-based micro-courses with pathways to gain stackable micro-credentials, convertible to academic credit toward recognised university qualifications. The OERu, adhering to open principles (Wiley, 2014b), has created an open source Next Generation Digital Learning Ecosystem (NGDLE) to meet the needs of learners, consortium partners, and OERu collaborators. The NGDLE—a distributed, loosely coupled component model, consisting entirely of free and open source software (FOSS)—is a global computing infrastructure created to reach learners wherever they are. All OERu services are hosted on commodity FOSS infrastructure, conferring significant advantages and creating opportunities for institutions adopting any of these services to enhance education opportunities at minimal cost. The NGDLE can also increase technological autonomy and resilience while providing exceptional learning opportunities and agency for learners and educators alike.
Highlights
Why a free and open source software (FOSS) Next Generation Digital Learning Ecosystem (NGDLE)?By 2014, 99% of universities in the United States alone were using a learning management system (LMS), with 74% of staff feeling they were “useful instructional tools” (Baule, 2019)
The Open Education Resource universitas (OERu) is an international consortium of 36 publicly funded institutions, which, together with the OER Foundation, form a worldwide network
This paper sets out the significant advantages of this free and open source software (FOSS) approach and shows how, if emulated by OERu partners and other academic institutions, it could both enhance the digital services used in education and substantially reduce costs for institutions
Summary
By 2014, 99% of universities in the United States alone were using a learning management system (LMS), with 74% of staff feeling they were “useful instructional tools” (Baule, 2019). The OERu has determined that one way of supporting learners to develop digital and associated learning literacies for the 21st century is to employ in learning systems the very same technologies in which these learners need to build digital fluency to learn effectively. This contrasts with the cloistered digital experience of an LMS environment. The OERu’s NGDLE, is an example of a global infrastructure created to reach learners wherever they are and to place them at the centre of their learning experience
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