Digital social innovation within education: Five insights on the role of digital tools in the field of Open Educational Resources (OER) projects

Open Educational Resources (OER) are regarded as one of the main digital social innovations (DSI) of the last centuries. OER is defined as open licenced learning content or software for learning and teaching, e.g. textbooks, courses, or learning management systems. Building on the authors' experiences in OER within the projects, this contribution describes four OER projects as case studies for OER. Based on a general case outline, involved partners, funding, development and organisation, used digital tools, results and impact of the projects are characterised. The final chapter addresses the main issues on tools and software needed in OER projects. According to the experiences in the case studies five assumptions about digital tools in OER projects are postulated and open for discussion.