The Higher Education Funding Council for England has announced a new initiative that could jumpstart wider OCW production in England:

HEFCE has announced an initial £5.7 million of funding for pilot projects that will open up existing high-quality education resources from higher education institutions to the world.

The Higher Education Academy and Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) will work in partnership to deliver the 12-month pilot projects. These will run at institutional, subject and individual level along with accompanying support services. The projects will be formally launched in April 2009.

I’m a bit unclear reading the announcement on whether there will be a call for proposals as they distribute this money, or whether the pilot projects are being developed centrally (can any Brits translate the phrase “Invitations to tender” for me?). But in either case the funding is bound to intersect with OpenCourseWare initiatives:

Open educational resources could include full courses, course materials, complete modules, notes, videos, assessments, tests, simulations, worked examples, software, and any other tools or materials or techniques used to support access to knowledge. These resources will be released under an intellectual property license that permits open use and adaptation.

As a result of this agreement institutions will be encouraged to share and reuse learning content – enhancing productivity for educators and students. Ultimately we hope that learning materials and resources will be shared universally – locally, nationally and globally, to support learning.