A distance learner attending a tutoring session in Mozambique. Open Educational Resources makes grants to make high-quality educational materials available for free, anywhere in the world. Photo: Rosario Passos

The World Wide Web presents an extraordinary opportunity for people and institutions everywhere to create, share, and use valuable educational materials. Open Educational Resources, as these free tools and content are called, can include full courses, textbooks, streaming videos, exams, software, and any other materials or techniques supporting learning.

With the Hewlett Foundation's help, the field of Open Educational Resources has become a worldwide movement. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers materials from 1,800 courses online. European SchoolNet, an international partnership of more than thirty European ministries of education, brings together K-12 materials from many of its organizations. OER Commons allows teachers and professors from around the world to collaborate.

Open Educational Resources are well suited to transform teaching and learning. The Education Program makes grants to continue to develop networks for sharing these free, high-quality educational materials. The Program and its grantees also work toward creating more flexible copyright and licensing systems to make more information available to the public.

Additionally, the Program makes grants to organizations working on creative ways to use Open Educational Resources to improve learning, such as educational games and open textbooks. Grantees also continue to research and evaluate these methods of education.

The Education Program does not accept unsolicited Letters of Inquiry for its Open Educational Resources grantmaking.