Projects were funded to address one or more sector priority areas as follows:

1. Higher Education delivered in a Further Education setting; (SPACE, Learnng Legacies,)
   
2. The professionalisation of education to include the provision of HE-level education to new staff who teach at any level, and/or sustainable development; (Learning from WOeRK, TIGER, OSIER)
   
3. Specialist courses linked to the needs of particular sectors of employment, for example those noted as “new industries” (employer support would be expected); (SWAP, Learning Legacies, ORBEE, PORSHE)
   
4. Resources optimised for work-place or work-related learning (employer support would be expected); (Learning from WOeRK, SWAP)
   
5. Distinctive subjects, where a low volume of provision exists currently and a convincing argument could be made for the benefits to cognate disciplines; (SCOOTER, DE-STRESS, ALTO, OER Digital Humanities, Learnng Legacies)

6. Arts subjects including the performing arts - using a range of text-based and non-text based resources. (SPACE, ALTO)

Release strand synthesis pages

The original Release strand evaluation questions (document for download) 

• Findings on Practice Change around open content
• Findings of the Development and Release of OERs
• Findings on  Organisational/Institutional Issues
• Findings on Cultural Issues
• Impacts and Benefits observed  

Outputs and deliverables from the Release strand

Conclusions and Recommendations from project reports have enormous value in their own right and should be consulted for a fuller picture of project activities and recommndations. They are summarised here, along with outcomes from the final programme meeting at which projects from the Release strand met to discuss key outcomes.

Projects

REL01 University of Plymouth, Learning from WOeRK: OERs for CPD in the workplace

Produced quality OERs to support accredited continuous professional development (CPD), making distance learning more accessible to learners in the workplace, making OERs openly available to other universities, developing an OER culture at the University of Plymouth and increasing engagement of employers in OER content production.
REL02 Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP) Subject Centre, SWAPBox

Brought together OERs in social work and social policy. created the SWAPBox reporitory, which offers a wide range of social work and social policy resources offering online peer review.

REL03 University of Northampton, Transforming Interprofessional Groups through Educational Resources (TIGER)

Consortium of The University of Northampton, The University of Leicester and De Montfort University (DMU) collected, developed and shared reusable, customisable OERs designed for Interprofessional Education (IPE) in Health and Social Care between the three institutions, academics, their existing communities of practice, employers and the wider community in line with expressed sector requirements.
REL04 University College London, OER Digital Humanities (DHOER)

Created OER from a comprehensive range of introductory materials in Digital Humanities, enriched with multimedia and Web 2.0 components, made freely available to anyone.
REL05 De Montfort University, Sickle Cell Open: Online Topics and Educational Resources (SCOOTER)

Released Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia OER using new and existing material.
REL06 Nottingham Trent University, De – STRESS: Depository of Resources for Statistics in Social Sciences

Aimed to Share, Adapt and Develop resources that will underpin the learning and teaching of statistics to students across the social sciences.
REL 07 Doncaster College, Simulated Performing Arts Creative Environment (SPACE)

The creation of a portfolio of 3D learning environments and tools to support the teaching of performing arts (and other courses) delivering not only an enhanced learning experience but other benefits including health and safety, widening participation, increased flexibility and cost efficiencies.
REL08 HLST & BMAF Subject Centres, 2012: Learning Legacies

Aimed to identify, develop as necessary, make accessible and promote Open Educational Resources to support higher education programmes in engaging students in learning through opportunities afforded by the Olympic and Paralympic Games and their legacy.
REL09 University of the Arts London, Arts Learning and Teaching Online (ALTO)

Aimed to build a collection of online OERs for arts subjects, based around themed areas of significant strategic importance to the University of the Arts (UAL) and the wider arts education community (primarily but not exclusively higher and further education). The collection extends access to digital resources in underrepresented subject areas, supports student transitions at critical stages in their education and contributes to the preservation of endangered subjects.

REL10 ESCalate, Open Sustainability in Education Resource (OSIER)

Aimed to create a collection of open education resources for education practitioners to integrate Education for Sustainable Development into their programmes, and to promote this collection to ensure its continuing use and sustained development beyond the end of the project, fostering a community and culture of sharing resources in education training.
REL11 CEBE Subject Centre, Open Resources for Built Environment Education(ORBEE)

Aimed to repurpose teaching and learning materials; and research built environment education resources making them freely available online. This permits their free use especially to address sector needs on ‘work place, work related or distance learning’.
REL12 MEDEV Subject Centre, Pathways for Open Resource Sharing through Convergence in Healthcare Education (PORSCHE)

Envisaged seamless access to academic and clinical learning resources for healthcare students in practice based training.

Release strand synthesis was carried out by Lou McGill