Digital learning materials

Digital learning materials explained

Digital learning materials are digitally available resources such as texts, images, audio files or videos that are used for educational purposes. This can range from individual items such as web lectures and articles, to complete open courses. Anything you deploy in the teaching-learning process falls under learning materials - whether that is material that lecturers provide to students, or materials that students find and use independently in their studies.

New way of working

For optimal educational provision, educational institutions encourage their lecturers and students to put together and use an optimal mix of digital learning materials in one place. From open digital educational resources freely accessible to everyone, or semi-open recources available only to community members, to commercial material from publishers. Sharing and reusing digital learning materials means a new way of working, not only for lecturers, but also for other stakeholders such as information specialists and librarians, as current materials are now often developed on a one-off basis.

In the Declaration National Approach to Digital and Open Educational Resources, Dutch higher education institutions and SURF agreed to jointly promote the creation, sharing, reuse and procurement of digital learning materials. In addition, a vision document defines the building blocks we can use to create an optimal mix of learning materials in 2025.

SURF and digital learning materials

Through the edusources platform, SURF makes digital learning materials easy to find and search in one central location. To this end, we use innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, and we collaborate with EdTech suppliers, startups, publishers and educational institutions on its further development. Within the platform, we guarantee data security and privacy and ensure solid architecture and standardisation. Finally, we ensure that the legal aspects, such as licences and contract models, are well regulated, so that all learning materials can be used correctly.