The OER Recommendation aims to assist Member States to support the development and sharing of openly licensed learning and teaching materials, benefiting students, teachers, and researchers worldwide. It supports the creation, use and adaptation of inclusive and quality OER, and facilitates international cooperation in this field through five Action Areas, namely (i) building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER; (ii) developing supportive policy; (iii) encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; (iv) nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER, and (v) facilitating international cooperation.

These Guidelines cover Action Area 1 of the Recommendation: building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER, by providing: a description/overview of the recommendations; an introduction to the specificities addressed in the implementation of Action Area 1; a matrix of actions recommended for governments and institutions to implement each point of Action Area 1; a discussion on the specificities related to Action Area 1; and examples of good practice (from different regions and contexts) in implementation of Action Area 1. The Guidelines offer advice on how to operationalize Action Area 1 of the Recommendation. They are not prescriptive, but aim to offer suggestions for activities, as well as background on the specificities for the Action Area. Users are encouraged to contextualize the elements of these Guidelines as appropriate for their specific national and institutional contexts.