Open Educational Resources (OER) Coordinator
OER coordinators help institutions adopt, adapt, and create freely-licensed open educational resources — textbooks, courseware, assessment banks — as a cost-reduction and access-improvement strategy compared to expensive commercial textbooks and courseware. The role requires understanding of open-licensing frameworks alongside genuine curriculum and content evaluation skill.
Kenyan universities and TVET institutions facing high textbook and courseware costs, particularly for students from lower-income backgrounds, are increasingly interested in OER adoption as a genuine cost-saving strategy that also improves access to educational materials.
- AI exposure
- 53 of 100, moderate exposure
- Hiring trend
- Growing
- Hiring rate
- 22%
- Minimum education
- Bachelor
The role
What the work is, what it pays, and what it costs you.
At a glance
- Remote friendly
- Yes
- Freelance potential
- Medium
- Freelance rate
- Ksh 3,000
- Time to senior
- 4 years
A day in the role
"The best part of the job is telling a struggling student they don't need to buy a $150 textbook — we found an equally good free alternative and adapted it for our course."
What it pays
Kenyan market, per month- Entry
- KES 65,000–110,000
- Mid
- KES 120,000–200,000
- Senior
- KES 220,000–360,000
The trade offs
In its favour
- Directly reduces real financial burden on students, particularly those from lower-income backgrounds.
- Growing institutional interest in demonstrable cost-saving strategies.
Against it
- Can face genuine faculty resistance to changing familiar course materials.
- Relatively small, specialised niche within broader education roles.
In practice
Familiarize yourself with major OER repositories (OER Commons, OpenStax) and Creative Commons licensing, and propose a pilot OER adoption for a specific course as a demonstrable project.
Progression runs librarian/instructional designer → OER coordinator → head of open education initiatives for an institution or consortium, with growing programme scope.
Universities and TVET institutions facing high textbook cost burdens on students are the primary employers pursuing genuine access and cost-reduction goals.
A typical day includes evaluating and curating OER content, training faculty on adoption, and tracking programme cost-savings and access outcomes.
Exposure
How much of this a machine can already do, and how that was worked out.
Where this rating sits
1,516 rated careersRated above 73% of the 1,516 careers in the catalogue, which averages 43. Inside education the mean is 49, across 110 careers.
What the rating is made of
Share of recorded tasks- Machine does it
- 25%Software can already complete this work end to end.
- Machine assists
- 45%A person still decides, but the drafting is done for them.
- Person does it
- 30%Judgement, relationships and accountability that do not transfer.
Named task by task
Already automated
- Identifying relevant OER content matching a curriculum
- Drafting adapted content from OER sources
Still human
- Evaluating OER quality and curriculum alignment
- Training faculty on adopting and adapting open resources
- Managing open-licensing compliance for adapted/created content
- Measuring cost savings and access improvements from OER adoption
Task counts
- Tasks recorded
- 7
- Automatable now
- 2
- Still human
- 4
- Augmenting
- OER content matching,Content adaptation drafting
- Creating
- Open education programme coordination roles
Sources
Behind the rating- OER Commons
Getting in
The routes into the role and what each one asks for.
What to study
8 courses- Certificate in Credit ManagementKsh 24,000a year
- Certificate in Early Childhood EducationKsh 30,000a year
- Certificate in Bridging MathematicsKsh 33,000a year
- Certificate in Teaching International CurriculaKsh 43,000a year
- Certificate in EducationKsh 51,050a year
- Certificate in Basic English LanguageKsh 59,250a year
- Diploma in Pedagogy and InstructionKsh 60,000a year
- Certificate in Baking TechnologyKsh 67,189a year
How people get in
Library Science/Education degree + OER specialisation
4 years + 6 monthsMedium cost
Standard library science or education degree route, adding open-licensing and OER curation training.
Librarian/instructional designer transition into OER
6-12 monthsLow cost
Existing librarians or instructional designers add OER-specific curation and licensing knowledge.
Tools of the trade
OER Commons
Content RepositoryRequiredFree
Interview preparation
2 questionsHow would you evaluate whether an OER textbook is a suitable replacement for a commercial one currently used in a course?
TechnicalMid
Look for a structured evaluation process: curriculum alignment check, content accuracy and currency review, and pilot testing with faculty and student feedback before full adoption.
How do you address faculty resistance to switching from a familiar commercial textbook to an OER alternative?
BehavioralSenior
Should discuss demonstrating concrete quality and cost-savings evidence, involving faculty in the selection/adaptation process, and providing adequate support during transition.
Common misconceptions
Free content is automatically lower quality than commercial textbooks.
Well-curated OER, especially from established open-education repositories, can match or exceed commercial textbook quality — quality depends on curation and adaptation, not licensing model.
Adopting OER is just downloading free PDFs.
Effective OER adoption involves genuine content evaluation, adaptation to local curriculum needs, and instructor training — not just substituting a free file for a paid one.
What happens next
How the role changes from here, and where it leads.
The near term
Growing modestly as institutions prioritise reducing student textbook cost burden
- Growing global OER repository quality reducing adoption barriers
- Institutions increasingly tracking and publicising student cost savings from OER adoption
- What to do
- Build genuine content evaluation rigor and faculty relationship skills — successful OER adoption depends as much on faculty buy-in as on finding good quality resources.
Where pay is heading
2024 to 2030Monthly pay in Kenyan shillings, rounded to the nearest thousand. These are projections, not observations.
Growth outlook
- Net demand change
- 18
- Over
- 2025-2028
- Drivers
- Growing institutional interest in reducing student textbook cost burden,Expanding global OER repository quality and coverage
- Headwinds
- Some faculty resistance to moving away from familiar commercial textbooks
Supply and demand
- Demand
- 22
- Supply pressure
- 25
- Balance
- Balanced
What to learn
- Open licensing frameworks (Creative Commons)
- OER quality evaluation methodology
- Faculty training and change management
Tools worth knowing
ChatGPT/Claude
Priority: Recommended
Assisting with OER content adaptation and curation
Where people move next
2 recorded movesLine length under each name is the distance of the move: shorter means more of what you already do carries over. Marked lines are steps up rather than sideways.
- Instructional Designer
Easy65% skill overlapLateral
Broader instructional design role beyond OER-specific curation.
- Curriculum Developer
Easy55% skill overlapLateral
Broader curriculum development role beyond open-resource curation specifically.
Related careers
Kenyan market notes
Universities and TVET institutions facing high textbook costs, particularly affecting lower-income students, are the primary employers pursuing genuine cost-reduction and access-improvement goals.
Further reading
This role is rated 53 out of 100 today. Save it and the app keeps that number, then tells you by how much it has moved when the record is next reviewed.