The state portal ORCA.nrw sees itself as a service provider for higher education institutions in NRW and offers teachers support and advice on the topic of open educational materials/OER.

OER advice: The ORCA.nrw office and the direct contact persons of the state portal network at the universities in North Rhine-Westphalia provide advice to teachers from NRW on all questions regarding OER – from creation to sharing to (re-)use. Further information on the services offered by the Network State Portal (information services, events, publications) can be found here.

Networking: ORCA.nrw provides teachers at universities in North Rhine-Westphalia with access to various exchange and qualification offers within the framework of the project Hochschuldidaktik der Digitalen Hochschule (HD@DH.nrw). This also includes opportunities for networking (Communities of Practice) and access to a pool of experts in the field of digital teaching. The staff at the office also incorporate the need for qualification in teaching with OER into other qualification programmes. You can find more information here.

Support with calls for proposals and applications: The staff of the office and the contact persons of the Landesportal network advise teachers at North Rhine-Westphalian universities on OER-related calls for proposals, for example on the OERContent.nrw funding line. Further information can be found in this handout.