Oak National Academy resources will be geo-blocked to users outside of the United Kingdom, an invitation to tender published today has confirmed.
The arm’s-length body has revealed that all of its content will be restricted to only UK-based users from early 2023 to support a growing curriculum market.
However, Oak has confirmed that there will be specific and short-term exceptions for international access in times of crisis - for example, the war in Ukraine.
The invitation to tender published today launches the first open procurement in developing digital resources and curriculum materials for Oak.
Today, Oak has said it will “initially share the full curriculum packages on a domestic licence so any UK school or organisation can use and adapt them for non-commercial use”.
It also said it will consider “broadening this license,” including reviewing the case for changes “up to and including alignment with the Open Government Licence”.
This would allow anyone to “copy, publish, distribute, transmit and adapt the licensed work for both commercial and non-commercial use, with the individual acknowledging the source of the work.”
However, Tes understands that, if this were to go ahead, it would require a change in the organisation’s founding articles. This would need agreement from founding member Reach, which has previously said it won’t allow anyone to profit from Oak content.
Oak has only included six subjects in the first procurement: maths, English, science, history, geography and music.
There will be 12 lots to bid for across the primary and secondary phases of the six subjects.
Suppliers will only be able to procure four lots at most. While they can bid for more than this number, Oak has advised that suppliers pre-select their preferences if they win more than four.
However, a supplier could win five lots ”if they have won four lots and are the only supplier in the fifth lot that beats the quality threshold”.
The proposed value for the procurement process for the first round of subjects will be £8 million.
Successful suppliers will be tasked with creating high-quality curriculum models along with slides, quizzes and worksheets for teachers to adapt for in-class use, and video lessons for uses such as homework.
Oak National Academy said the terms of the procurement were “finalised after extensive market engagement, listening to the needs of teachers, prospective suppliers and the wider sector”.
Oak confirms copyright licence for resources
A prior information notice published in September proposed that Oak’s future resources would be shared on a Creative Commons copyright licence.
At the time, the arm’s-length body said this would “allow any school the ability to freely use and adapt the content in non-commercial platforms or products”.
Today, Oak has said it will “initially share the full curriculum packages on a domestic licence so any UK school or organisation can use and adapt them for non-commercial use”.
However, it will also consider ”broadening this licence” and expects to have made a decision by early next year.
Oak will also be running a separate procurement for signposting to three alternative curriculum packages per subject phase, which will take users to other sites.
Matt Hood, chief executive of Oak, said he was “delighted” that Oak was launching its “first investment of £8 million in schools and partners to share and develop new high-quality curriculum resources for teachers”.
He said the quango wanted to “encourage any school, subject association or commercial organisation that has a fantastic curriculum to get involved”.
“At our heart, Oak is a collaboration of teachers and experts sharing to help their peers,” he added.
Mr Hood said Oak knows that teachers ”hugely value the support” and that they say “it improves their workload, wellbeing and expertise, so we’re excited to enhance our entirely optional and adaptable offer”.
“We’ve listened carefully to the sector in drawing up our plans. The arrangements published today show our determination and commitment to support a diverse and growing market in curriculum resources, which is precisely what teachers want so they have a choice of which resources they use.”
Yesterday, the long-awaited government business case for Oak was published by the Cabinet Office, two months after the organisation was relaunched as an arm’s-length body.
The document claimed there were two “main curriculum problems” in England’s schools: “Weaknesses in curriculum design and delivery, as reported by Ofsted, and excessive teacher workload associated with curriculum planning.”
The business case concluded that the Department for Education can only improve curriculum delivery “on the fast timelines required to support education recovery by getting teachers to engage with high-quality curriculum resources”.
