Leveraging GitLab as a Platform for the Provisioning and Managing of Open Educational Resources in an Open Educational Practices Use Case

Abstract Several technologies appeared in the past for the provisioning of OERs (Open Educational Resource). Beside OER-specific infrastructure, the usage of the software repository GitLab has been observed. However, those implementations of OERs with GitLab typically do not leverage all GitLab features that would contribute to OERs. Especially Issues as feedback indicator for quality and merge request approval rules have not been discussed yet to enable OEPs. These functionalities are presented and then demonstrated in an implemented OEP (Open Educational Practices) use case at NFDI4ING, where experiences were gained. Embedding into a research project and usage of open and existing infrastructure makes the approach sustainable, even from cost perspective. With our work, we highlight which and how GitLab functionalities enable OERs. By doing so, GitLab acts as a technical as well as partially social component of OEPs.