The National Enrichment Programme (NEP) and its successor NEP Enhanced (NEPE) supported Welsh college students transition into higher education (HE) or employment through the provision of curated open educational resources (OER). These initiatives were aligned with the post-pandemic Welsh Government’s Renew and Reform programme, which focuses on supporting underserved and marginalised populations. The OER were provided by and on The Open University (UK)’s OpenLearn platform, which has a track record of effectively supporting a broad range of learners.

In this paper we share experiences from 12 participating colleges, highlighting the different ways in which OER were used and the programmes were implemented. We examine how colleges supported different types of learners and the perceived benefits and challenges of the NEP and NEPE initiatives.

To conclude we present a series of recommendations on how OER can be used effectively within different college contexts and with different learners. We also explore what open practices were utilised by NEP and NEPE and make a series of recommendations for other initiatives considering utilising or integrating OER into their offer.

Keywords: Open educational resources, OER, OEP, further education, Wales.