Open educational resources as a tool of information support for agrarian education

the UNESCO concept of lifelong learning recognizes the growing need for quality education, with its central elements being the accessibility of educational resources and the use of information and communication technologies. In the context of the ongoing pandemic and various political events in the world arena, special attention is paid to the strategic food tasks of the state, the training of highly qualified personnel of the agricultural sector. The education system is changing: digital technologies are widely introduced in the educational process; new teaching methods are being formed. A special role is played by a tool of information support - open educational resources (OER) - free accessible educational and scientific materials used both for professional self-improvement and for the creation of new training programs and courses. To identify the forms of representation, use and development of OER in higher and postgraduate agricultural education system, a set of tasks was posed: to clarify the meaning of key concepts of the research topic; to conduct a content analysis of scientific literature and web resources; to identify the roles, results, advantages and problems of using OER. The obtained data allows justifying the necessity of developing a «Navigator to OER in agricultural industry» (http://lib-os.ru/obrazovatelnye-resursy/navigator-oor-apk/) in the agricultural education system. Examples of models, statistics on the use of domestic and foreign OER included in the « Navigator» are given. It is determined that the use of OER contributes to improving the comfort and quality of training, reducing its cost. The results of the testing of the Navigator indicate that it is a convenient and informative tool for students, postgraduates and teachers and confirm the opinion that it is advisable to develop an aggregator of open industry sources of information on a single national educational platform.