Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities

Abstract

Several scholars and organizations suggest that institutional policy is a key enabling factor for academics to contribute their teaching materials as open educational resources (OER). But given the diversity of institutions comprising the higher education sector-and the administrative and financial challenges facing many institutions in the Global South-it is not always clear which type of policy would work best in a given context. Some policies might act simply as a "hygienic" factor (a necessary but not sufficient variable in promoting OER activity) while others might act as a "motivating" factor (incentivizing OER activity either among individual academics or the institution as a whole).In this paper, we argue that the key determination in whether a policy acts as a hygienic or motivating factor depends on the type of institutional culture into which it is embedded. This means that the success of a proposed OER-related policy intervention is mediated by an institution's existing policy structure, its prevailing social culture and academics' own agency (the three components of what we're calling "institutional culture"). Thus, understanding how structure, culture, and agency interact at an institution offers insights into how OER policy development could proceed there, if at all. Based on our research at three South African universities, each with their distinct institutional cultures, we explore which type of interventions might actually work best for motivating OER activity in these differing institutional contexts.

Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education

“…In their study of institutional culture and OER policy, Cox and Trotter (2016) found that appropriate institutional policies alone cannot ensure sustainable engagement with OER: "institutional culture mediates the role that policy plays in academics' decision making." The same appears to be true for OEP.…”

Conceptualising OEP: A review of theoretical and empirical literature in Open Educational Practices

“…• This broad and critical conceptualisation of OEP has been cited by many OEP researchers (see Arinto, et al, 2017;Cox & Trotter, 2016;Cronin, 2017;Czerniewicz, et al, 2017aCzerniewicz, et al, , 2017bNerantzi, 2017;and Paskevicius, 2017).…”

Striving Toward Openness: But What Do We Really Mean?

“…It is not clear whether buy-in can be interpreted as the need for a relevant policy or just support. Other research suggests an intellectual property policy itself is more hygienic rather than a motivating factor, and that it is the culture that influences academics' decisions (Cox & Trotter, 2016).…”