Measuring use and creation of open educational resources in higher education

Abstract

The open educational resources initiative has been underway for over a decade now and higher education institutions are slowly adopting open educational resources (OER).The use and creation of OER are important aspects of adoption and both are needed for the benefits of OER to be fully realized. Based on the results of a survey developed to measure the readiness of faculty and staff to adopt OER, this paper focuses on the measurement of OER use and creation, and identifies factors to increase both. The survey was administered in September 2012 to faculty and staff of Athabasca University,Canada's open university. The results offer a snapshot of OER use and creation at one university. The survey tool could provide a mechanism to compare and contrast OER adoption with other higher education institutions. Forty-three percent of those in the sample are using OER and 31% are creating OER. This ratio of use to creation is introduced as a possible metric to measure adoption.

Advantages and Limitations of Usage of Open Educational Resources in Small Countries

“…Despite its numerous advantages, OER are still in the early adoption stage (Mc Kerlich at al., 2013), which calls for a discussion on factors slowing the spread of their usage. Research has shown that a wider acceptance of OERs requires development of awareness and reaching an understanding of all their dimensions, increase of recognisability of the OER repositories, ensuring quality of content and development of online collaborative communities (Torres, 2013;Grodecka, Sliwowski, 2014;Mc Kerlich at al., 2013;Rolfe, 2012;Kortemeyer, 2013).…”

Cost-savings achieved in two semesters through the adoption of open educational resources

“…Utilized in the classroom, OER can provide powerful tools for teaching and learning. Studies indicate that a growing number of OER are becoming available for use in the classroom (McKerlich, et al, 2013). Limited research has been done regarding the efficacy of using OER instead of traditional resources.…”

How to Recognize and Avoid Potential, Possible, or Probable Predatory Open-Access Publishers, Standalone, and Hijacked Journals

“…There is a real possibility that publishers and journals from poor, underdeveloped and developing countries be unfairly compared with those from developed countries. It means that high criteria from highly developed countries are also applied for developing countries creating comparison bias [45,46]. Therefore, recommendations given for hijacked journals cannot be entirely applied to predatory publishers and/or journals.…”