Repositories of Open Educational Resources: An Assessment of Reuse and Educational Aspects

Abstract

<p class="3">This article provides an overview of the current state of repositories of open educational resources (ROER) in higher education at international level. It analyses a series of educational indicators to determine whether ROER can meet the specific needs of the education context, and to clarify understanding of the reuse of open educational resources (OER) provided by ROER. The aim of the study is to assess ROER by combining these two perspectives, and to form a basis for discussion among the universities that are responsible for these repositories.</p><p class="3">The method was based on content analysis and consisted of two phases: an exploration of international sources, and an analysis of 110 ROER using the proposed set of indicators. The results focus on data from the analysis of ROER websites and some models of good practices. They are presented according to three core dimensions for evaluating ROER: general factors to establish types of ROER, a focus on drivers for OER reuse, and a focus on educational aspects. It was found that most of the ROER that included one or more of the proposed reuse indicators were created exclusively for educational resources. Educational aspects are not yet firmly embedded into ROER. The few repositories that seem to have successfully included them are those that provide other educational metadata and use educational standards.</p>

International perspectives on using OER for online learning

“…The potentials of OER in education is globally recognized (Educause, 2020 ; European Commission, 2013 ). Countries in Europe, North and South Americas, and Asia are actively developing OER materials and finding ways to encourage educators to adopt OER, and more than 1,000 international repositories of OER exist (Santos-Hermosa, Ferran-Ferrer, & Abadal, 2017 ).…”

Adoption and Diffusion of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Education

“…While the lack of clarity between the concepts can rightly be criticised (Kerres, 2019), the concept of OER is now based on a solid theoretical and empirical ground (Bozkurt, Koseoglu, & Singh, 2019). Moreover, the OER movement has gained momentum and extended rapidly (Clements, Pawlowski, & Manouselis, 2015;Santos-Hermosa, Ferran-Ferrer, & Abadal, 2017). The primary purpose for using OER is to facilitate access to education, and to enable collaborative and participatory innovative teaching and learning.…”

“…The growth of OER also entails the creation of several repositories which make OER widely available and allow users to find, create, and share them. Santos-Hermosa et al (2017) revealed that OER repositories are mainly multidisciplinary, institutional, and predominantly based in Europe or the US. Notwithstanding discussions about pedagogy, quality assurance, and sustainable business models, repositories have undoubtedly enhanced and facilitated access to OER.…”

A Comparative Study of National Infrastructures for Digital (Open) Educational Resources in Higher Education

“…As Koutsomitropoulus, Alexopoulus, Solomou and Papatheodorou (2010) note, (O)ER require a more specialised treatment and characterisation than other kinds of digital objects; thus, the importance of using learning object metadata standards. However, studies on the evaluation of OER repositories show that few of them include the use of educational standardised metadata recommended for transferring information across repositories (Atenas & Havemann, 2013;Santos-Hermosa, Ferran-Ferrer & Abadal, 2017). On the other hand, as noted by Rodés-Paragarino et al (2016), learning about the dimensions of the adoption of (O)ER by teachers is especially relevant to improve the usability of educational repositories.…”

“…Although there are some studies that evaluate the repositories of (O)ER (e.g. Atenas & Havemann, 2013;Santos-Hermosa et al, 2017), there is a paucity of research related to the macro level factors that influence the development of (O)ER infrastructures in HE from an international comparative perspective, i.e. making a comparison of the state of digital transformation around the world, which is the focus of this study.…”