Unveiling the Relationship between the Use of Open Educational Resources and the Adoption of Open Teaching Practices in Higher Education

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to advance the understanding of the way university educators currently adopt open educational practices (OEP) by analyzing the relation between the use of open educational resources (OER) and the implementation of open teaching practices. The results are based on data collected through an online survey among 724 university educators. Depending on the actual use of OER and open teaching practices by the survey respondents, we have categorized them along a scale that goes from “novice” to “expert”, and we analyzed the data to evaluate their use of OER and their adoption of open teaching practices, looking for relationships between the two phenomena. The main finding of this paper, which confirms the latest research findings from the open education community, is that a strong relationship exists between the two dimensions: The more an educator uses OER, the more he will probably adopt open teaching practices, and vice versa. These results are discussed with a view to use this virtuous circle between the use of open content and adoption of open teaching as a way to build generalized open education capacity among universities’ teaching staff.

Open Pedagogy: A Systematic Review of Empirical Findings

“…Conceptually, there have been important discussions and proposals for how education could be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive through open pedagogy (Bali et al, 2020;Clinton-Lisell et al, 2021;Hodgkinson-Williams & Arinto, 2017;Lambert, 2018). There has been critically needed attention to how the increase in access and reduced educational costs provided by OER are aligned with social justice principles (Hare et al, 2020;Kruger & Hollister, 2020;Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2019). This may be particularly true for individuals in low-and middle-income countries as open education in general may enhance access to education (Bentley & Chib, 2016;Cox et al, 2020).…”

“…The geographical settings varied. The purposes of the studies also varied in whether instructors knew about open pedagogy (Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2019), how open pedagogy was enacted (e.g., Paskevicius & Irvine, 2019), and how instructors viewed their students' experiences with open pedagogy (e.g., Al Abri & Dabbagh, 2019; Masterman, 2016).…”

“…The affordances of open licensing were also described as crucial for open pedagogy across several studies. Indeed, the description of open pedagogy in several of the studies specifically mentioned open licensing (Al Abri & Dabbagh, 2019;Kruger & Hollister, 2020;Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2019;Sheu, 2020;Tillinghast et al, 2020). However, there were variations across definitions even with those focused on open licensing.…”

Exploring Faculty Members' Views on the Use of Open Education Resources: A Case of the Namibian Open Distance Learning Institutions

“…As a result, a lack of competency in using open educational resources (OER) in the twenty-first century is likely to become disastrous, particularly when the globe is confronted with a pandemic like COVID-19. The competency of faculty members in using the OERs allows students to access good educational content and stand a chance to achieve (Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2019).…”

Digital Learning Literacy Preference and Accessibility of Universitas Terbuka (UT)’s SUAKA-UT: An Evaluation towards Its System of Open Educational Resource (OER)

“…It is usually in textbooks, curriculum, syllabus, notes, sample assignments, sample tests provided in audio format, video tutorials or animations. Nascimbeni & Burgos (2019) explain that it covers the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources, open pedagogy, and the open sharing of teaching practices. Teaching materials in OER are often also called digital internet-based or web-based teaching materials.…”