Advancing Open Access in Higher Education: A Liberal Arts College Perspective

In the Highways and Hedges: Library Support for OER Adoption Efforts at Higher Education Institutions Across Virginia

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education is reshaping the learning landscape by promoting affordability, increasing access, and fostering student engagement. This paper reflects on the authors’ shared experiences with OER integration, with a particular focus on the lead author’s innovative work at a small liberal arts college (Franklin College, Indiana, USA). These initiatives were strengthened through close collaboration with library faculty as well as through support from a state-wide library consortium serving small, private academic libraries. Drawing on student success tracking, surveys of student perceptions, and usage data from an open-access textbook authored by the lead author, the study assesses both pedagogical and institutional effects of OER use. Results show a link between OER usage and improved student performance, with a 2.1% increase in average final grades and more students exceeding an 87% course grade threshold. Student survey responses reflect strong approval of OER quality and accessibility, with a clear preference for digital formats and no negative feedback reported.

INTRODUCTION Liberal arts colleges (LAC) are arguably ideal environments for the use of open educational resources (OER) given their shared emphasis on innovative pedagogy and individualized learning. However, library-led OER initiatives at LAC have just started to make progress. LAC librarians have very few models or sources of advice to which they can turn when planning OER initiatives suitable to their particular institutional context. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAMS In this article, librarians describe their experience promoting and supporting OER usage at three small, private LAC, each at a different stage in developing formal programs to assist faculty interested in adopting and creating OER. The authors discuss strategies employed, obstacles encountered, and lessons learned, providing practical advice for achieving OER success in the LAC environment. NEXT STEPS The authors believe practical advice for the LAC context will benefit librarians at various stages of OER program implementation.

The premise of this study is that teachers’ conceptions of the quality of Open Educational Resources (OER) and their attitudes and motivations towards using OER will influence whether and how they use and or contribute open resources. Understanding teachers’ attitudes, motivations and barriers to OER use and comparing data across institutions may help to identify the issues that influence OER uptake in India. This chapter attempts to answer the following four research questions: How are teachers’ attitudes towards OER situated in the context of teaching and learning? What are teachers’ motivations for using OER and sharing their work as OER? How do teachers perceive the quality of OER? What barriers to using OER do teachers perceive? This study employed a mixed methods approach, using a survey to gather the quantitative data which form the focus of this chapter, as well as workshop engagements and interviews to collect qualitative data. The research was carried out at four universities representing the varying contexts of higher education teachers in India – one state, open university; one dual-mode university; one semi-urban university; and one multi-campus, private university – and amongst the WikiEducator India community. At each university, a three-day OER workshop took place where 30 teachers learned about OER and completed a survey. In addition to the 120 workshop participants engaged at the four universities, the survey was sent to the 107 members of the WikiEducator India community who participated in the research process. Of the total of 227 teachers who were asked to take the survey, 149 survey responses were received, of which 117 (comprised of 43% females and 57% males) were useable. A total of 28 educators from the universities were also interviewed. Despite the relatively low levels of awareness of OER demonstrated by Indian teachers prior to the research process, they were very positive about creating and sharing OER, while being slightly less enthusiastic about using externally developed materials. Many of the positive attitudes stemmed from: the sense of satisfaction obtained when others use and adapt their materials; useful feedback received from peers; increased reputational profile experienced as a result of sharing; collaborative opportunities introduced in the sharing process; and the belief that their own sharing would encourage other teachers to do the same. The teachers were mildly cautious about OER quality issues, but said that they would use OER if they were appropriate for their needs. They acknowledged a number of barriers to using and sharing OER, including a lack of understanding of intellectual property, copyright and open licensing; a lack of time; and the lack of funding, institutional incentives and support for OER activities. The authors recommend that advocacy to raise awareness of OER in Indian universities should be a top priority, with a particular focus on teachers and senior administrators; teachers should be released from certain duties and provided with the time required to engage in OER activity; incentives in the form of awards and/or recognition in promotion should be provided for teachers to undertake OER development; quality assurance mechanisms for OER produced should be introduced; and continuous professional development opportunities should be provided to teachers through regular workshops and training sessions on advanced information and communication technologies and OER skills. The dataset arising from this study can be accessed at: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/578

In this chapter, the authors highlight the potential of open educational resources (OER) to increase access to knowledge and the challenges to adapt these resources with the participation of students. They analyze the emerging practices resulting from pedagogical innovation, with open educational resources, in the cycles of design, implementation, and evaluation in the curricular unit of a Master's course in Pedagogy of eLearning at Universidade Aberta de Portugal. The investigation is carried out through the methodological procedures of design-based research with two groups of students of higher education at a distance where they addressed the concepts related to OER and participated in the educational practices for integrating OER in online education. In the field of innovation scenarios in online education, the results demonstrate the need to carry out/think about training, with practical actions, so that students can know, adapt, produce, integrate OER in their activities and share resources, thus contributing to increase the availability of quality OER.

This paper is based on very practical concerns and observations about the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement. While it concerns educational practice, the paper starts with a focus on the rhetoric and stated ideals of the OER movement, exploring the relationship between open education and neoliberalism as an attempt to understand the apparent contradictions within the movement. The paper then looks at OER in distance education as an attempt to understand our own approach to Open Educational Practice (OEP). Drawing on older open education narratives it explores the role of openness in bringing new voices into education through partnerships, and how OEP foster opportunities for groups of learners distanced from education. The paper concludes by acknowledging the deliberate partiality of this reading, and with some questions we are starting to explore.

The research presented here provides baseline data regarding the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) by higher education instructors in the Global South (South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia). It does so while attending to how such activity (or inactivity) is differentiated across continental regions and associated countries. The chapter addresses two questions: what proportion of instructors in the Global South have used OER, and which variables may account for different OER usage rates between respondents? This is done by examining which variables – such as gender, age, technological access and digital proficiency – seem to influence OER use rates, thereby allowing the authors to gauge which are the most important for instructors in their respective contexts. This study is based on a quantitative research survey taken by 295 randomly selected instructors at 28 higher education institutions in nine countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia; Ghana, Kenya, South Africa; India, Indonesia, Malaysia). The 30-question survey addressed the following themes: personal demographics, infrastructure access, institutional environment, instructor attitudes and open licensing. Survey responses were correlated for analysis with respondents’ answers to the key question of the survey: whether they had ever used OER or not. Findings indicate that 51% of respondents have used OER, a rate slightly differentiated by region: 49% in South America, 46% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 56% in South and Southeast Asia. A number of variables were associated with varying levels of OER use rates – such as instructors’ country of habitation (and its gross domestic product per capita), level of digital proficiency, educational qualification, institutional position and attitude to education – while many others were not, such as instructors’ gender, age or perception of their institutions’ OER-related policies. For these respondents in the Global South, OER use is predicated upon instructors enjoying a certain minimum level of access to information and communication technologies infrastructure – especially hardware (computers, mobile devices, etc.) and internet connectivity (broadband, Wi-Fi, etc.) – which, once achieved, can be described as an enabling factor for OER engagement, but not a motivating factor. Beyond that minimum, increased internet speeds, lower internet costs and greater diversity of technical devices do not seem to lead to ever-increasing OER use rates. Similarly, while OER-related policies would likely be a crucial factor in OER creation, they did not seem to be important regarding OER use. Lastly, it was instructors in the comparatively less-developed countries who were using OER at a markedly higher rate than those from the more developed countries (at least intra-regionally). This suggests that instructors from the relatively lesser-developed countries may find greater utility in OER because it serves to overcome some of the pressing educational challenges associated with their nations’ contexts’ lower economic development. The dataset arising from this study can be accessed at: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/609

Location: JC Room G Nowadays, the primary concern in the use of open educational resources (OER) in teaching and learning is that these open and free resources are used merely to promote free access to knowledge online. The need for evidence of the effectiveness of OER in teaching and learning is eminent as it highlights the necessity of the emerging shift from considering OER as open content to considering it as open educational practices (OEP) in order to enhance the innovation in teaching and learning practices. The open educational resources (OER) movement is an established phenomenon in the ‘open’ movement, based on the idea that knowledge is freely available on the internet and open for use with few or no restrictions. Wiley (n.d) introduced the 5Rs (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, Redistribute) framework of permissions for using OER: (a) retain refers to permission to preserve the authorship of the original work and control copies of the content; (b) reuse refers to permission to reuse the materials exactly as they are; (c) revise refers to permission to adapt, modify, improve, and change the content, including translating into different languages; (d) remix refers to permission to mix and incorporate the original content with other material to produce new materials or content; and (e) redistribute refers to permission to distribute revised and mixed original copies among educators and friends. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2013) produced a set of goals stating that by 2017, OER would be significantly integrated into all educational systems at different levels. However, the current status of OER adoption in education is variable, and it has not expanded in higher education due to several obstacles such as discovery issue, remixing issue and quality assurance issue that hinder the spread of OER at the local and national levels (Allen & Seaman, 2016, Al Abri & Dabbagh, 2018). In addition, several scholars (e.g., Pit, 2015; Wiley, Webb, Weston, & Tonks, 2017) believe that OER might have other potential capabilities alongside the sharing of knowledge and providing cost-saving alternatives to expensive textbooks. Among these capabilities, it is believed that OER can promote innovation in pedagogical models when OER become the central focus of teaching and learning practices. However, these perceived benefits of OER cannot be robustly demonstrated without empirical evidence. As a result, the absence of empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of OER in teaching and learning leads to posing questions about the features and characteristics of courses-supported OEP that can encourage faculty to change the current pedagogy practices and engage students to be co-creators of OER. From this spirit, the OER community encourages researchers to explore how the possibilities of OER in innovating pedagogical models can be put into practice in authentic contexts. Advocating the shift from using OER as mere open content to use it as open educational practices emphasize empowering students ‘contribution to the world of knowledge. Recently, there has been renewed interest in making students’ assignments matter by engaging students in OER creation. The discussion regarding students’ contribution to OER knowledge has engendered the concept of renewable assignments, also called student-created OER. Renewable assignments defined as students’ engagement in creating artifacts that have personal meaning to them and can be shared publicly under the Creative Commons license (Ross, 2018; Wiley, 2017). These artifacts with CC license are students’ OER renewable assignments they executed in courses and published them online for others to use it by practicing the 5R activities (Ross, 2018). Regarding the ethical concern by faculty members of using student-created OER in future courses is that students’ contribution to making their assignments under CC license is optional and they have the right to turn it to OER or to retain it in the university Blackboard. According to the university copyright law, students earn the copyright of their own work. Thus, they have the right to contribute it as OER or to not make it OER. Students who will make their assignments under CC license, they need to understand the different types of CC licenses and the permissions they will grant future students to use it. References Al Abri. M. & Dabbagh. N. (2018). Open educational resources: A literature review. Journal of Mason Graduate Research, 6 (1), 83-104 Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2016). Opening the textbook: Open education resources in U.S. higher education,2015-16. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthetextbook2016.pdf

Marco de Trabajo de Interoperabilidad Semántica para la Educación Abierta : un enfoque para la Integración de Sistemas de Información de Recursos Educativos Abiertos autónomos, distribuidos y heterogéneos

<p>The research presented here provides baseline data regarding the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) by higher education instructors in the Global South (South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia). It does so while attending to how such activity (or inactivity) is differentiated across continental regions and associated countries. The chapter addresses two questions: what proportion of instructors in the Global South have used OER, and which variables may account for different OER usage rates between respondents? This is done by examining which variables – such as gender, age, technological access and digital proficiency – seem to influence OER use rates, thereby allowing the authors to gauge which are the most important for instructors in their respective contexts.</p>\n\n<p>This study is based on a quantitative research survey taken by 295 randomly selected instructors at 28 higher education institutions in nine countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia; Ghana, Kenya, South Africa; India, Indonesia, Malaysia). The 30-question survey addressed the following themes: personal demographics, infrastructure access, institutional environment, instructor attitudes and open licensing. Survey responses were correlated for analysis with respondents’ answers to the key question of the survey: whether they had ever used OER or not.</p>\n\n<p>Findings indicate that 51% of respondents have used OER, a rate slightly differentiated by region: 49% in South America, 46% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 56% in South and Southeast Asia. A number of variables were associated with varying levels of OER use rates – such as instructors’ country of habitation (and its gross domestic product per capita), level of digital proficiency, educational qualification, institutional position and attitude to education – while many others were not, such as instructors’ gender, age or perception of their institutions’ OER-related policies.</p>\n\n<p>For these respondents in the Global South, OER use is predicated upon instructors enjoying a certain minimum level of access to information and communication technologies infrastructure – especially hardware (computers, mobile devices, etc.) and internet connectivity (broadband, Wi-Fi, etc.) – which, once achieved, can be described as an enabling factor for OER engagement, but not a motivating factor. Beyond that minimum, increased internet speeds, lower internet costs and greater diversity of technical devices do not seem to lead to ever-increasing OER use rates. Similarly, while OER-related policies would likely be a crucial factor in OER creation, they did not seem to be important regarding OER use. Lastly, it was instructors in the comparatively less-developed countries who were using OER at a markedly higher rate than those from the more developed countries (at least intra-regionally). This suggests that instructors from the relatively lesser-developed countries may find greater utility in OER because it serves to overcome some of the pressing educational challenges associated with their nations’ contexts’ lower economic development.</p>\n\n<p>The dataset arising from this study can be accessed at:<br>\nhttps://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/609</p>

Open educational resources (OER) are growing over the past decade. While OER can make educational resources widely available to all students and educators for free, OER are still untried by the majority of instructors, and have not significantly affected on higher education. This paper reports an action research project of OER adoption. It discusses the importance and challenges of OER in higher education, develops a theoretical framework of the action research project based on literature review, and explains the three levels of OER participation: partial adoption of OER for a course, full-scale adoption of OER for a course, and involvement in communities of practice of OER for a course. The paper describes the processes of OER adoption at each of the levels, presents the findings based on information collected and analysed through the action research project, and discusses further reflection. It presents interlocking perspectives on beliefs, ethics, and motivations in OER for sustainable higher education.

This paper aims to expose the results of a qualitative research process based by participatory research methodology, developed within a research of Theory and Pedagogical Practice in the Instruction of Professors, from the StrictoSensu Post-Graduate Program in Education (PPGE) at Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Parana (PUCPR), Curitiba, Brazil, as part of the activities of the research group Pedagogical Practice on Teaching and Learning with Educational Technologies (PRAPETEC) research group. From 2013 to 2016, several actions were developed by the research group to contribute to research on collaborative learning, co-creation, open education and open educational resources, due to a partnership with the Collaborative Open Learning Community (coLearn) under the coordination of Dr. Alexandra Okada. In this context, the question to this investigation was as follows: how can open educational resources (OER) development on Higher Education in a collaborative process of co-creation contribute to student learning? The aim of this study was to promote a collaborative and open educational experience for students through the creation of OER as well as the incorporation of Facebook, YouTube and Whats App as supporting environments in the teaching and learning process. Based on the analysis of the obtained results, it was observed that this experience was positive for contributing to the knowledge production in a collaborative way, with criticality, autonomy and creativity. And also, the students experienced an innovative methodology, allowing those who already act as professors to reflect on their pedagogical practice.

Potential ethical problems in the creation of open educational resources through virtual spaces in academia

The research presented here investigates the strategies and practices of educators from six public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) in Mongolia in order to understand the role of Open Educational Resources (OER) in their work. It addresses the question: Which cultural–historical factors shape OER activities in Mongolia’s higher education sector? In addition, the study sets out to determine whether OER has the potential to move beyond a niche innovation advocated and funded by international donors to one that is broadly adopted, implemented and disseminated by local educators. The study employed a sequential exploratory model in which qualitative interviews comprised the first stage of data collection, followed by quantitative surveys. The interviews were conducted with 14 participants recruited using a convenience sample from four Mongolian HEIs, two government organisations and three non-governmental organisations. In total, eight educators and six administrators were interviewed. A follow-up survey was conducted with 42 instructors and administrators at six HEIs, also recruited through convenience sampling. The study utilised Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a framework to analyse the data. Findings indicate that despite recent efforts to promote OER by funding agencies and the government, OER awareness remains modest amongst higher education instructors and administrators. It is therefore not surprising that OER adoption rates in Mongolia are low. As a result, a culture around OER engagement has not yet emerged, with only isolated individual educators adopting OER. In contrast with many academics who often worry about the quality of OER, Mongolian educators appear to be more concerned about a particular sub-component of quality, which is relevance. In addition, many study participants expressed reservations about the potential value and utility of OER. As a country, Mongolia has developed and supported large-scale educational resource projects, especially at the basic education level, and it may need to take a similar proactive stance regarding OER in the higher education sector if it seeks to improve the quality, relevance and cost-effectiveness of teaching content. As the first study on OER activity in Mongolia’s higher education system, this research has value and application for researchers and advocates pursuing an OER agenda, for policymakers seeking to understand how policy interventions might influence OER adoption in the national and institutional context, and for funding agencies aiming to boost educators’ OER engagement more broadly.

This chapter presents an overview of the mechanisms (funding, policy, legislative and procedural) adopted by Latin American governments with respect to Open Access and Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives in the higher education sector. It addresses three questions: How do the higher education systems of Chile, Colombia and Uruguay operate and fund their activities in general? How do existing policies and processes incorporating Open Access and/or OER influence student access to learning and research materials in these countries? What policy, advocacy and community-building interventions might be useful for promoting Open Education activities in these contexts? This study employed a descriptive, case study approach to examine whether and how Open Access and OER policies have been applied at national and institutional levels. It first engaged in an Open Education policy country-mapping exercise, then conducted a comparative analysis, and concluded the research process with a workshop conducted with 10 regional education experts and activists to validate findings. Findings indicate that while each country has its own approach to funding higher education, there are few or no specific national and/or institutional policies aimed at promoting Open Education in the higher education sectors. Low OER awareness and a commercialised model of higher education appear to account for the lack of any OER policies in Chile, while in Colombia various national and institutional strategies reveal a country at a nascent stage of Open Education policy development. By contrast, the nature of OER management and extent of policy implementation in Uruguay suggests that it is an enabling environment for current and future open policy development. All of these countries are making investments in science, technology and innovation programmes and projects, making this the most fruitful field for potential Open Education advocacy. Based on the outcomes of this study, a number of recommendations are proposed, including: fostering and strengthening networks among Latin American civil society organisations promoting Open Education; engaging with higher education stakeholders on how to develop open policies; promoting open policies and mandates for publicly funded research; developing bottom-up and top-down strategies for greater engagement with OER; and providing greater visibility to existing Open Education projects in the region.