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

Gema Santos-Hermosa,Ernest Abadal,Núria Ferran-Ferrer

doi:10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3063

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>

Highlights

In the past decade, the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has gained ground and expanded exponentially
A multidisciplinary approach seemed more common in a previous analysis (OECD, 2007), other data suggest that single-subject repositories would be more suitable for teachers, since it is harder for teachers to find and use relevant OER for their subjects in broader repositories (Sampson, Zervas, & Sotiriou, 2013)
It has been found that most repositories of open educational resources (ROER) on higher education are institutional and exclusively designed for educational resources, rather than hybrids that contain research content

Summary

Introduction

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has gained ground and expanded exponentially. Current platforms that enable the management, discovery, use, and reuse of open content are inadequate and not very well-known; resources are found in a wide range of formats, and repositories are varied and generally do not include common search terms or metadata. For this reason, a study on the extent to which existing OER repositories (ROER) promote the discovery, use, and reuse of resources may lead to improvements in the adoption and impact of OER. A recent study focused on the institutional promotion of OER through repositories (Castaño, Punie, Inamorato, Mitic, & Morais, 2016) and details of ROER have been gathered in international directories, such as the OER World Map (D’Antoni, 2013), OER Repositories World Map (Atenas & Havemann, 2014) and OER Atlas (Neumann & Muuß-Merholz, 2016)

Objectives

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Conclusion