Open Educational Resources Movement Research Articles

Identifying barriers to the remix of translated open educational resources

<p>Remix is touted as one of the most important practices within the field of open educational resources (OER). But remixing is still not mainstream practice in education and the barriers and limitations to remix are not well known. In this article we discuss the design and development of a print and web-based booklet created to introduce the topic of OER to schoolteachers. The guide, the first of its kind available in Portuguese, was created through the remix and translation of existing resources available in English. Choosing design-as-remix raised a series of concerns related to licensing, attribution, context, and technical standards. In this article we review the concerns related to culture and inequity within the OER movement, followed by the design choices and procedures, and finally the implications of these issues for the open educational resources movement.</p>

Embracing openness: The challenges of OER in Latin American education

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement and the Open Access began only over a decade ago. During this period, the progress of the Open Educational Resources movement took place in developed countries for the most part. Recently, new projects have begun to emerge with a strong emphasis on open education. Yet, the concept of openness in education is a very innovative one, and it has not been embraced by many. In some regions, such as Latin America, OER is still in its early stages and faces many challenges that need to be addressed. Some of these challenges include awareness raising and capacity development. But there is a bigger challenge to face: embracing openness as a core value and an institutional strategy. In this paper, we offer a brief overview of the meaning of the term “open” in education and we analyze the challenges facing the OER in Latin American countries.

‘It's Not Their Job to Share Content’: A Case Study of the Role of Senior Students in Adapting Teaching Materials as Open Educational Resources at the University of Cape Town

Inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's landmark decision to make its teaching and learning materials freely available to the public as OpenCourseWare (OCW), many other higher education institutions have followed suit sharing resources now more generally referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER). The University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa joined the OER movement with the launch of the UCT OpenContent directory in February 2010. While much of the research has focused on the potential value of OER to institutions and to the community at large, less attention has been paid to the complex processes that need to be undertaken to adapt existing materials as OER and specifically the opportunity to engage senior students in this practice. In this article the authors explore the processes that three senior physics students employed in assisting their lecturers to adapt existing materials as OER, the challenges they encountered and the contribution these students made. The findings reveal that the senior physics students report having sufficient time, knowledge of the field and skill in using a range of technological tools that made the OER adaptation process of their lecturers' materials easier. Based on the participating physics lecturers' acceptance of the students' adaptations of their materials, it would seem that the strategy of using senior students to support busy lecturers to adapt existing teaching materials as OER is worth considering.

What's Educational about Open Educational Resources? Different Theoretical Lenses for Conceptualizing Learning with OER

In the last decade, the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) has gained an undeniable momentum. However, it is an easy trap to confuse download and registration rates with actual learning and interest in the adoption and reuse of OER. If we focus solely on access, we cannot differentiate between processes of mere information foraging and deep sense-making activities. The article provides an overview of the OER movement, stressing emerging concerns surrounding the educational efficacy of OER and highlighting learning theories which aid our understanding of this growing domain. The authors discuss building-blocks for a theoretical framework that allows us to conceptualize the learner's part in open educational practices, also characterizing challenges of open learning and traits of successful open learners.

Learning the Lessons of Openness

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has built up a record of experience and achievements since it was formed 10 years ago as an identifiable approach to sharing online learning materials. In its initial phase, much activity was driven by ideals and interest in finding new ways to release content, with less direct research and reflection on the process. It is now important to consider the impact of OER and the types of evidence that are being generated across initiatives, organisations and individuals. Drawing on the work of OLnet (<span style="text-decoration: underline;">http://olnet.org</span>) in bringing people together through fellowships, research projects and supporting collective intelligence about OER, we discuss the key challenges facing the OER movement. We go on to consider these challenges in the context of another project, Bridge to Success (<span style="text-decoration: underline;">http://b2s.aacc.edu</span>), identifying the services which can support open education in the future. <span class="sub_head">Keywords:</span> OER, policy, open education, services, reflection, collective intelligence

The role of postgraduate students in co-authoring open educational resources to promote social inclusion: a case study at the University of Cape Town

Like many universities worldwide, the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa has joined the open educational resources (OER) movement, making a selection of teaching and learning materials available through its OER directory, UCT OpenContent. However, persuading and then supporting busy academics to share their teaching materials as OER still remains a challenge. In this article, we report on an empirical study of how UCT postgraduate students have assisted in the process of reworking the academics’ teaching materials as OER. Using the concept of contradictions (Engeström, 2001), we endeavor to surface the various disturbances or conflicts with which the postgraduate students had to engage to make OER socially inclusive, as well as Engeström’s “layers of causality” (2011, p. 609) to explain postgraduate students’ growing sense of agency as they experienced the OER development process as being socially inclusive.

A review of the role of national policy and institutional mission in European distance teaching universities with respect to widening participation in higher education study through open educational resources

The open educational resources (OER) movement is relatively new with few higher education institutions (HEIs) publishing or using them, and even fewer using them to widen engagement or participation in HE study. Although distance teaching universities have been in the vanguard of widening opportunities for HE study, they vary in how far they are doing so. Some use this informal learning through studying OER as a bridge to formal learning; others see it as an end in itself, often as part of a wider set of lifelong learning activities. Initial experiences of some European distance teaching universities indicate that OER are fine for confident and experienced learners but most people will require other support mechanisms to achieve participation. More effort may be needed to design and present OER in ways that are suited to the learners to support their learning, including developing new ways to recognize achievements through open study.

Understanding Chinese-speaking open courseware users: a case study on user engagement in an open courseware portal in Taiwan (Opensource Opencourse Prototype System)

The open educational resource (OER) movement has reached a critical mass due to recent technology advancements. In Taiwan, to overcome the language barrier, the Opensource Opencourse Prototype System (OOPS) plays a significant role in enabling Chinese-speaking users to benefit from this global education movement. However, our understanding about who these users are and why they chose this particular venue to advance their knowledge remains obscure. This lack of understanding could prevent OOPS from creating an engaging open learning environment. This exploratory case study, based on over 2300 participants’ responses, offered a glimpse of OOPS users and their motives. The findings revealed a significant gender difference in OOPS technology adoption. Recommendations are made to better engage OOPS users, thus sustaining user participation.

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

In the past few years, Africa has joined the rest of the world as an active participant in the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement with a number of home-grown and externally driven initiatives. These have the potential to make an immense contribution to teaching and learning in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, certain barriers prevent full participation. This paper reports on qualitative research that sought to investigate SSA's readiness to adopt OERs. This study involves three case studies based in higher education institutions involved in OER projects and located in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Contrary to the popular belief, findings indicate that low technological levels in Africa do not necessarily impede the adoption of such educational technologies; the real challenges facing the readiness to adopt OERs appear to be related to socio-economic, cultural, institutional and national issues. This paper argues for a complete mind shift in how people perceive OERs. It also proposes raising awareness of OERs at all levels, involving institutions and government, versioning OERs for the African context and conducting more research on OER adoption.

Through efficient use of LORs: Prospective teachers' views on operational aspects of learning object repositories

AbstractAlthough many developments have been made in the design and development of learning object repositories (LORs), the efficient use of such systems is still questionable. Without realising the functional use of such systems or considering the involvement of their dynamic users, these systems would probably become obsolete. This study includes both qualitative and quantitative research methods for the investigation of prospective teachers' views on the operational aspects of such tools. The participants in this study were 75 prospective teachers that were participating in the graduate certification programme for secondary school subject teachers at Baskent University in Turkey. To realise the objectives of this study, prospective teachers were required to use the 17 of the existing LORs in their course. Analysis was also conducted on those LORs identified by the researchers. Afterwards, teachers were asked to answer an open‐ended question in paper and pencil form. Through qualitative analysis, the responses of teachers were coded and presented in a table. The results of this analysis revealed many interesting points regarding teachers' thoughts on the main factors in repositories and are expected to guide the designers, developers and users of LORs to focus on the main issues related to the improvement of functionality and efficiency of such systems.Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic Role of learning objects (LOs) in education. Knowledge on general features of well‐known learning object repositories (LORs). Analysis of the existing LORs in terms of their structural and operational features. What this paper adds A useful insight into educators' perceptions of LOs and LORs. Analysis of user requirements such as teachers' needs in LORs. Identification of the 17 LORs along with their features from which the reader may benefit and the knowledge of additional few such systems as the Turkish Repositories. Implications for practice and/or policy Considerations of structural factors in designing LORs reflecting prospective teachers' requirements such as the use of ontologies and Semantic Webs. Considerations of usability factors in designing LORs reflecting the prospective teachers' requirements. Suggestions for considerations of the critical issues in the development and use of LORs such as the needs to be taken into care within the scope of the Open Educational Resources movement.

Emergence of open educational resources (OER) in India and its impact on lifelong learning

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to critically examine the evolution of open educational resources OER initiatives in India – how OER movement emerges from the open access movement in the backdrop of an emerging knowledge‐based economy. This paper also illustrates how OER help in democratizing lifelong learning spaces that eventually help in skills development.Design/methodology/approachThis paper primarily uses baseline surveys and recommendations of different working groups of Indian National Knowledge Commission. Relevant policy instruments of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, UNESCO, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and other national and international bodies are also critically examined to understand India's stand on OER in comparison with other promising developing countries. This paper analyses impact of OER on Indian systems of education, ranging from lifelong learning, technical and vocational education and training to higher education systems. This paper also illustrates various models of innovations which are shaping up multi‐dimensional lifelong learning pathways to cater to career aspirations of young Indians.FindingsThis paper finds out that Indian OER initiatives make use of textual platforms as well as audio‐visual platforms embracing YouTube, Metacafe and other web‐based streaming video channels. This paper also illustrates the collaboration patterns in OER initiatives in order to attain sustainability, optimum usage and integration with formal curriculum of skills development programmes.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this paper identifies external as well as internal factors that are shaping up OER movement in this emerging knowledge economy, this paper mainly focuses on country‐level initiatives. The challenges faced at the institutional level as well as users level can be traced through advanced research studies.Practical implicationsThis paper suggests some sustainable models for OER deployment, lessons learned and challenges faced by practitioners and users communities.Social implicationsOER development has become a social movement. Proper deployment and utilization of OER resources will lead to social empowerment of young adults. This paper helps in understanding how Indian society embraces OER in order to attain social justice and empowerment through sustainable educational development.Originality/valueThis paper is a unique attempt to produce a state‐of‐the‐art report on the emergence of the OER movement in a transitional emerging economy.

Languages Open Resources Online (LORO): Fostering a culture of collaboration and sharing

&lt;p&gt;As the last ten years have seen the advent of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, large numbers of digital content are now available for learners and teachers to use and reuse. Engaging with OER compels educators to address issues of sharing, quality, ownership, and changing professional practices. In this report, we describe the experience of setting up LORO, a repository of languages OER, especially in relation to teachers' perceptions of barriers and enablers to successful engagement with open content.&lt;/p&gt;

Cirip.Eu – An educational microblogging platform around objects 2.0

In recent years, the most daring player in the social media arena proved to be the microblogging technology, the most energetic in this field being Twitter, raising the interest of the educational actors. A number of microblogging platforms dedicated to education were implemented, such as Edmodo, Plurk, Cirip.eu or Twiducate. In this context, the paper aims to provide an overall analysis of the microblogging platform Cirip.eu for educational directions such as: information and knowledge management, courses enhancement, delivering online courses, collaborative projects, communities of practice, hosting different workshops, conferences or scientific events, building e- portfolios, etc. Thus, the main aspects of the paper will regard the following: 1. The facilities offered by Cirip.eu recommend it as a modern and flexible mobile Social Learning Management System (mSLMS), integrating users' Personal Learning Environments; 2. How microblogging can be integrated with other Web2.0 technologies, and into the Open Educational Resources movement; 3. How the experience and the new pedagogical approach in using microblogging can be captured and formally represented as learning design objects; 4. How learning design objects can be shared, discussed, improved, reused on the microblogging platform.

Sharing and reuse in OER: experiences gained from open reusable learning objects in health

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6pt;"><strong><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Times-Bold;">Abstract: </span></strong><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span>&nbsp;</span>The open educational resource (OER) movement has the potential to have a truly transformative effect on higher education, but in order to do so it must move into the mainstream and facilitate widespread participation in the sharing or creating of resources and in their reuse. To help in this process, experience can be gained from projects and initiatives which have acted as forerunners to this movement.<span>&nbsp; </span>Here we present the experiences gained and lessons learnt from one such project based around the open sharing of reusable learning objects in health sciences education. In particular we share our experiences of reuse, its patterns, measurement, drivers, barriers, and tools designed to balance the pedagogical tensions between use and reuse. Like many in the OER movement we promote an emphasis on the role of community-building. We also argue that in order to produce materials that are worth sharing, value must firstly be placed on developing materials suitable for primary use, including robust evaluation and an alignment to real-world learning needs. Lastly, unlike the prevailing trends in OER we urge a consideration of quality assurance and outline the role that it can play in promoting sharing and reuse. </span>

Open Educational Resources and the University: Law, Technology, and Magical Thinking

For the better part of a decade, universities have shown a dedication to expanding knowledge-building and information sharing practices beyond the confines of the university campus, with many leading institutions dedicating significant attention and resources to the creation of an international educational commons. These efforts towards open access education and global participation have begun to gather in force and unity, and are coalescing under the broad umbrella of an Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. While universities are united by shared academic traditions and norms, OER policies at various institutions are developing in a piecemeal, often contradictory, fashion. This disparity is, in large part, due to the complex technological and legal implications involved in creating, organizing, and disseminating massive amounts of educational resources. Although developing OER policies in a trial and error fashion has lead to some innovative results, we will argue that the movement would benefit from concerted efforts by policymakers on foundational legal and technological issues.The paper will begin with a detailed analysis of the legal and technological issues facing university-created OER. Next, we will describe the current OER policy landscape based on the efforts of a few key leading institutions: MIT, the University of Michigan, and Carnegie Mellon. We will examine how each university addresses and attempts to resolve the legal and technological issues implicated by OER. In particular, we will discuss the problem of magical thinking, the reliance on semi-legal arguments and legalistic, if legally incorrect, reasoning, to support open educational objectives. We will conclude by offering some suggested policy amendments and strategies that university may find helpful as they continue their important work on OER.It is our belief that this effort will help universities and scholars better understand the ways in which their OER efforts intersect with the law and the efforts of like-minded actors and institutions, and that this increased understanding will lead to a more effective and unified OER movement. We also believe that policymakers will become more effective in shaping policy in ways that support OER if they better understand the needs, traditions, and challenges facing universities. The OER movement has a tremendous potential to do vast good, and there are many actors working towards this goal; it is our hope that our research and analysis can aid this effort.

Open Educational Resources in E-Learning

Open Educational Resources in E-Learning Open educational resources in e-learning are the future source of information for lifelong learners. Open source and open standards are defined as the basis of the "Open educational resource movement" that is beginning to form on a global level in the last decade. The characteristics of the OS are investigated in the relation to e-Learning, existing and new pedagogical principles and copyright issues. Several good practices, ideas and existing initiatives are presented and the vision of the future of open educational resources is introduced.

An overview of the current state of OER movement in Saudi Arabia and the Arab World

Open educational resources (OER) is currently a worldwide growing trend fuelled by the advancement of the web. The wide adoption of this movement in languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and many others shows how powerful and influential this movement has played. On the other hand, the Arab World suffers from a significant digital gap, and a serious shortage of Arabic OER that serve their educational and cultural needs. In this paper, we shed the light on the current movement of OER in the Arab World in general and in Saudi Arabia in particular as well as discussing the challenges and opportunities facing this movement in the Arab region.

The Impact of Openness on Bridging Educational Digital Divides

Openness has been a feature of higher education for many decades, particularly through the establishment of open universities, although there remain debates about what openness means in practice. Digital technologies, some based on open principles, and digital content, aided by open licences, have both contributed recently to an extension of what is deemed possible under the heading of openness. Nevertheless, while in principle there may be greater degrees of openness available in higher education it does not mean in practice that many people can still readily avail themselves of these new opportunities to learn, not just because they do not have access to digital technologies but personal circumstances mean they also lack the necessary skills and the confidence to use such technologies in general or for education in particular. In fact it can be argued that this new openness, characterised mainly through the open educational resources movement, may actually widen rather than bridge the digital and educational divides between groups, both within and across national boundaries, through the increasing sophistication in technologies and the competencies expected of learners. This paper reviews some of the evidence supporting these different areas of interest and attempts to provide a synthesis of them. It then argues that actions may be required by many inter-mediaries to help to reduce the diverse social and cultural digital divides within education, including through the mediated use of open educational resources between teachers and learners.

Freeing CP: GIS&amp;T and NACIS in the Open Educational Resources Movement

This article positions higher education in geographic information science and technology (GIS&amp;T), including cartography, in relation to the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. After defining OER and the movement it denotes I compare several initiatives designed to promote free sharing of GIS&amp;T-related educational resources and, in one special case, free provision of graduate education. Finally I consider a justification for conceiving Cartographic Perspectives as an open educational resource, and for freeing it from its current exclusive distribution to NACIS members, subscribers and their patrons.

Open Educational Resources in India’s national development

As India marches rapidly towards an ambitious agenda of economic and social advancement, one of the greatest challenges it faces is to provide extensive access to quality higher education opportunities. An evident and expanding Open Education Resources movement offers great promise for meeting this challenge through initiatives that make quality tools, content and practice widely available. Accordingly, India’s National Knowledge Commission launched a process to explore and leverage these initiatives for adoption and adaptation, as well as to serve as a model for further indigenous efforts. This paper outlines issues and recommendations that address organisational considerations and infrastructure readiness as part of a systemic and sustainable strategy to make effective use of Open Educational Resources for scaling educational opportunity and excellence in the Indian context.