Open Educational Resources Quality Research Articles

Not All Rubrics Are Equal: A Review of Rubrics for Evaluating the Quality of Open Educational Resources

<p>The rapid growth in Internet technologies has led to a proliferation in the number of Open Educational Resources (OER), making the evaluation of OER quality a pressing need. In response, a number of rubrics have been developed to help guide the evaluation of OER quality; these, however, have had little accompanying evaluation of their utility or usability. This article presents a systematic review of 14 existing quality rubrics developed for OER evaluation. These quality rubrics are described and compared in terms of content, development processes, and application contexts, as well as, the kind of support they provide for users. Results from this research reveal a great diversity between these rubrics, providing users with a wide variety of options. Moreover, the widespread lack of rating scales, scoring guides, empirical testing, and iterative revisions for many of these rubrics raises reliability and validity concerns. Finally, rubrics implement varying amounts of user support, affecting their overall usability and educational utility.</p>

OER Quality and Adaptation in K-12: Comparing Teacher Evaluations of Copyright-Restricted, Open, and Open/Adapted Textbooks

<p>Conducted in conjunction with an institute on open textbook adaptation, this study compares textbook evaluations from practicing K-12 classroom teachers (<em>n</em> = 30) on three different types of textbooks utilized in their contexts: copyright-restricted, open, and open/adapted. Copyright-restricted textbooks consisted of those textbooks already in use by the teachers in their classrooms prior to the institute, open textbooks included alternatives from CK-12 and OpenStax, and open/adapted consisted of open textbooks that the teachers devoted time to adapting to their individual needs. Results indicate that open/adapted textbooks were evaluated as having the highest quality, and that open textbooks were of higher quality than copyright-restricted textbooks. Though some factors of quality might be influenced by cost differences (e.g., timeliness and the ability to adopt updated textbooks), results reveal that open and open/adapted textbooks may do a better job of meeting the needs of K-12 teachers in a variety of ways that may not be captured through traditional approaches to quality assurance. This study marks an early step in exploring the quality of K-12 open educational resources (OER) and the use of practicing teachers as authentic evaluators of textbooks for their local contexts.</p>

Research into practice: evaluation of Skills Hub content and implications for library staff development in the creation of video OERs

The University of Northampton Skills Hub is an online open-access repository of academic skills resources whose primary content is a body of short video open educational resources (OERs) created in-house by staff. To ensure OER quality and to identify staff development needs, the Skills Hub: Review, Redesign, Rebuild project was conducted. The project assessed the quality of fifty of the Skills Hub’s video OERs by inviting fifteen reviewers from different user groups to critically assess the resources. The results were analysed thematically and then considered in relation to the extant literature on the creation of multimedia educational resources and online OERs. Four main practical categories required attention in the creation of future video OERs: technical, presentation, structural and content. These four categories fed into four superordinate categories regarding cognition and reception of OERs: comprehension, concentration, information retention and professionalism. Practitioner recommendations are made for video OER producers, and the findings are situated in relation the principles of multimedia learning theory.

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OF LATVIAN LANGUAGE AGENCY. PEDAGOGICAL PRECONDITIONS FOR THEIR USE

In order to implement the aims of 21st century’s education – personal self- determination and self-realization –, it is necessary to unite the traditional education forms and methods with innovative learning technologies and resources. Besides the traditional learning resources, which usually are used under supervision of teacher in joint learning process, also new and innovative resources appear, for example, open educational resources (OER). Together with other factors, they ensure availability of education and promote the current factors of modern learning process: individualization and differentiation of the learning process, development of learning skills, media competence as one the crucial skills, independence and participation in the learning process. Although it is undeniable, that OER promote the quality of education; however, as polls and researches show, the main attention is paid to the creation and publication of OER, but there is a problem in the assessment of OER quality, purposeful and pedagogically reasoned use (Stacey, 2010). Latvian Language Agency (LLA) created a portal “Teach and learn Latvian” in 2013, where were placed OER for the Latvian language learning, that are structured in two parts: Teach Latvian and Learn Latvian. By analysing the discussion among teachers, the results of polls and observations in the teaching process, LLA is elaborating a concept on creation of OER, as well ensuring the creation of qualitative content and creation of pedagogically reasoned guidelines. The aim of article is to characterise the OER, created by LLA, and pedagogical conditions for its use in the context of modern education. The article: 1) deals with the current situation of modern education, that justifies the importance of OER’s creation and use; 2) defines the notion and essence of the term OER; 3) characterises the OER, created by LLA; 4) deals with the impacts of OER on the learning process, the problems in the use of OER and reveals the pedagogical pre-conditions for its use.

Nauczanie na odległość jako narzędzie przeciwdziałania wykluczeniu społecznemu – spojrzenie z perspektywy teorii agenda setting

Wśród różnych czynników wpływających na proces ustanawiania agendy można umieścić także wpływ rosnącej liczby i wzrastającej jakości otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych. Samodzielne uczenie się przy użyciu narzędzi nauczania na odległość odgrywa coraz większą rolę w uramowieniu odbioru głównych kwestii przedstawianych w sferze publicznej poprzez pośrednictwo mediów i instytucji publicznych. Jednym z efektów ubocznych szerszego stosowania nauczania na odległość we współczesnych państwach jest wpływ, jaki ma ono na zmniejszenie negatywnych efektów wykluczenia społecznego. W artykule tym przedstawiony zostanie mechanizm tego zjawiska widziany z perspektywy drugiego poziomu teorii agenda setting.

Scaffolding of scientific publications with open educational resources (OER)

Helping students better understand scientific publications is one of the essential tasks of higher education. This paper presents a novel learning/reading environment that incorporates innovative scaffolding methods that aim to enable students to readily access open educational resources (OER) and read and comprehend the paper in a collaborative reading environment within a course. The new system, OER-based Collaborative PDF Reader (OCPR), captures and characterizes students’ emerging information needs when they read a paper, while also auto-recommending high quality OERs, e.g., presentation videos, slides, or Wikipedia pages, when students ask for clarifying content (OER-based Scaffolding). The study was conducted in a course for students to read an article, ask questions, and rate resources suggested by the OCPR system. The preliminary results show that the students tend to ask elementary questions and rate video resources higher than other resources. The results will inform future improvement of the OCPR system.

Developing and deploying OERs in sub-Saharan Africa: Building on the present

Open educational resources (OERs) have the potential to reduce costs, improve quality, and increase access to educational opportunities. OER development and deployment is one path that could contribute to achieving education for all. This article builds on existing information and communication technology (ICT) implementation plans in Africa and on the experiences of organizations and initiatives such as the African Virtual University (AVU), OER Africa, the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), and the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Project, to present one view of the benefits, challenges, and steps that could be taken to realize the potential of OERs in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the article focuses on the factors necessary for creating and sustaining a vision for OER development and deployment; developing and distributing resources with an open license; improving technology infrastructure and reducing the cost of Internet access; establishing communities of educational collaborators; sustaining involvement in the OER initiative; producing resources in interoperable and open formats; establishing and maintaining the quality of OERs; providing local context to address national and regional needs and conditions; informing the public about OERs; and taking the initiative to build on the knowledge, skills, and experiences of others. In order to assist educators and decision makers, links to a variety of resources are provided.