Open Educational Resources Usage Research Articles

The relevance of open educational resources for post-soviet higher education in the digital age

ABSTRACT The digital era has seen the rise of innovations such as online training platforms and digital toolkits for teaching and learning whilst at the same time open access initiatives are losing the attention of educators. The problem under consideration in this paper is the replacement of open educational resources (OER) with digital innovations in higher education (HE). The purpose of this study is to identify the relevance of OER to post-Soviet HE in the digital age. The research employed methods of descriptive analytics to process data on users’ activities extracted from OER repositories with web-analytic apps. The survey was conducted among 441 lecturers to elucidate their request for access to and patterns of usage of digital OER. The findings confirmed the relevance of OER in contemporary education through the similarity of lecturers’ experience worldwide. During the urgent transition to remote learning owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, OER helped lecturers access informed digital practices through appropriate methods and content. OER has thus retained its relevance against the backdrop of the emergence of digital innovations in HE. The international comparison of findings demonstrates the existence of a shared awareness of the importance of OER and similar drivers for OER production and usage.

Making Education Affordable for Students: A Case Study of Implementation and Faculty Usage of an Open Educational Resources Program

The high cost of course materials negatively affects students’ academic progress. This case study reviews and analyzes the implementation and usage of a library-led Open Educational Resources (OER) program. The university library at Cal State LA established a new Scholarly Communication Open Resources eLearning (SCORE) pilot program in the Fall of 2021, which offers a $500 stipend to faculty for creating or redesigning a zero-cost course. This study examined faculty usage of the SCORE program from various colleges and academic disciplines. The study findings demonstrate that SCORE is both popular and successful. We hope that other libraries have the potential to replicate similar initiatives.

Promotion Of Open Educational Resources (OER) Utilization Among Academic Staff In Chinese Higher Education Institutions

This investigation explores the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) by educators, framed against the backdrop of advancing educational equity, a key objective of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4). Amidst the digital era's transformative impact on education, this study seeks to identify the determinants that influence educators' willingness to embrace OER, drawing on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for theoretical grounding. Adopting a quantitative approach, this study analyzes 487 valid questionnaires among Chinese private higher education institutions. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the interplay between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, attitude toward the behavior, perceived behavioral control, and their effects on educators' behavioral intention and actual usage of OER. The findings underscore the critical influence of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions on educators' intentions towards OER adoption. Additionally, the study highlights the mediating role of behavioral intention in the transition from attitudinal factors to the actual application of OER, emphasizing the centrality of educators' intentions in the adoption process. By synthesizing UTAUT and TPB within the OER context, this research enriches the scholarly understanding of technology acceptance models in education. It provides valuable implications for educational policymakers, institutions, and technology developers aiming to promote OER adoption, thereby contributing to the broader goal of achieving educational equity in the digital landscape.

Assessing The Awareness and Perception of Open Educational Resources (OER) among Nigerian University Students: A Case Study

This study investigated Nigerian university students’ awareness and how this influences their perception and use of Open Educational Resources (OER). The study adopted a descriptive method of quantitative research. 4 research questions were developed and answered and a hypothesis was also tested to determine the relationship between students’ awareness of and their perceptions of OER. Percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation and t-test were used for the analysis. A correlation coefficient was employed to test the hypothesis. The findings of the study were: Nigeria university students have a high level of awareness of OER; the most popular OER among the Nigeria university students were Coursera, EdX, and OpenStax; OER are generally well-perceived by Nigerian university students; lack of digital literacy skills and lack of adequate knowledge to determine the quality assurance of OER are the only challenges hindering the effective use of OER among the students, and there is a significant relationship between awareness and the perception of OER by the students. The study concluded that the majority of Nigerian university students are familiar with OER and have positive perceptions of OER. The research recommends that educational institutions provide training on digital literacy skills for students to access and effectively use these OER. Also, efforts should be made to improve the quality assurance mechanisms for OER, including the involvement of educational experts in reviewing and curating OER materials. Lastly, universities, lecturers and librarians should continue to promote OER usage in teaching and learning activities to promote its adoption.

Open Educational Resources: Qualitative evaluation of faculty interest in motivating students to create and use

ABSTRACT Increasing interest among faculty, researchers, educators, and scholars in Open Educational Resources (OER) as significant tools for promoting openness, equity, and quality of education in both distance and face-to-face pedagogical settings has continually generated research attention on OER and Open Educational Practices. The motivational roles of faculty in motivating learners to create, use, and promote OER usage and development culture among students have not been established. This research evaluates faculty interest in motivating students to create and use OER and how the culture of OER usage and creation can be promoted among students of some selected universities. Findings from this study indicated that faculty showed positive attitudes towards motivating students to create and use OER. Some faculty gave several motivational factors that can influence their interest in motivating students to create and use OER and strategies for promoting the culture of OER usage and development among university students.

The Use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) among Mathematics Teachers in Public Secondary Schools

This study investigated the utilization of Open Educational Resources (OERs) among mathematics teachers in selected public secondary schools in Zambales, Philippines for the school year 2022-2023. A survey was conducted with 75 Junior High School Mathematics teachers to assess OERs usage frequency and extent, identify challenges, examine perceptions of OER's effect on mathematics teaching practices, and propose a development plan for promoting OER utilization. Findings revealed that the typical teacher-respondent was a 33-year-old female with a bachelor's degree, supplemented by master's units, and eight years of teaching experience. They held the position of Teacher III and were familiar with OERs. Respondents sometimes used OERs in their math teaching strategies and disagreed with challenges related to OERs use. They agreed that integrating OERs into mathematics teaching had positive effects. The study observed no significant differences in challenges faced by mathematics teachers when grouped by age, sex, highest educational attainment, years of teaching experience, and teaching position. However, significant differences emerged when grouped by OER knowledge. Likewise, there were no significant differences in perceptions of OER effects when respondents were grouped by profile variables. Furthermore, no significant relationships were found between challenges and OER utilization or between perceptions of OER effects and OER utilization among respondents.

RESEARCH ON EFL STUDENTS’ AWARENESS AND PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS THE UTILIZATION OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN VIETNAM

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education has been extensively studied worldwide, but there is a lack of research on OER awareness and usage among university students in Vietnam. This study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate students' awareness of OER and their perceived benefits and challenges when using OER materials. Participants were students in the English Language Teaching Program at UD-UFLS, who were randomly selected to participate in semi-structured interviews through focus groups. The study collected data from 80 questionnaire responses and interview transcripts. Marcus's Theory of Technology Adoption provided a framework for the investigation of OER use. The study identified several benefits of OER utilization, including increased access to materials, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and autonomy in learning. However, limited knowledge of OER and a lack of support from faculty were identified as barriers to the use of OER among students at UD-UFLS. The results of this study can inform stakeholders about the potential benefits of OER and encourage the promotion of OER in higher education institutions in Vietnam, including UD-UFLS.

The usage of Open Educational Resources in higher education

Online educational resources, also known as Open Educational Resources (OER), have been developed to provide free and open access to educational materials for students and educators. The objective of OER is to make education more accessible and affordable for all, by providing high-quality educational materials that are free to use and distribute. In higher education, OER has the potential to revolutionise the way in which students learn. By making educational materials freely available, students can access high-quality materials without the need to purchase expensive textbooks. This can help to reduce the cost of education and make it more accessible to all students. Additionally, OER can be customised and adapted to fit the specific needs of individual students and educators, which can improve the overall learning experience. This article contains information on how online educational resources were developed and their objective. History and development of these materials with a showcase of examples and positive impact reached by usage of OER. Perspectives of use of Open Educational Resources in higher education.

Does Teachers’ Intention Translate to Actual Usage? Investigating the Predictors of K-12 Teachers’ Usage of Open Educational Resources in China

Education stakeholders around the world have been promoting the use of open educational resources (OER) by K-12 teachers to improve the quality of classroom instruction. Prior research identified individual and contextual factors that influenced teachers’ use of OER yet ignored the factor of quality. The aim of this survey study was to investigate how three categories of factors (quality of OER, teacher-related factors, and school-related factors) influence teachers’ use of OER based on the framework of the integrative model of behavior prediction. Multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling of survey data from 1398 Chinese teachers yielded unexpected findings that contradict the understanding of the issue as reported in the prior literature. That is, compared with the distal school-related factors, the distal OER-related factor is a stronger predictor of teachers’ use of OER. Among the proximal teacher-related factors, the effects of the two types of distal factors on teachers’ use of OER were positively mediated by their self-efficacy in using OER and negatively mediated by their intention to use and attitude toward using OER. This reflects how the salient features of the Chinese educational landscape may have distorted previously known factors conducive to teachers’ use of OER among scholars and practitioners worldwide. Recommendations for future improvement of teachers’ OER adoption in Chinese K-12 education are discussed.

Postgraduate Student‘s Open Educational Practices and Hurdles among Faculty of Science at Alagappa University during the Pandemic

This study aims to analyze the practices and hurdles of open educational resources (OER) among faculty of science postgraduate students at Alagappa University, Tamilnadu, India, during the pandemic period. The present study has employed the “questionnaire” as a tool developed by the investigator through a systematic and comprehensive approach in the research design of the questionnaire forms for the survey in various phases. The investigator conducted a pilot study in different Alagappa University, India, departments. The faculty of science students of Alagappa University, Tamilnadu, India, has been selected for the population of the study. A total of 396 postgraduate faculty of science students from the departments chosen at Alagappa University, Tamilnadu, India, were initially collected. However, 30 samples were excluded due to incompleteness. A simple random sampling method was employed to select 366 data for the study. All faculty of science students at Alagappa University, Tamilnadu, India were aware of OER. However, one-fourth of students rarely used OER per day, and only a few students used it monthly. OER was taught to students by faculty at Alagappa University, which created awareness and usage of OER. More announcements or news about OERs being posted on official university websites would increase student awareness of OERs. The significant hurdles shared by students in this study in using OERs are the low quality of OER, limited technology, the OER repository, and the time-consuming to download OER resources.

Programmatic Characteristics of Open Education Initiatives at U.S. Post-Secondary Institutions

Although a number of academic research papers showcase the benefits of Open Educational Resources (OER) on student success metrics, the literature still lacks a central collection of knowledge identifying programmatic characteristics between 4 year public, 4 year private, and 2 year community colleges that support these OER initiatives in the United States. To address this gap in the literature and provide evidential statistics that suggest common programmatic characteristics, this quantitative study collected 149 survey responses from program managers of OER-related initiatives at institutions of higher education in the United States. While some previous research on this topic has focused on regional adoption or other aspects of OER usage, this research focuses on how these initiatives are started, funded, governed, and assessed. The results of this study build on existing evidence that OER programs tend to be overseen by committees, are more likely to offer incentive payments for faculty, and offer at least some form of program assessment.

Students' Awareness and Usage of Open Educational Resources (OER) as Learning Tool in their Course Studies at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU)

Students' Awareness and Usage of Open Educational Resources (OER) as Learning Tool in their Course Studies at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU)

Saurashtra University faculty, graduate students, and research scholars use and are aware of open educational resources

Every job in business, industry, and education is now feasible online in the information, communication, and technology age. Even among students, the proportion of online materials used is highest. The teachers and students in this situation benefit greatly from using open educational resources. As e-learning techniques advance, the usage of open educational resources (OER) is growing in popularity. Online learning resources are readily and cost-free accessible. The goal of this study is to learn more about the views of Saurashtra University professors, students, and researchers about embracing OER. Due to its novelty and potential to improve student comprehension, the usage of open educational resources (OER) is appealing to students.

AN ANALYTICAL APPROACH OF THE USAGE OF OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) BY THE TEACHERS AT BUSINESS AND HEALTH SCIENCE SCHOOLS: A CASE STUDY FROM THE UNIVERSITIES OF LAHORE DISTRICT

The goal of this study is to determine and compare the degree of OER usage, the influences on OER use, and the opinions of OER use by business school and health science school teachers at leading universities in Pakistan. Two business schools and two schools of health sciences from various institutions were included in our study. Using the questionnaire approach, information is gathered from a sample of 80 respondents from two prestigious institutions. The findings of the data show that teachers at business schools utilize digital and OER resources more frequently than those in health science institutions and possess advanced technical abilities. The teachers of business school also show more positive perceptions about the use of different OER with the lectures as supporting material than the health science schools. Keywords: Questionnaire, OER (Open Educational Resources), adherence, perception.

Student usage of open educational resources and social media at a Sri Lanka Medical School

BackgroundThe use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Social Media (SM) for academic information seeking is common among undergraduates nowadays. There is limited data on OER and SM use for education in Sri Lanka. This study was aimed at evaluating the OER and SM use for education among the medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya. Stratified random sampling was used to select students from the first year to the final year. A self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect data.ResultsThe study included 257 responses (response rate: 89.5%), of which 185 (72.0%) were females. The OER and SM use for educational purposes at least once a month among students was 96.1% (95%CI: 93.7–98.5%) and 88.3% (95%CI: 84.4–92.3%) respectively. There was no gender difference in OER and SM use. The main reasons for accessing OER were the availability of information at any time (36.1%) and ease of information access (31.5%). Wiki sites (84.4%) and Facebook (79.8%) were the highest accessed OER and SM platforms. The majority of students were in view that the information on wiki sites (51.4%) and results of general non-specific web searches (56.0%) were reliable. Only 33.9% of students searched information from educational and government-related sources and 18.7% had accessed e-journals. Through SM, 79.0% joined educational groups and 77.0% followed the medical-related sites, pages and people. More than one-third of students (35.8%) could not find academic information from SM due to the information overload and 31.1% mentioned that SM distracted their education.ConclusionThe majority of the students used OER and SM for education; however, only a minority accessed reliable information. Students accepted information available in wiki sites and general non-specific web searchers without considering the credibility of sources. The majority of the students did not refer to e-journals. Distractions to academic work and the difficulty to access accurate information were major concerns of using SM. This study highlights the importance of improving information literacy among medical students.

Realising New Open Educational Resources Achievement during Open and Distance Learning of First Year Local Accounting Undergraduates

Since the pandemic crisis of COVID -19 arose around the world, the education system has changed significantly; from the traditional face-to-face (F2F) classes to Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode. This is when Open Educational Resources (OER) gained its popularity. Consequently, the privilege of educational institutions in providing knowledge to students has changed and that knowledge is no longer under the exclusive control of educators. The role of teachers in the context of conducting the learning process in the classroom is getting replaced with ICT supported learning tools. This study investigated the experiences of the first year local Accounting undergraduates from a local public university in using OER during their ODL session. The data were collected by using an electronic survey asking about advantages, compatibility, trial-ability, visibility and also difficulties of using OER during ODL. The result shows that the majority of respondents opted from Agree to Strongly Agree to all the questions. These responses demonstrated the successful movement from traditional resources (printed textbooks and hardcopy notes) and early stage of OER implementation (MOOCS) to a further step ahead in the usage of OER during ODL classes (video-conferencing, live streaming and recorded audio and video being uploaded in YouTube).

Users Awareness and Usage of Open Educational Resources in Central Universities of North India

Technological advancements and open educational resources (OER) together have opened up wider opportunities to access globally created educational resources by anyone across the globe. A paradigm shift has been witnessed in the format of learning resources, their access methods, and the medium of delivery of the knowledge content. The findings of this research reveal that the academic community of central universities (CU) of North India is well aware of open educational resources. E PG Path Shala is the most popular and most widely used, followed by NPTEL and YouTube. The majority of users use OERs as and when they require them. The purpose of using OERs for the majority of respondents is to prepare class notes. Most of the faculty and research scholars use OERs to improve their professional competency. The majority of respondents desired that the institutions should provide free internet/Wi-Fi on campus and should also provide regular updates about OERs.

Improving K-12 Teachers\u2019 Acceptance of Open Educational Resources by Open Educational Practices: A Mixed Methods Inquiry

Teachers in K-12 settings increasingly demand instructional materials beyond textbooks to follow the upward momentum of personalized instruction. Especially during the outbreak of COVID-19, K-12 teachers are forced to quickly adapt to online teaching and thus have more difficulties of delivering personalized instruction in a relatively resource-restraint situation. Open educational resources (OER), allowing teachers to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute high-quality educational resources at no costs, can be a viable option for teachers. However, the acceptance of OER in K-12 education still remains low. Effective strategies are needed to reinforce teacher intention to adopt OER. This research showcased a two-phase sequential explanatory mixed method inquiry to investigate whether engaging K-12 teachers in open educational practices (OEP)—such as renewable assignments—increased their acceptance of OER. The quantitative phase, referring to the technology acceptance model (TAM), examined the change in factors influencing teachers’ acceptance of OER. The qualitative phase was followed up to provide supplementary perspectives of the quantitative findings. By integrating complementary findings, this research found that OEP increased teachers’ perceived ease of and self-efficacy towards using OER. Although teachers’ intention of implementing OER is not significantly improved, qualitative findings offered additional insights into the benefits of OEP in promoting OER usage and the recommended directions for future effort. Practical implications on improving teachers’ acceptance of OER in K-12 curriculum are discussed at the end.

Faculty Perceptions and Usage of OER at Oregon Community Colleges

ABSTRACT Open Educational Resources (OER) are vital in transforming the student learning experience, whether it is through a social justice lens that seeks to remedy inequities by reducing student cost burden and supporting access to materials or, increasingly, the pedagogical changes faculty are making that enhance student learning. Community college students are more subject to potential debt load and a proportionally higher textbook cost burden based on student aid offered to them. Therefore understanding what motivates community faculty to adopt OER and what barriers exist is vital in expanding OER opportunities for these students. This study examined Oregon community college faculty’s experience with the OER process including a survey which sought information about faculty motivation, usage, implementation, barriers to implementation, both student and faculty perception, and administrative support. This study found that the majority of faculty modified the OER during the adoption process and changed their instructional practices after adoption. It found that sustained support structures for faculty were needed for OER adoption, including training on pedagogical best practices and technology associated with the OER and time for reflection on how to integrate these into their courses when adopting the OER. It also found that release time or funding for OER adoption, modification, or customization was needed, including ancillary materials. Overall, faculty believed that their efforts resulted in positive benefits for students, including student savings, increased access to higher education, and increased engagement while allowing faculty to have greater control over their own courses.

Current Usage Patterns of Open Educational Resources in the Engineering Mechanics Classroom and Barriers to Adoption

Open Educational Resources (OER) represent a small but growing portion of the educational resources market, but the use of OER in engineering is limited. This study seeks to identify the current adoption patterns of OER in engineering mechanics courses and to identify barriers to adoption. Research questions are examined through the lens of Rodgers’ “Diffusion of Innovation” model. A survey of mechanics instructors across the United States, combined with publicly available data from university websites, helped identify instructor practices and opinions regarding OER. During the 2017-2018 academic year, widespread OER usage was found at only a handful of institutions. However, knowledge of OER among mechanics instructors was high, and many instructors reported an interest in OER for their courses. A lack of quality OER content for engineering mechanics courses seems to be the primary barrier to more widespread adoption.