Open Educational Resources (OER) aim at a shift in education towards improving the accessibility, adaptability and dissemination of learning materials. This paper examines the concept of openness in OER and looks at its dimensions and their implementation in the context of the WFDT project – a government-funded initiative by three German universities to develop an OER curriculum on digital transformation. Through a thematic analysis of three semi-structured interviews with experienced OER experts, we further identify the key factors and barriers to creating OER from the producer's perspective, including motivational, regulatory, and technical factors, as well as resource constraints. Our results emphasize the importance of considering legal compliance, didactic reusability, and technical openness when designing and disseminating OER. The WFDT project implements these principles by integrating flexible, open tools such as H5P and creating an open didactic design with contextual case studies and non-contextual learning modules that are linked together by tasks for learners.

Keywords

open educational resources · openness · barriers · open tools