A survey was developed and launched in May and June 2012 to assess the extent to which OERu members are ready for participating in the pilot of the OERu model and determine which challenges organisations are currently facing. A further aim of the study was to examine the OER initiatives, practices and policies that network members are currently engaged in and compare these to those undertaking by other institutions worldwide.

An OERu compatibility survey was developed as a collaborative initiative between Angela Murphy from the Australian Digital Futures Institute (University of Southern Queensland), Gabi Witthaus from the Beyond Distance Research Alliance (University of Leicester) and Wayne Mackintosh from the OER Foundation. Many of the questions were derived from a series of interviews carried out with individuals from institutions participating in the OERu network as a component of the Toucans project (Witthaus, 2012) and input was provided into the survey questions by OERu network members and the open community. The project was partially funded by a grant received from USQ’s early career research program as a component of the ORION Project.

A total of 110 valid responses were retained for the analysis of the results, these included complete responses as well as partial responses that had completed a significant component of the survey. Nineteen participants (14%) noted that their organisations were actively involved in the OERu network. Twelve (11%) formally responded as an institutional representative of an OERu anchor partner. A further 98 participants that were not actively involved in the OERu participated in the study. A total of 83 institutions were represented in the results.

Keywords

business model · case study · OER research