With thousands of materials having been produced and shared openly and freely on the Internet as Open Educational Resources (OER) or OpenCourseWare (OCW), the focus of the Open Education movement has shifted toward the need to demonstrate how such materials are being used, by whom and with what impact.
This paper reports on the uses, the motivation for and perceived benefits of use, as well as the challenges of using or producing OER/OCW among academics at public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa (SA). Findings revealed widespread use of OER/OCW amongst respondents in their teaching endeavors, with a number of reported benefits. Findings also revealed respondents’ educational rationale for using or producing OER /OCW. Identified challenges to using or producing OER/OCW are related to licensing issues, institutional challenges or infrastructural problems. The paper proposes several recommendations to advance the use and production of OER/OCW in SA public higher education.

Keywords

case study · higher education · OCW · OER · open education · production · teaching