The OER Knowledge Cloud: Measuring Use And Creation Of Open Educational Resources In Higher Education

Measuring use and creation of open educational resources in higher education

Published	2013
Journal	The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning Volume 14, Issue 4, Pages 1-14
Publisher	AU Press
Editors	McGreal, Rory · Conrad, Dianne · McGreal, Rory

ABSTRACT

The open educational resources initiative has been underway for over a decade now and higher education institutions are slowly adopting open educational resources (OER). The use and creation of OER are important aspects of adoption and both are needed for the benefits of OER to be fully realized. Based on the results of a survey developed to measure the readiness of faculty and staff to adopt OER, this paper focuses on the measurement of OER use and creation, and identifies factors to increase both. The survey was administered in September 2012 to faculty and staff of Athabasca University, Canada’s open university. The results offer a snapshot of OER use and creation at one university. The survey tool could provide a mechanism to compare and contrast OER adoption with other higher education institutions. Forty-three percent of those in the sample are using OER and 31% are creating OER. This ratio of use to creation is introduced as a possible metric to measure adoption.

Keywords

OER · Open Educational Resources · open learning · open textbooks

Published at	Athabasca, AB
ISSN	1492-3831
Refereed	Yes
Rights	by/3.0
URL	http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1573
Export options	BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar

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1573-12857-1-PB.pdf · 279.9KB

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OER Readiness Tool.pdf · 136.9KB

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