The OER Knowledge Cloud makes use of cookies. By continuing, you consent to this use. More information.
Open educational resources: Staff attitudes and awareness
Rolfe, Vivien

PublishedFebruary 2012
JournalResearch in Learning Technology
Volume 20
PublisherCo-Action Publishing
CountrySweden

ABSTRACT
Attitudes are changing in education globally to promote the open sharing of educational courses and resources. The aim of this study was to explore staff awareness and attitudes toward ‘open educational resources’ (OER) as a benchmark for monitoring future progress. Faculty staff (n=6) were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews which facilitated the development of a questionnaire. Staff respondents (n=50) were not familiar with the term OER but had a clear notion of what it meant. They were familiar with open content repositories within the university but not externally. A culture of borrowing and sharing of resources exists between close colleagues, but not further a field, and whilst staff would obtain resources from the Internet they were reticent to place materials there. Drivers for mobilising resources included a strong belief in open education, the ability of OER to enhance individual and institutional reputations, and economic factors. Barriers to OER included confusion over copyright and lack of IT support. To conclude, there is a positive collegiate culture within the faculty, and overcoming the lack of awareness and dismantling the barriers to sharing will help advance the open educational practices, benefiting both faculty staff and the global community.

Keywords Open Educational Resources · staff attitude · sustainability

ISSN2156-7069 (Print); 2156-7077 (Online)
RefereedYes
Rightsby/3.0
DOI10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14395
URLhttp://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/14395
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar



AVAILABLE FILES
14395-51704-1-PB.pdf · 208KB5 downloads



Viewed by 34 distinct readers




CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document


POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS

Engaging employers, professional bodies and Open Educational Resources
Fowler, Mark; Rolfe, Vivien
Open educational resources (OER) have the capacity to deliver quality learning materials to meet the challenges presented by the current higher education landscape. In the UK, open education is allowing individuals to ...
Match: Rolfe, Vivien; Open Educational Resources

The sustained reach and impact of open educational resources
Rolfe, Vivien
From 2009 to 2012, De Montfort University participated in the UK Open Educational Resource (OER) programme releasing bioscience materials, with the Virtual Analytical Laboratory (VAL), the SCOOTER Project and generic ...
Match: Rolfe, Vivien; Open Educational Resources

Striving toward openness: But what do we really mean?
Rolfe, Vivien
The global open education movement is striving toward openness as a feature of academic policy and practice, but evidence shows that these ambitions are far from mainstream, and levels of awareness in institutions is ...
Match: Rolfe, Vivien; Open Educational Resources

Towards development of OER derived custom-built open textbooks: A baseline survey of university teachers at the University of the South Pacific
Prasad, Deepak; Usagawa, Tsuyoshi
Textbook prices have soared over the years, with several studies revealing many university students are finding it difficult to afford textbooks. Fortunately, two innovations – open educational resources (OER) and ...
Match: awareness; Open Educational Resources

Faculty survey finds awareness of Open Educational Resources low
Babson Survey Research Group; Pearson
Teaching faculty at institutions of higher education remain largely unaware of open educational resources (OER), but the potential exists for much wider adoption, according to a new report from Babson Survey Research ...
Match: awareness; Open Educational Resources

How to foster sharing of educational resources?
van der Baaren, John; de Vries, Fred
The future of OER is highly dependent on the future of education in general. A future that will be determined by major changes in society that demand more people with a higher education and life long learning. Each ...
Match: Open Educational Resources; sustainability

OER and open licenses: The dual-pub solution
Bissell, Ahrash N.
OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. The global standard ...
Match: Open Educational Resources; sustainability

Building a manifesto for OER sustainability: UK experiences
Pegler, Chris
Evidence of sustainability, or the potential to achieve this, is increasingly a pre-requisite for OER activity, whether imposed by funders, by institutions requiring a 'business case' for OER, or practitioners ...
Match: Open Educational Resources; sustainability

Understanding the impact of OER: Achievements and challenges
Hoosen, Sarah; Butcher, Neil; Knyazeva, Svetlana
The publication “Understanding the Impact of OER: Achievements and Challenges” is the result of partnership between the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) and OER Africa, an ...
Match: Open Educational Resources; sustainability

“I find the whole enterprise daunting”: Staff understanding of Open Education initiatives within a UK university
Harold, Sinead; Rolfe, Vivien
“Open” initiatives, which focus on increasing access to education, resources, and research, are often practised by individuals rather than universities. However, universities must now produce openly accessible ...
Match: Rolfe, Vivien