Higher education curricula are regularly transformed to stay abreast of the diverse societal, technological, and domain-specific developments. To aid students’ learning, teachers use a wide range... Show moreHigher education curricula are regularly transformed to stay abreast of the diverse societal, technological, and domain-specific developments. To aid students’ learning, teachers use a wide range of resources to prepare students for this changing world. Nowadays, many educational resources are available online with open licenses, better known as open educational resources (OER). Yet, despite the opportunities OER can have to contribute to high quality and accessible education, reuse appears to remain low in higher education. Numerous OER initiatives have been initiated across the globe, but many tamp out after the project funding ends. Sustainable practices with OER are still constrained and limited empirical research has been undertaken to investigate how structural adoption of OER in higher education can be enhanced. This dissertation aimed to examine the challenges of OER adoption in higher education to contribute to insights into sustainability issues many OER initiatives encounter. Four studies were designed: (1) teachers’ current practices with OER and their need for support to foster OER adoption, (2) teachers’ assessments of OERs on quality, (3) the role of brokers in cultivating an inter-institutional community on OER, and (4) teachers’ perceived value of an inter-institutional community. Recommendations for future research and OER practices are presented. Show less
Baas, M.; Schuwer, R.; Berg, E. van den; Huizinga, T.; Rijst, R. van der; Admiraal, W. 2022
The affordances of Open Educational Resources (OER) have resulted in various initiatives around the world, but most of them cease to exist once the initial project funding stops. Communities might... Show moreThe affordances of Open Educational Resources (OER) have resulted in various initiatives around the world, but most of them cease to exist once the initial project funding stops. Communities might be a means to create sustainable practices, yet, such communities can only function if their members perceive these communities as valuable. We applied the value creation framework of Wenger, Trayner, and De Laat to examine the value teachers ascribe to their engagement with an inter-institutional community on OER. In this community, 15 universities of applied sciences collaborated on sharing knowledge and resources across their institutional barriers. We collected data through user statistics, an online questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. Major value creation occurred from teachers' personal needs, with dominant immediate and potential values. Findings on applied and realized values denote that it became easier for teachers to connect with peers, and to initiate collaboration projects across institutes. The framework we used is helpful to inform actions to further promote value creation in communities on OER. Recommendations relating to communities' aspirations, its relations with the wider organization, and adoption of OER are formulated to inform sustainable practices of inter-institutional communities. Show less
