In the Netherlands, many activities have been carried out to stimulate adoption of open online education in higher education. Still, large-scale adoption by (in Rogers’ terminology) the early and late majority is not taking place. In order to achieve large-scale adoption of OER, it is crucial to know what factors will stimulate such adoption. From previous inquiries it may be concluded that inclusion of openness at the institutional policy level is a necessary but insufficient precondition. Educators are considered to be the decisive change agents in large-scale adoption. A survey conducted in Fall 2015 provided some insight into the state of affairs of adoption by educators, but the data were insufficient to draw conclusions about why there is a lack of adoption. Therefore, in Fall 2016, a qualitative research has been carried out. Educators in 5 Dutch HE-institutions have been interviewed about their actual involvement with OER and other forms of open education: what do they do, how they do it, why they do what they do, what they want to achieve, what difficulties they encounter, what support they receive? As the institutional setting or environment of the educator is expected to play an important role in the adoption process of individual educators, other stakeholders within the HE institutions have been interviewed too. The approach taken in this research is that of a mixed-method approach, combining the results of the Fall 2015 survey and the qualitative research of Fall 2016 with outcomes of several other recent surveys in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Finally, a set of actions and activities both on the level of an institution and on a national level is being proposed, that could lead to large-scale adoption of open online education by Dutch HE educators.
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Over the past decade, more and more studies have been published about OER adoptionby educators and educational institutions. The largest part of these studies is about OER in Higher Education and a growing amount is about OER and open textbooks in K-12 education. In addition, according to De Olivereira Netoet al (2017), most studies are focused on the Global North where education instructors “enjoy comparatively higher levels of economic development, educational provision, policy elaboration, and technological access than those in the Global South. This means that less is known about educators’ OER-related practices in the regionwhere OER is touted as having its potentially greatest impact”(De Olivereira Netoet al,2017:2-3).Despite the steadily growing number of studies on the use of OER by educators, there is part of the realm of education that still is ‘a dark continent’ for OER and OER studies, namely Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET). As an indicator, we have analyzed the database from the OER Knowledgecloud1, considered representative for the current state of international OER research, being available as Open Access. With a total of 1638 items in the database (27 October, 9:35 CEST), searching on “technical AND vocational” only gave 2 results (dating from 2011 and 2012).The research presented in this paperprovides the results of a systematic international literature review with the aim of localizing relevant studies on the potentialities and use of OER in TVET. The information from this literature review has been complemented by data from an international quantitative survey taken by members of an UNESCO TVET forum, and from semi-structured interviews with international TVET experts.
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After 15 years of digital openness in education with as its most visible elements OER and MOOCs, the open community is challenged to widen adoption of openness in teaching practices to (as Rogers puts it) the early and late majority of teachers. For them to adopt, the gain should be clear and directly visible to have them adopt openness. Arguments like it saves students money, it is efficient because you will not reinvent the wheel or publishing quality OER and MOOCs adds to the reputation of our institution are, how true they might be, not appealing to teachers who are in most cases crowded with their day-to-day teaching tasks. One approach to overcome this hurdle is to connect to the core of a teacher’s job: pedagogy. We assume each teacher has a vision on when his/her course can be called a success and what this means for activities s/he and the students have to perform. Many teachers experience challenges in realizing their optimal lectures. For some of these challenges forms of open online education can be of use, especially in enhancing pedagogical opportunities. The latter is called Open pedagogy. To create awareness of the world of open and the opportunities it may have, we have developed a workshop for teachers and teacher support. This workshop has been delivered several times in Fall 2016. In the presentation we elaborate on the content of this workshop, the experiences we had, the feedback of the participants and the impact it had after taking the workshop. The materials used in this workshop and a script is published under a CC BY license and is available in both Dutch and English. This creates the opportunity to conduct the workshop locally for everyone interested, stimulating/increasing chances for widespread adoption of open education in (formal) education.
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In the fall of 2015 the Research Group Open Educational Resources of Fontys University of Applied Sciences - School of ICT has conducted a survey into the production and/or reuse of OER and MOOCs by Dutch publicly financed Higher Education (HE) institutions: 15 research universities, 38 university of applied sciences and 8 university medical centres. The goal of the survey was to provide an overview of the current situation regarding the creation, sharing and reuse of OER and MOOCs. Until then information was anecdotal, mainly about individual projects and programs. In this paper data are presented on the following three main issues: production and publication of open educational resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), re-use of OER and/or MOOCs (motives, forms and target audiences) and the presence or absence of an institutional vision and policy. Some of the outcomes of the survey are compared with the results of two other surveys: the survey of the OER Research Hub and a survey on policy for OER in the Netherlands in 2012. The results of the current survey indicate that on many places in universities (including university medical centres) and universities of applied sciences OER and/or MOOCs are being published and reused, but also that many institutions still lack a coherent vision or policy on this subject. The data of the survey, however, do no yet provide an overview on which conclusions may be drawn for individual institutions. Further research must enhance the current picture.
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This report is the result of a study commissioned by UNESCO-UNEVOC to fill the gap both on mapping the landscape of the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and open practices in the field of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and to provide Member States and UNESCO, in particular UNESCO-UNEVOC, with recommendations to support the creation and the use of OER in TVET.
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The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has funded a five years program to encourage the use, creation and sharing of Open Educational Resources (OER) by teachers from various types of education. This program is known as Wikiwijs. Ultimo 2013, the program has come to an end. As some of the assumptions at the start of Wikiwijs proved to work out in unexpected ways the lessons learned could fuel the next steps in developing Wikiwijs. Besides, other national initiatives on opening up education may also benefit from the lessons learned reported here. The main conclusion from five years Wikiwijs was that to accomplish mainstreaming OER, the Wikiwijs program should go along with other interventions that are more oriented toward prescriptive policies and regulations. In particular: the Dutch government should be more directive in persuading executive boards and teachers on schools to adopt OER as an important part of educational reform and the acquisition of 21st century skills.
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Baas, M, Admiraal, W and van den Berg, E. 2019. Teachers’ Adoption of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2019(1): 9, pp. 1–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.510Open Educational Resources (OER) have the potential to change the domain of higher education; however, adoption is still limited. As teachers are the pivotal actors to adopt OER, more insights are needed on their practices with OER and need of support. This exploratory study uses the OER Adoption Pyramid as a framework to analyse adoption of OER within a Dutch University of Applied Sciences. A questionnaire (n = 143) and semi-structured interviews with teachers who had some experience with sharing or using OER (n = 11) offered insights into the current state of affairs on adoption and need of support. The results revealed that informal sharing of resources within teachers’ personal networks happens frequently whereas the use of OER is more limited. If teachers use OER, they are mainly used ‘as-is’ or for a source of inspiration. Our findings indicate that the OER Adoption Pyramid does not properly describe the sequence of each layer within the context of this study. Availability must be lower in the pyramid as a prerequisite for teachers to explore their capacity and volition. Hence, the findings underline the need of support on subject-specific overviews of OER and the creation of national or institutional teacher communities. To improve our understanding, future research should focus on qualitative studies focusing on one case in which teachers engage with OER. This could lead to extensive insights on the factors and sequence of the OER Adoption Pyramid within different contexts.
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One of the claims the OER movement makes is that availability of (open) digital learning materials improves the quality of education. The promise is the ability to offer educational programs that take into account specific demands of the learner. The question is how to reach a situation where a customized demand can be met using OER with acceptable quality against acceptable costs. This situation resembles mass customization as is common in industry for several decades now. Techniques from an industry where an end product is assembled with the demands of the customer as a starting point can be translated to the field of education where courses and learning paths through a curriculum are assembled using a mixture of open and closed learning materials and learning services offered by an institution. Advanced IT support for both the modeling of the learning materials and services and a configurator to be used by a learner are necessary conditions for this approach.
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To find out what is needed to speed up the adoption of open sharing and reuse of learning materials and open online courses in publicly funded Dutch institutions of Higher Education, a qualitative research study was conducted in fall 2016. This study examined issues of willingness of educators and management, barriers and enablers of adoption, and the role of institutional and national policy in the adoption of open sharing and reuse of learning materials and online courses. Fifty-five stakeholders (educators, board members, and support staff) in 10 Dutch Higher Education Institutions were interviewed. The main findings of this study are: motivation for sharing and reuse of learning materials for educators and managers is directly related to the ambition to achieve better education for students; sharing and reuse of learning materials is common practice, very diverse and not open accessible for the whole world, and important barriers include lack of awareness of opportunities for open sharing and reuse and lack of time. Based on the findings from the interviews, the last section of this paper presents conclusions and recommendations regarding how Dutch institutions for Higher Education can formulate effective policies to raise awareness, organize adequate support and provide time to experiment.
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In de maanden juli-december 2016 is door het lectoraat OER van Fontys Hogeschool ICT een onderzoek uitgevoerd om de volgende vraag te kunnen beantwoorden: Wat leidt tot c.q. is nodig voor een brede adoptie van delen van open leermaterialen en online cursussen en hergebruiken van open leermaterialen en cursussen door docenten in het bekostigde hoger onderwijs in Nederland? Bij 4 universiteiten en 6 hogescholen zijn totaal 55 semi-gestructureerde interviews afgenomen met docenten, bestuurders en ondersteuners. Onderwerpen die tijdens de interviews aan bod kwamen betroffen ambities met onderwijs, beleid, opvattingen over openheid in het onderwijs, motieven voor delen en hergebruiken, ervaringen met delen en hergebruiken, hindernissen die werden ondervonden, noodzakelijke randvoorwaarden en invloeden die geïnterviewden vanuit hun omgeving ervaren. Analyse van de interviews gaf de volgende resultaten: 1. Praktijken van delen en hergebruiken zijn erg divers qua openheid. Lang niet altijd zijn gedeelde leermaterialen toegankelijk voor iedereen, vaak ontbreekt een open licentie en processen als copyright clearing vinden niet altijd plaats; 2. Delen en hergebruiken van leermaterialen (al dan niet volledig open) gebeurt veel. Hierbij wordt vooral het bereiken van een hogere kwaliteit campusonderwijs nagestreefd; 3. Feedback op gedeelde materialen is cruciaal voor de motivatie van docenten om structureel materialen te delen; 4. Structureel delen en hergebruik binnen een instelling heeft meer kans van slagen wanneer het gekoppeld wordt aan andere beleidsthema’s zoals internationalisatie of aan onderwijsinnovaties zoals invoeren van blended leren; 5. Bij een aantal instellingen is sprake van zich ontwikkelend beleid op het gebied van open delen en hergebruiken van leermaterialen; 6. Docenten zijn onvoldoende bekend met aanwezigheid danwel inhoud van beleid; 7. De autonomie van de docent in het bepalen om met delen en hergebruiken aan de slag te gaan wordt als cruciaal gezien en als zodanig herkend en erkend, zowel door bestuur als door docenten zelf; 8. Delen en hergebruiken moeten uiteindelijk ten goede komen aan de student of een positief effect hebben op de efficiency van het onderwijs. Of en hoe dat daadwerkelijk gerealiseerd moet worden, is vaak nog niet duidelijk; 9. Docenten geven aan dat stimulering in termen van geld, tijd en ondersteuning essentieel is voor hen om tot structureel gedrag van delen en hergebruiken te komen. Tevens moeten voor hen de antwoorden op de what’s in it for me vraag duidelijk zijn; 10. Publiceren van MOOC’s wordt ervaren als een versneller voor de adoptie van open delen van materialen en cursussen binnen een instelling; 11. Acceptatie van open delen en hergebruiken op instellingsniveau, zich uitend in beleid dat vertaald is naar concrete activiteiten en richtlijnen, beïnvloedt brede adoptie ervan door docenten positief. Op basis van deze resultaten zijn de volgende aanbevelingen geformuleerd om brede adoptie van open delen en hergebruiken te realiseren binnen een instelling: 1. Maak de meerwaarde van open delen en hergebruiken duidelijk aan docenten; 2. Zorg bij deze verandering van de beeldvorming rondom open delen en hergebruiken bij docenten voor ondersteuning vanuit de instelling: op ICT-gebied, juridische en onderwijskundige aspecten, facilitering in tijd, aanwezigheid van een veilige experimenteerruimte en een ondersteunende infrastructuur; 3. Formuleer op faculteits-, instituuts- en instellingsniveau beleid op het gebied van open delen en hergebruiken dat de activiteiten die onder aanbeveling 1 en 2 genoemd worden mogelijk maakt; 4. Koppel beleid inzake open delen en hergebruiken aan andere thema’s van onderwijsvernieuwing of aan thema’s als internationalisering.
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