ORIOLE, in the Search for Evidence of OER in Teaching. Experiences in the Use, Re-use and the Sharing and Influence of Repositories

• Main Author: Gema Santos-Hermosa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hipatia Press 2014-06-01
• Series: Qualitative Research in Education
• Subjects: Open Educational Resources; openness; use; re-use; sharing; remix; motivation; funding policies; repositories; ORIOLE
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.4471/qre.2014.46
• ISSN: 2014-6418; 2014-6418

The study presented here aims to gather useful information on the use, re-reuse and sharing of resources in Education and also the influence of repositories, to better understand the perspective of individual practitioners and suggest future areas of debate for researchers. Open Resources: Influence on Learners and Educators (ORIOLE) project, was based within the Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University (OU) from 2009-2013 and focused on investigating, understanding and disseminating about use and reuse of open resources in learning and teaching. This paper focuses on the second survey activity of this project. During 2011 (Pegler, 2012), an extensive online survey about reuse of educational resources was conducted through (mainly UK-based) practitioner communities. In 2013, a more international version was created (available in English and Spanish) and circulated during that year (http://bit.ly/OERsurvey_2013). The ORIOLE Survey 2013 collected information about the contexts in which open resource use may occur, looking particularly at attitudes about reuse of educational resources (OER) in teaching. What influences open resources in education is a topic of relevance to anyone taking on forward engagement with open education and the answers lie with those who are working directly in the delivery of learning and teaching, and those who support this work. It is hoped that this qualitative analysis will provide a deeper understanding of the differences in the motivation to engage with OER and the shifts in experience and expectations across diverse contexts.