OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN THE CONTEXT OF OPEN ACCESS

Abstract

Objective. This exploratory literature review seeks to identify both emergent consensus areas and research gaps in recent scholarly literature on Open Educational Resources (OERs). Despite the perception of OERs as universally available, these involve persistent barriers. The presence of institutional policies, adequate incentives and support frameworks for the use and sharing of OERs as well as raising awareness about their availability is likely to be critical for their successful deployment. Methods. This study made use of the case study method to arrive at its conclusions. As part of this, secondary data were collected from relevant article searches conducted in Google Scholar and at the Harvard Open Access Tagging Project website. Only papers published in the last five years, e.g., in the years 2016-2021, were taken into consideration. Given that this study has applied the methodology of qualitative comparison and case study construction, this limits the validity of its conclusions to the settings from which the original primary findings were obtained or for which OER recommendations were produced. Results. As part of this research, 16 scholarly articles and research reports were identified as being of relevance for this study. The research questions this study has sought to answer are as follows: How OERs have developed in recent years? What was the impact of the pandemic period on OER use? What are the key barriers for OER deployment? What are the facilitating factors for OER implementation at libraries, colleges and universities? What are the effects of OERs? Conclusions. Recent reports indicate that the pandemic period has both increased the awareness of OERs among education institutions and provided an impetus for capacity building efforts in this domain. Yet, OER effectiveness continues to be under-researched, despite a tentative consensus in scholarly literature concerning the critical role for OER efficacy of institutional support and collaboration frameworks.