Open educational resources (OER) as an innovation to share educational resources has been influential in past decade and expected to bring changes to higher education worldwide. There is, however, very limited literature on OER usage, especially from the perspective of college students in developing countries, who are often projected as the…

Research indicates that students find open educational resources (OER) favorable, but there is no research regarding students' perceptions of faculty who use open textbooks. In the present study we examined this topic experimentally with two undergraduate psychology courses at a small public university. Participants read two passages--one about an…

The true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open educational resources is only just being realised, largely through the work done by the Hewlett-funded OER Research Hub, based at The Open University (UK). Since late 2012, the project has used a combination of surveys, interviews and focus groups to gather data about the use…

We present an analysis of 50 repositories for educational content conducted through an "audit system" that helped us classify these repositories, their software systems, promoters, and how they communicated their licensing practices. We randomly accessed five resources from each repository to investigate the alignment of licensing…

The rise of Open Educational Resources (OER) research provides data that Open Textbooks and other forms of OER may be one cost saving approach for college and university students. Yet little research has been conducted around the attitudes and perceptions of the students using these Open Textbooks. This paper examines the perceptions that students…

The open educational resources initiative has been underway for over a decade now and higher education institutions are slowly adopting open educational resources (OER). The use and creation of OER are important aspects of adoption and both are needed for the benefits of OER to be fully realized. Based on the results of a survey developed to…

With thousands of materials having been produced and shared openly and freely on the Internet as Open Educational Resources (OER) or OpenCourseWare (OCW), the focus of the Open Education movement has shifted toward the need to demonstrate how such materials are being used, by whom and with what impact. This paper reports on the uses, the…

Scholars are increasingly being asked to share teaching materials, publish in open access journals, network in social media, and reuse open educational resources (OER). The theoretical benefits of Open Educational Practices (OEP) have become understood in the academic community but thus far, the use of OER has not been rapidly adopted. We aim to…

This article discusses the role of open and distance learning to widen participation and promote social inclusion within Australian higher education, as well as the benefits that open educational resources (OER) could bring to that context. It also explores some of the most relevant social inclusion policies and related initiatives developed in…

The purpose of this article is (1) to review the advantages of using learning objects (LOs) and open educational resources (OER), (2) to propose the enrichment of course syllabi with LOs/OER, (3) to propose new fields to be included in metadata and ways for embedding metadata in LOs/OER, (4) to review the problem of lack of metadata in Web 2.0…

The study explored usage patterns of the Learning Support Centers in Higher Education (LSCHE) web portal, an open educational resource (OER) that serves learning support center professionals. Results of an online survey taken by LSCHE users (N = 41) tracked their self-reported usage and perceived value of resources on the web portal, which…

An important element of open educational resources (OER) is the permission to use the materials in new ways, including revising and remixing them. Prior research has shown that the revision and remix rates for OER are relatively low. In this study we examined the extent to which the openly licensed "Flat World Knowledge" textbooks were being…

We analysed how teachers as users of open educational resources (OER) repositories act in the re-use process and how they perceive quality. Based on a quantitative empirical study, we also surveyed which quality requirements users have and how they would contribute to the quality process. Trust in resources, organizations, and technologies seem to…

The high cost of tuition and textbooks can have a negative impact on potential students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Open Educational Resources (OER) offers students a way to save educational costs while utilizing high-quality open textbooks. Up until now, there have been few studies focused on a specific provider of open textbooks. This…

There have been numerous calls for research that demonstrates how open education resources (OERs) are actually being used. This case study sought to shed light on the users of a well-visited set of modular music-education materials published at Connexions. Respondents to a voluntary survey included teachers, students, self-directed learners, music…