The document reports on the results of a survey assessing awareness of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) among educators in Scotland's colleges. Key findings include very low awareness of OER, with over half of respondents unaware of OER. Quality and accuracy were the most important factors for educators in choosing teaching materials. Lack of awareness and not knowing how to use OER were seen as the top barriers. The report recommends efforts to raise awareness of OER/OEP among college educators and provide development opportunities on using OER.

1. Awareness of open educational resources
(OER) and open educational practice (OEP)
in Scottish Colleges Survey Results
Interim Report
Beatriz de los Arcos, Pete Cannell, Rosemarie McIlwhan
August 2016

2. 1
Executive Summary
Key findings
• Awareness of open educational resources (OER) among educators in Scotland’s
colleges is very low
• Awareness of CC licenses is lower than public domain or copyright (but
awareness of all license types is higher than awareness of OER in general)
• Most educators share teaching materials via their institutions VLE but few share
them openly online
• Quality and accuracy are the most important factors influencing educators’
choice of teaching material
• Lack of awareness and not knowing how to use OER are perceived as the
highest barriers to adoption of OER
• Staff who attend CPD opportunities are more likely to engage with OER and OEP
Recommendations
• Efforts to raise awareness of OER and OEP among teaching staff in Scotland’s
colleges need to be scaled up
• Opportunities for development around the use of OER in the curriculum (and
especially the affordances and limitations of open licenses) should be provided
• Colleges should consider the possibility of ‘opening up’ their VLEs, and establish
how to best support and encourage their teaching staff to share resources
openly

3. 2
The Colleges survey
Context
The Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project1
facilitates best
practice in Scottish open education. The project aims to enhance Scotland’s
reputation and capacity for developing publicly available and licensed online
materials, supported by high quality pedagogy and learning technology.
Part of the project’s objectives is to identify current awareness of open educational resources
(OER) and open educational practice (OEP) in Scotland across tertiary education and informal
learning. This survey is part of that work. A similar survey has been conducted for the university
sector. Both surveys form part of a wider engagement with tertiary education. Dialogue with
college staff and others involved in education and training has taken place through four open
forums, workshops and events, and through collaborative activity with college staff, the College
Development Network and the TQFE team at Stirling University. The project team see the project
as a large-scale action research project in which qualitative data is garnered through an iterative
cycle of action, evaluation and reflection. This process of participatory events and collaborative
activity has been a source of valuable insights into the level of awareness of OER and OEP in
Scottish colleges.
Introduction
The Open Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Project conducted a survey to find out about
the level of awareness of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP)
among college staff in Scotland. The survey questions were adapted from research instruments by
the Open Education Research Hub2
(OERH), the Babson Survey Research Group3
and the Boston
Consulting Group4
, which allowed, to a certain extent, for comparison of results across educational
contexts around the globe. The survey was constructed in SurveyMonkey and shared online by
institutional contacts. In total 236 valid responses were collected in a seven-week period from
February 1st
, 2016 to March 20th
, 2016. The survey was distributed in 24 Colleges, and responses
were obtained from 16 of them; however, as Figure 1 shows, most respondents came from
Edinburgh College (n=50), West College Scotland (n=40), New College Lanarkshire (n=38), Fife
College (n=25) and Glasgow Kelvin College (n=25), making unadvisable any conclusion that these
results are necessarily representative of the sector as a whole. Having said that, it is worth
highlighting that findings hereby reported do not differ radically from findings obtained in
1
www.oepscotland.org
2 http://oerhub.net/
3 http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/oer.html
4 http://www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/The%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20Ecosystem_1.pdf

4. 3
previous research (de los Arcos, Farrow, Perryman, Pitt, & Weller, 2014; Allen & Seaman, 2014; de
los Arcos, Farrow, Pitt, Perryman, Weller & McAndrew, 2015).
Figure 1. Distribution of responses
Characteristics of the sample
The sample (Table 1) comprises of a majority of female (56.4%, n=133), highly experienced
educators –32.2% (n=76) with over 20 years of teaching experience. Most teach full-time (71.6%,
n=166), face-to-face (89.8%, n=211) and at both National Certificate and Higher national level
(51.9%, n=120). Figure 2 shows a breakdown of responses by discipline taught.
2.1%
3.8%
0.4%
6.8%
5.1%
21.2%
10.6%
0.4%
1.7%
10.6%
0%
0%
0%
16.1%
0%
1.7%
0%
0%
0.4%
0%
0%
0%
16.9%
1.7%
0.4%
Ayrshire College
Borders College
City of Glasgow College
Dumfries & Galloway College
Dundee and Angus College
Edinburgh College
Fife College
Forth Valley College
Glasgow Clyde College
Glasgow Kelvin College
Inverness College UHI
Lews Castle College UHI
Moray College UHI
New College Lanarkshire
Newbattle Abbey College
North East Scotland College
North Highland College UHI
Orkney College UHI
Perth College UHI
Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI
Shetland College UHI
South Lanarkshire College
West College Scotland
West Lothian College
College Development Network

5. 4
Table 1. Sample Characteristics
ALL RESPONSES
N=236
Gender Female 56.4%
Male 42.4%
Teaching
experience
> 20 years 32.2%
16-20 years 16.1%
Teaching mode Full-time 71.6%
Part-time 28.4%
Teaching context Face-to-face teaching 89.8%
Blended teaching 9.8%
Online teaching .4%
Teaching level NC 31.2%
HN 16.9%
Figure 2. Breakdown of responses by discipline
Hairdressing & Beauty
7%
Education &
Training
2%
Art & Design
1%
Construction
5%
Engineering
10%
Media
2%
Performing Arts
1%
Business &
Management
8%
Care
12%
Science
3%
Social
subjects
8%
Sport & Leisure
5%
Computing & ICT
12%
Hospitality
& Tourism
7%
Language & ESOL
3% Other subject
8%
Core skills
3%

6. 5
Awareness of OER
Respondents were asked to self-report their awareness of OER, after reading the following
definition:
“OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or
have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use
and re-purposing by others. Unlike traditionally copyrighted material, these resources
are available for ‘open’ use, which means that users can edit, modify, customize, and
share them.”
Results show that level of awareness of OER in this particular sample is very low: a majority of
respondents (54.2%, n=128) indicated they were unaware of OER, 39% (n=92) that they heard of
OER but didn’t know much about them, and only 6.8% (n=16) that they were aware of OER and
knew how to use them in the classroom. Note that 3 out of the 16 respondents who declared
themselves aware of OER also said that they did not use OER; accordingly, responses were merged
to create three groups for comparative analysis, as shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Categories of survey respondents
ALL RESPONSES
N=236
Count % Valid %
OER users 13 5.5 5.5
OER aware but non-users 95 40.3 40.3
OER unaware 128 54.2 54.2
Total 236 100 100
The lack of awareness of OER among teaching staff in Scottish Colleges mirrors the findings of the
Scottish University sector survey that was also conducted by the OEPS project5
. It is also in line
with the results reported by the Babson Survey Research Group (Allen & Seaman, 2014) in their
examination of the attitudes, opinions and use of OER among teaching staff in US higher education,
wherein only 20% of those surveyed claimed to be aware or very aware of OER.
5
https://oepscotland.org/2016/10/05/awareness-of-oer-and-oep-in-scottish-he-institutions-survey-results/

7. 6
Selecting resources for teaching
All respondents were asked to rate on a four-point Likert scale a series of factors in relation to
their selection of resources for teaching. Nearly all respondents selected ‘high-quality and
factually correct’ (99.6%, n=235) as important or very important; subsequent high percentages
correspond to selecting resources that are ‘proven to improve student performance’ (98.7%,
n=228), ‘current and up-to-date’ (97.9%, n=231) and ‘cover my subject area sufficiently’ (97.5%,
n=230).
When comparing groups (Table 3), we found that 100% of OER users select teaching resources
that are proven to improve student performance, of high-quality, factually correct, current, up-to-
date, easy to use and allowing adaptation. Non-OER users coincide with OER users in championing
resources that are of high quality. Those unaware of OER favour improved student performance
over accuracy and quality.
Table 3. Factors influencing selection of teaching resources
ALL
RESPONSES
N=236
OER users
n=13
OER
non-users
n=95
OER
unaware
n=128
Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid %
Cost 182 81.3 10 83.3 75 81.5 97 80.8
Proven to improve student
performance
228 98.7 13 100 92 97.9 123 99.2
Easy to find 210 90.1 11 91.7 82 87.2 117 92.1
Includes all the materials
I need
199 85 10 76.9 79 84 110 86.6
High-quality and factually
correct
235 99.6 13 100 95 100 127 99.2
Covers my subject area
sufficiently
230 97.5 13 76.9 94 98.9 123 96.1
Mapped to learning
outcomes
180 77.3 10 83.3 73 77.7 97 76.4
Current & up-to-date 231 97.9 13 100 95 100 123 96.1
Easy to use 215 91.9 13 100 85 90.4 117 92.1

8. 7
Used by other colleagues in
my Department
115 49.1 7 58.3 48 51.1 60 46.9
Provided by my college 101 43.5 5 38.5 40 43 56 44.4
Ready to use 182 77.4 10 76.9 75 79.8 97 75.8
Adaptable/editable 222 95.3 13 100 89 95.7 120 94.5
Invited comments on other factors that influence choice of teaching resources highlight a
preference for localized materials – “I teach history. I like to use resources relating to local history
if possible”, “Tailored to Scottish curriculum. It annoys me to make do with what was produced for
England”; and learner-centered –“Engaging for students”, “Interactive for student involvement”.
Use of repositories
The three most commonly used repositories and educational sites reported in this particular
sample are YouTube (94.9%, n=224), followed by SQA Open Access (44.5%, n=105) and TED Talks
(39.8%, n=94) (Figure 3). This pattern of use continues when looking at data from the three
separate groups, but it is worth emphasizing that use of OER repositories (i.e. OpenLearn, Jorum)
by OER users is much higher than those who are not aware or don’t use OER.
Figure 3. Use of repositories
Sharing teaching resources
Results indicate that sharing teaching resources is common practice among surveyed educators,
with only 1.1% (n=3) declaring their unwillingness to part with their materials. Overall, a majority
share via their college’s VLE (69.1%, n=163), in person (61.4%, n=145) and via email if asked
28.8%
94.9%
39.8%
1.7%
28.4%
14.8%
9.3%
3.8%
9.7%
19.9%
3.8% 1.7%
16.1%
44.5%
19.1%
26.3%

9. 8
privately (56.4%, n=133). In this sample of educators in Scottish colleges, only 9.3% (n=22) publish
their teaching materials publicly online.
Figure 4 shows the differences in sharing practice by group. Respondents who use OER also
engage in sharing (and sharing publicly online) more often than their counterparts.
Figure 4. Sharing teaching resources
The following quotes underline some of the issues that need to be addressed if sharing practices
are to be encouraged in the colleges sector in Scotland:
“Yes, [I share] and I have been both nationally and in all colleges I have taught in over
the last 30 years. So much so I often see my own work rebadged and rebranded as
someone else’s.”
“[I share via] professional email network - only a couple of staff (including myself) tend
to contribute resources and despite requests for feedback on development on what I've
put up very little responses received.”
Awareness of Creative Commons Licenses
Respondents were asked to rate how they perceived their awareness of Public Domain, Copyright
and Creative Commons (CC) licenses on a four-point Likert scale. 90.7% (n=214) said they were
aware or very aware of Copyright, 68.2% (n=159) that they were aware or very aware of Public
Domain, and a lower 38.1% (n=88) aware of CC licenses. Note the disparity: while overall
awareness of CC stands at 38.1% (counting only ‘Aware” and ‘Very Aware’ responses), awareness
of OER stands at 17%.
A comparison of responses by group (Table 4) reveals that awareness of CC is high among OER
users (but not at 100%), while it is at its lowest among those unaware of OER (but not at 0%).
0%
77%
22.5%
31%
62%
0%
73%
5%
52%
52%
2.3%
65.6%
10.2%
68%
59.4%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Don’t share
Through institution's VLE
Publicly online
In person
Via email, privately
OER unaware
OER non-users
OER users

10. 9
Table 4. Awareness of licensing by group
OER users
n=13
OER non-users
n=95
OER
unaware
n=128
Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid %
Public Domain 13 100 76 80.9 70 55.6
Copyright 13 100 89 93.7 112 87.5
Creative Commons 12 92.3 47 50.5 29 23
OER users: types of OER used, purpose and impact
Users of OER in this particular sample (n=13) reported using OER regularly as supporting material
to enhance teaching or as further reference for students rather than primary course material
(46.2% versus 30.8% respectively).
Figure 5 shows the wide range of OER used by surveyed educators: slides and class presentations
are used by all respondents; videos (92.3%, n=12) and images (84.6%, n=11) are the second and
third most popular type of OER, while at the lower end of the scale we find whole courses (15.4%,
n=2) and open datasets (23.1%, n=3). These findings coincide with those reported in previous
research (BCG, 2013; de los Arcos et al., 2014; Allen & Seaman, 2014; de los Arcos et al., 2015).
Figure 5. Types of OER
Purpose of OER use by educators in this particular sample is shown in Table 5. The highest
percentages correspond to using open resources to prepare for teaching, to get new ideas and
inspiration, to broaden the range of resources available to students and to engage learners more
92.3%
38.5%
84.6%
53.8%
46.2%
76.9%
76.9%
69.2%
100%
15.4%
61.5%
61.5%
23.1%
Videos
Audio podcasts
Images
Infographics
Games/simulations
Video lectures/tutorials
Tests/quizzes
Open textbooks
Slides/ class presentations
Whole course
Elements of a course
Lesson plans
Open datasets

11. 10
fully. Using OER to make a more culturally diverse classroom or to accommodate diverse learner
needs received the smallest number of responses, contrary to findings of research conducted by
OERHub in an international setting (de los Arcos et al., 2016).
Table 5. Purpose of using OER
ALL RESPONSES
n=13
Count % Valid %
To prepare for my teaching 12 92.3 92.3
To get new ideas and inspiration 12 92.3 92.3
To broaden the range of my teaching methods 10 76.9 76.9
To broaden the range of resources available to my students 12 92.3 92.3
To make my teaching more culturally diverse 9 69.2 69.2
To stay up-to-date in a subject or topic area 11 84.6 84.6
To engage my students more fully in a topic area 12 92.3 92.3
To interest hard-to-engage learners 11 84.6 84.6
To be able to accommodate diverse learner needs in class 9 69.2 69.2
When asked about the most important reason why they use OER, flexibility and modularity of
materials were ranked highest, followed by trusted quality and subject coverage. The fewest
number of preferences were recorded in relation to efficacy, and materials being suggested by the
College/Department. A study by the Boston Consulting Group (2013) reports similar findings in the
context of K12 education: 29% of US schoolteachers adopt OER mainly for the flexibility they
afford to adapt the content, and their low cost.
A minority (41.7%, n=5) of OEPS-surveyed college educators said they were aware of OER being
used by students but did not volunteer any examples. However, a majority (75%, n=9) said they
encourage their students to use OER –“Some of the best resources are recommended by students
themselves!”.
Table 6 shows how educators perceive OER having an impact on teaching and learning. A majority
agree that OER use leads to improvement in student satisfaction and performance, and that the
open aspect of OER creates different patterns of usage and adoption compared with other online
resources.

12. 11
Table 6. Impact of OER use
Engaging in staff development or CPD opportunities
Overall data (Table 7) show that the percentages of those who have attended CPD events were
generally much higher across all development opportunities in the group of users of OER
compared with non-users of OER.
Table 7. Development opportunities attended by OER users/non-users
ALL RESPONSES
N=97
OER users
n=12
OER non-users
n=85
Count Valid % Count Valid %
Open licensing 5 41.7 14 16.5
Use of already existing OER 10 83.3 49 58.3
OER users
n=13
Count % Valid %
Use of OER leads to improvement in student performance 9 81.8 81.8
Use of OER leads to improvement in student satisfaction 9 81.8 81.8
The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption
patterns than other online resources
9 81.8 81.8
Open educational models lead to more equitable access to
education, serving a broader base of learners than traditional
education
7 63.6 63.6
Use of OER is an effective method for improving retention for at-risk
students
8 72.7 72.7
OER adoption at an institutional level leads to financial benefits for
students and/or institutions
7 63.6 63.6
Use of OER leads to critical reflection by educators 7 63.6 63.6

13. 12
Creation of new OER 6 50 25 29.4
Remixing of OER 5 41.7 11 13.4
Open educational practice 5 41.7 12 14.3
Open scholarship 1 9.1 0 0
Open research 3 25 8 9.6
Barriers to the adoption of OER
US schoolteachers who self-classify as non-OER users mention that lack of awareness, and not
being sure how to use OER, together with time constraints are the main barriers to their adoption
of OER (Boston Research Group, 2013). OEPS survey results correspond to these findings. A
majority of OEPS college respondents considered lack of awareness of OER the biggest barrier for
the adoption of OER –83.3% (n=10) of those who use OER, 91.8% (n=78) of those who don’t use
OER despite being aware of them, and 84.6% of those unaware of OER (n=104) (Figure 6). Knowing
how to use resources is the second biggest barrier for the three groups. Users of OER rank third
most important barrier to the adoption of OER the lack of knowledge about permission to use or
change OER (60%, n=6). This serious concern with licensing and its implications when using and/or
adapting open resources has also been found in research by Allen & Seaman (2014) concerning US
HE educators.
Figure 7. Perceived barriers to adoption of OER
76.9%
72.7%
55.6%
55.6%
30%
40%
70%
33.3%
60%
50%
30%
30%
50%
91.8%
72.6%
25.3%
29.3%
11.3%
12.5%
18.1%
18.1%
26.5%
32.1%
17%
12.2%
25.3%
84.6%
70%
18.1%
12.8%
7.7%
8.5%
10.3%
7.7%
10%
18.6%
7.7%
8.5%
20.3%
Lack of awareness about OER in general
Not sure how to use OER
Too hard to find
Not enough subject coverage
Not high-quality
Not current/up-to-date
Not relevant to one's local context
Too fragmented
Not knowing about permission to use/
change
Lack of support from colleges
Too difficult to change/edit
Not effective at improving student
performance
Not used by colleagues in my
Department/Faculty/Curriculum Area
OER users
OER non-users
OER unaware

14. 13
Discussion
The relatively low response rate for this survey from institutions and from individuals within
institutions was disappointing. In the OEPS team’s other engagement with colleges it is clear that
levels of awareness of OER and OEP are low and this may have contributed to the low level of
engagement. As a result it may be the case that the responses to the survey are skewed towards
staff with some interest in open education. The small sample size and the above provisos mean
that the results of the survey should be treated with caution; however, they underline some
Important issues for the sector. Levels of awareness are lower in colleges than in Scottish HEIs.
Nonetheless, the survey indicates that there is a high level of use of material from YouTube and
similar sites coupled with low levels of awareness of copyright and open licenses. In order to
tackle this issue other findings from the OEPS project suggest that if practice is to be changed, CPD
needs to go beyond a technical understanding of copyright to address some of the positive
reasons why awareness of license types and the affordances of open licenses can support good
educational practice.

15. 14
References:
Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J. (2014). Opening the Curriculum: Open Educational Resources in U.S. Higher
Education, 2014. Available from
http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthecurriculum2014.pdf
Boston Consulting Group, The (2013). The Open Education Resources ecosystem: An evaluation of
the OER movement’s current state and its progress toward main- stream adoption. Available from
http://www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/The%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20Ecosys
tem_1.pdf
de los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Perryman, L.-A., Pitt, R. & Weller, M. (2014). OER Evidence Report
2013-2014. OER Research Hub. Available from http://oerresearchhub.org/about-2/reports/
de los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Pitt, R., Perryman, L-A., Weller, M. & McAndrew, P. (2015). OER
Research Hub Data 2013-2015: Educators. OER Research Hub. Available from
http://www.slideshare.net/OER_Hub/oerrh-data-report-20132015-educators
de los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Pitt, R., Weller, M. & McAndrew, P. (2016). Personalising learning
through adaptation: Evidence from a global survey of K-12 teachers’ perceptions of their use of
open educational resources. Journal of Online Learning Research, 2(1): 23-40. Available from
http://oro.open.ac.uk/46145/

16. 15
Acknowledgements
The Opening Educational Practices in Scotland project gratefully acknowledges the support of each
higher education institution who distributed the survey and to the participants who completed the
survey.
We also acknowledge the financial support of the Scottish Funding Council which funds the project.
This report is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Survey data available at https://figshare.com/account/projects/16323/articles/3990582
Suggested citation: de los Arcos, B., Cannell, P., & McIlwhan, R. (2016). Awareness of open
educational resources (OER) and open educational practice (OEP) in Scottish Colleges Survey
Results: Interim Report. Edinburgh, Opening Educational Practices Scotland

17. 16
Get in touch
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Email: oepscotland@gmail.com
Web: www.oepscotland.org and www.oeps.ac.uk
Twitter: @oepscotland