This paper provides an update on activity in the innovation and business models strand of the ENCORE+ project. A range of business models that support or draw on open educational resources (OER) have been proposed. This paper reviews models that have been proposed (Tlili et al., 2020; Padilla Rodriguez et al., 2018; Belleflamme & Jacqmin, 2015; Ubachs & Konings, 2016; and Farrow, 2019) and suggests a synthesis into one typology of OER business models. The ENCORE+ OER Business Model Typology has been developed as part of a wider effort to understand and evaluate economically sustainable approaches to OER as well as to formulate OER value propositions for different stakeholders. In related work, a range of OER innovation case studies (N=48) are being prepared for publication. These illustrate different instances of innovation with OER and show how OER actors understand their value proposition to different audiences.

1. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license except where otherwise noted.
A Typology for OER Business Models
Dr. Robert Farrow, The Open University (UK)
EDEN Conference, 20th June 2023

2. ENCORE+
ENCORE+ is a Knowledge Alliance project funded by the European
Commission under Erasmus+
● Supporting the uptake of open education resources (OER)
● Catalysing and sharing innovative practice across education and
business
● Developing stakeholder communities for knowledge exchange
2

3. 3
Partners
● International Council for Distance Education (Norway)
● Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (Germany)
● The Open University (UK)
● Universidad Internacional De La Rioja (Spain)
● Knowledge 4 All Foundation (UK)
● Joubel (Norway)
● Fondazione Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
● Instructure Global (UK)
● Dublin City University (Ireland)

4. 4
ENCORE+
Ecosystem
ENCORE+ functions as
a network catalyst for a
socio-technical ecosystem.
ENCORE+’s main mission is
to amplify existing OER
initiatives, projects, platforms
and networks by integrating
them across the four
thematic Circle strands and
three crosscutting integration
events.

5. Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research
materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that are in the public
domain and/or released under an open license that permits no-cost
access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited
restrictions. They are free at the point of use and ‘free’ in the sense that
they provide users with greater freedoms in how resources are shared,
used, customised and iterated.
Compatible definitions of OER are provided by UNESCO, Hewlett
Foundation and OER Commons.
5

6. Competition vs Collaboration
Konkol et al. (2021) recently wrote about OER business models and
sustainability. They frame this in terms of what they call the paradox
‘“that generating revenue out of OER is not intended, but ignoring income
can make OER unsustainable”.
6

7. Konkol et al. (2021) OER Business Model Types
● The Selling course experience model or “Freemium” model where educational
materials (e.g., slides, texts, data) are offered for free but revenue comes from
additional content or services.
● In the Governmental model, national and international governmental agencies
provide funding for creating OER (where this supports their agenda)
● Operating in a similar fashion but at a smaller scale, the Institutional
model sees higher education providers set aside some part of their budget for
OER programmes. This is often implemented in ways that are consistent with
the philosophy of open, but again involves competition for scarce resources
without much in the way of longer term capacity building.
7

8. Konkol et al. (2021) OER Business Model Types
● The Online Programme model is realised by extending presence-based
education to online or blended courses. This content is typically only
accessed by registered students rather than being truly “open”. This approach
has perhaps become more common with the pivot to online education
resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
● The Substitution model which sees cost savings from redundant services
(e.g. obsolete systems) being redirected towards OER programmes.
● In the Community-based model, the members of an OER community or
network collaboratively create and use OER. Revenue can be generated by
hosting the required infrastructure or charging for related activity.
8

9. Konkol et al. (2021) OER Business Model Types
● The Donations model involves donations from, e.g., foundations, society,
industry, government, or non-governmental agencies. This form of funding is
very dependent on external sources.
● In the Institutional subscriptions model, the provider makes educational
materials accessible to institutions who subscribed as paying members.
● Along similar lines we have the Sponsorship/Advertising model which relies on
generating revenue by exposing students to commercial
messages. Perceived by many to be both unethical and antithetical to the
goals of education.
9

10. Konkol et al. (2021) OER Business Model Types
● The Membership model relies on organisations contributing to the university with
money, services, and goods in exchange for privileges such as early access to
roadmap decisions and code releases.
● The Selling data model generates revenue by selling data about the activities of
those using a learning environment.
● The Consultancy, training, and support model sees institutions offer professional
services around the use of OER.
10

11. Konkol et al. (2021) OER Business Model Types
● Finally we have the Author pays model where publishers generate revenue by
charging content creators (as in the case of article processing charges, for
instance). (Approaches like this have been seen to favour those who have
access to funding and discriminate against less established professionals or
those from areas where less funding is structurally available.)
11

12. Tlili et al. (2020) OER Business Model Types
● Through Internal funding of higher educational institutions
● Leveraging Sustainable OER networks to reduce costs
● Through Public funding
● Based on Endowments and donations
● Offering Services to learners
12

13. Tlili et al. (2020) OER Business Model Types
● Offering learning-related Data to companies
● Producing OER on demand as an area of entrepreneurship
● Relying on the voluntary efforts of OER authors
● Relying on other Stakeholder communities to provide labour or services
13

14. Belleflamme & Jacqmin (2015)
OER/MOOC Business Model Types
Belleflamme & Jacqmin (2015:155-162) suggest the essential features of six
potential business models based around offering services around OER content:
● Platformization (e.g. MOOCs) facilitates interactions between stakeholders
and subsides the participation of each side.
● The Certification model sees charges made for certification of learning with
OER. This retains the degree as the prestige qualification and makes
revenues depend on completion, not enrolment.
14

15. Belleflamme & Jacqmin (2015:155-162)
OER/MOOC Business Model Types
● The Freemium model often sees free learning followed by paid content, and
monetary benefits may be hard to calculate (Littlejohn & Hood, 2018:104).
● The Advertising model offers an online route to monetization but potentially at
the cost of negative effects on learning and/or institutional brand.
● A Job matching model could use user data to address asymmetry in job market
information (c.f. GMV Conseil, 2018) although continuous monitoring raises
privacy concerns and the approach is still largely unproven in practice.
● The Subcontractor model outsources some core HEI function to MOOC
platforms.
15

16. Paula Rodriguez et al. (2018)
MOOC Business Model Types
Padilla Rodriguez et al. (2018:2) review five business models for MOOC
● Integration with mainstream education (supplementary courses; upselling;
offering credits; additional services).
● A Freemium approach with charges for additional services such as examination.
● Partnerships with enterprises (such as with a focus on human resource
development).
● Involvement of target audience communities through peer assessment,
moderation, support to reduce costs.
● Philanthropy where funding is provided by charity/foundation/NGO/government.
16

17. Commentary
1. Existing attempts to describe OER business models are diffuse and
unsystematic, with overlapping concepts and examples.
2. There is no comprehensive account of the range of possibilities.
3. Strictly speaking they are typically revenue models (since they don’t focus on
costs).
4. In practice, models are often combined or run in parallel.
17

18. Why an OER Business Model Typology?
The introduction of a consistent typology is a route to amelioration and
understanding (Doty & Glick, 1994) as well as consistent language and
terminology (Grant & Booth, 2009).
Typologies are typically formed by grouping cases into types on the basis of
common features (Stapley et al., 2022). This process is grounded in deduction but
inevitably involves some subjective judgement and interpretation of qualia.
Potential uses include: classification and categorisation; benchmarking;
evaluation; strategic planning; decision making; and research.
18

19. ENCORE+ OER Business Model Typology
19
Externally Funded Internally Funded Community Funded Service Models
Donations model Institutional model Community owned
infrastructure
Data exploitation
model
Governmental
model
Substitutions model Membership model Dual mode
university
Sponsorship /
Advertising model
Author Pays model Platformisation Freemium
Online programme
Segmentation
model

20. OER Service Models
20
Accreditation/Recognition Platformisation
Authoring & Publication Proctoring
Authentication Quality Assurance
Course creation Rapid reskilling
Curation Self-directed learning
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Teaching
Forecasting & Needs analysis Training
Learning pathways Translation
Lifelong learning TVET

21. ENCORE+ OER Innovation Case Studies
● Collection by survey between September 2022 and February 2023
● 57 responses
● 49 usable records in the data set
● Wide geographical spread includes Argentina, Canada, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, India, Kenya, Myanmar, Netherlands, Norway, Spain,
UK, USA
● User base ranged from a few dozen up to 10,000,000+ monthly users
21

22. ENCORE+ OER Innovation Evaluation Framework
The framing work on innovation that informs the design of this tool includes Rogers (2003);
Carroll, Kellogg & Rosson (1991) and Puentedura (2006).
OER related practices are being conceptualised through the SAMR framework (Puentedura,
2006) and Darwish’s (2019) model of edupreneurship. Business strategies are aligned with
the ‘defenders and prospectors’ indicators (Miles & Snow, 1978; Orr et al., 2018).
The ENCORE+ OER business model typology is synthesized from Tlili et al. (2020); Padilla
Rodriguez et al., (2018); Belleflamme & Jacqmin (2015); Ubachs & Konings (2016); and
Farrow (2019).
The stakeholder value proposition and impact matrices combine categories from Rogers
(2003) and the Cabinet Office ‘UPIG' or ‘CPIG’ stakeholder model (no citation).
22

23. Edupreneurship
Business Models
(Darwish, 2019)
23

24. 24

25. 25

26. Challenges faced (n=48)
26
● Less important for
meso/macro
Skills development
4th
● Appears in 2nd or 3rd
position across all size
cohorts
Changing
culture/practices
3rd
● Top 3 across all sizes
Building awareness
2nd
● Focus for micro &
international
Budget & Finance
1st

27. Challenges by implementation size (n=48)
27
International
(n=24)
Macro
(n=7)
Meso
(n=5)
Micro
(n=12)
Most significant
challenge
Budget & finance Building awareness Budget & finance Building awareness
2nd most
significant
challenge
Building awareness Time pressure Changing culture /
practices
Changing culture /
practices
3rd most
significant
challenge
Changing
culture/practices
Changing
culture/practices
Building awareness Budget & finance

28. Strategic Approach (n=49)

29. Enabling Factors (n=49)
29
● 97.4% Open source software
● 95.1% Leadership (*)
● 91.4% Personal characteristics
● 91% Relevance and applicability
● 87.1% Quality of evidence
● 86.8% Responding to authentic
learners’ needs
● 86.7% Virtual Learning
Environments
● 84.8% Our skills (*)
● 84.2% Existence of evidence (*)
● 84.2% Internet access
● 83.7% Open Educational
Practices
● 83.3% Social context
● 78.1% Research-practice links
● 74.2% Stakeholders’
relationships
● 71.4% Accessibility of evidence
(*) = Affected by the variable ‘size of implementation’

30. Organisational Culture (n=49, Likert)
30
Statement Score
Innovation is clearly aligned to our organisational strategies +53
My organisation is open to new and innovative approaches +47
Our staff are empowered to develop their capacity for innovation +45
Innovation activity is a part of daily activity and tasks in this
organization
+36
Our leaders recognise the innovation achievements of our staff +35
Our organisation is committed to a continuing and meaningful
evaluation of best practices
+35

31. Organisational Culture (n=49, Likert)
31
Statement Score
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used to track and analyse
innovation behaviours
-15
We have a management system for tracking innovation -14
Our decision making is bottom-up -1
Our decision making is top-down +9
Our organisation responds quickly to adopt/adapt new ideas and
approaches
+12
Our decision making is middle-out +12

32. Perceived attributes of innovation (n=36)
32
● Not perceived at the
macro level
Relative advantage
19.3%
● Equally perceived at
international, meso, and
micro levels
Compatibility
22.4%
● Equally perceived at
international, macro, and
micro levels
Simplicity
23.7%
● Almost equally perceived
at all size levels
Observability
23.7%
● Slightly perceived at all
levels
Triability
10.5%

33. Consistency of strategy (e.g. Frontiers for Young Minds)
Users Providers Influencers Governance
Value
proposition
Easy access to free
OERs
Peer review
process and
mentoring
To increase views
and downloads to
be considered
attractive partners
To increase
international
partners’ interest
Impact Increased interest,
use, and access.
CC-BY licences
enabled the re-use
of resources. Social
media enabled
dissemination
Impact is varied
due to different
ways of
engagement, but
they have received
excellent feedback
from educators
Regional
funders/sponsors
gained excellent
brand exposure
and corporate
social recognition
Plans to expand
their services and
resources
Innovation
aspect
Simplicity Relative advantage Observability Trialability

34. Qualities of OER Value Propositions
34
1
Transformative
Mostly related to
the “modification”
and “redefinition”
approaches
(SAMR)
Practical
Mostly targeted to
users and
providers (UPIG)
2
Observable,
simple &
compatible
Top 3 perceived
attributes of
innovation
3
Aspirational
A progressive
interest in making
value
propositions to all
stakeholders
4

35. Reflections
1. Business Models are tools whose usefulness is contextual – they should be seen as a
starting point rather than a blueprint.
2. Cataloguing OER Business Models is an important step in supporting OER value
propositions to different stakeholders.
3. One next step being worked on is finding concrete examples for each type – this can
facilitate understanding by reducing abstraction.
4. To define more comprehensive business models we need work to be done around
understanding costs as well as income.
35

36. ENCORE+ OER Innovation Framework
Comprising the full framework with theoretical background, CC BY tools for
collecting and analysing data, and more than 40 examples of the completed
framework.
OER: Drivers, Enablers, Barriers and Challenges
Desk research report summarising empirical evidence (n=251) around factors
influencing OER innovation; providing a model to conceptualise OER innovation
ENCORE+ OER Innovation Showcase
Highlighting flagship examples through a curated showcase
36
Forthcoming Publications

37. Thank you!
https://encoreproject.eu

38. Project
partners:
Contacts
Robert Farrow, The Open University (UK)
rob.farrow@open.ac.uk
info@encoreproject.eu
Website
For further and updated information
about this project please see:
www.encoreproject.eu