The document discusses the need for a holistic approach to researching the adoption and impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) within the evolving education ecosystem. It highlights the Open University’s OER Research Hub, which aims to address evidence gaps, foster collaboration, and facilitate networking in OER research. The anticipated outcomes include greater transparency, new collaborations, and improved understanding of OER's impact on education.

2. The Ecology of Sharing: Synthesizing OER Research
Patrick McAndrew & Robert Farrow

3. HOW SHOULD WE RESEARCH OPENNESS IN EDUCATION?

4. The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology
Is OER research more like this…

5. WHY ‘ECOLOGY’?
• The education ecosystem itself is changing
• There exists an evidence gap relating to the widespread adoption of OER:
benefits; barriers
• Manifold factors with complex relationships between diverse elements
• We need a holistic, flexible approach
• OER/ecology metaphor recognises the lifecycles of OER creation and
(re)use, evolution into new forms and adoption in new contexts
• Emphasis on evolution, interconnectedness and interdependence

6. http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2012/601
http://presentations.ocwconsortium.org/uk2012_250_pearce
_students_as_content_scavenger/

7. The OER Research Hub at The Open University combines:
• A hub for research data and OER practice
• A schedule of targeted collaboration with existing OER projects
• An international fellowship programme
• Facilitating networking, participation and advocacy in the OER world
OER Hub is located at The Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at
The Open University (OU) and the project draws on the general strengths
of the OU as a provider, user and developer of OER.
The project is based on research through collaboration and partnership
ABOUT THE PROJECT

8. METHODS AND APPROACH
• Motivating problem: an evidence gap relating to the benefits of / barriers
to widespread OER adoption
• A chance to put openness at the heart of research practice through
collaboration and sharing
• Building on research themes from OLnet: aggregated experiences into
key challenges
• Analysis of claims made in the OLnet Evidence Hub
• Structured metaresearch: literature review, case studies
• Consistently applied research instruments (surveys, interviews, focus
groups) allows for scaling and comparison
• Access to records of student retention & performance to measure
impact
• Research focused and synthesized through hypothesis-testing

9. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Performance OER improve student performance and satisfaction
Patterns Open licensing is important in educational reuse
Access OER widen participation in education
Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies
Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice
Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for
students/institutions

10. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Indicators Informal learners select OER in a variety of ways
Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support
Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study
Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies
Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER

12. Research Sectors in OER Research Hub

13. Areas for collaborations and fellowships in OER Research Hub

14. The Open University's Institute
of Educational Technology

15. ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
• Greater transparency and openness
• Fostering fellowship, collegiality and community
• The most complete ‘global’ understanding of OER impact
• Research outcomes which inform new collaborations
• A new and improved OER Evidence Hub
• Better understanding of what works and why
• Finding ways around barriers to OER
• Aggregation of data relevant to OER advocacy

16. HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Projects Can be added to the evidence hub with key findings and
analysis, then linked up to the research hypotheses
Fellowship An open call has been published on our website
Research Make use of our openly licensed instruments and share
data
Data Can be released on an open licence and added to our
evidence base
Sharing The whole is greater than the sum of the parts: we can all
benefit from openness

17. http://oerresearchhub.org

18. • Andrewartha, H. G. and Birch, L. C. (1954). The Distribution and Abundance of Animals.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
• Coughlan, T., Pitt, R. & McAndrew, P., (2013) Building Open Bridges: Collaborative
Remixing and Reuse of Open Educational Resources across Organisations. In
Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems. ACM Press.
• Daniel, J. (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and
Possibility. Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JiME). Retrieved from
http://jime.open.ac.uk/jime/article/view/2012-18.
• De Liddo, A., Buckingham Shum, S., McAndrew, P., and Farrow, R. (2012). The Open
Education Evidence Hub: A Collective Intelligence Tool for Evidence Based Policy. In
Proceedings of Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to
Enhance Education. Cambridge, UK.
• Hewlett (2010). Education Program Strategic Plan. Retrieved from
http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/documents/Education_Strategic_Plan_2010.pdf .
REFERENCES

19. • McAndrew, P., Farrow, R., Law, P. and Elliot-Cirigotis, G. (2012). Learning the Lessons of
Openness, Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JiME) Cambridge OER 2012 special
issue. Retrieved from http://jime.open.ac.uk/jime/article/view/2012-10.
• McNiff, Jean and Whitehead, Jack (2002). Action research: Principles and practice. London:
Routledge.
• NAE (2013). NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering. Retrieved from
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/.
• NSF (2011). A Report of the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for
Cyberinfrastructure Task Force on Grand Challenges. Retrieved from
http://www.nsf.gov/od/oci/taskforces/TaskForceReport_GrandChallenges.pdf.
• Odum, E. P. (1971). Fundamentals of Ecology. London: Saunders.
• OERRH (2013). OER Research Hub. Retrieved from http://oerresearchhub.org/.
• OLnet (2013). Open Learning Network. Retrieved from http://www.olnet.org.
• SCORE (2013). Support Centre for Open Resources in Education. Retrieved from
http://www.open.ac.uk/score/.
REFERENCES

20. • UNESCO/COL (2013). The UNESCO/COL OER Knowledge Cloud. Retrieved from
http://oerknowledgecloud.org/.
• Weller, Martin (2011). A pedagogy of abundance. Spanish Journal of Pedagogy, 249 pp. 223–
236.
• Whyte, William Foote, Greenwood, Davyd & Lazes, Peter (1991). Participatory action
research: Through practice to science in social research. In William Foote Whyte
(Ed.), Participatory action research (pp.19-55). Newbury Park, California: Sage.
REFERENCES

21. Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
www.open.ac.uk/iet