A Study on the Adoption and Integration of OER Materials in Self-Instructional Course Development

Abstract

Creation of large number of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and adoption and integration of such resources for classroom teaching and creation of new learning materials are expected to impact on creation of quality learning materials with relatively low cost. There is wide agreement that OER materials can be harnessed to produce educational materials within a given instructional context. However in spite of a few studies on reusability of open educational content in different contexts, there is insufficient information and understanding about the processes involved in OER integration and contextualisation. This paper reports part of the findings of a research project (ROER4D) that investigates into the operational processes involved in the development of self-learning materials by integrating available OER resources in developing a course at post-graduate level for a 5- credit (200 hours study) course on ‘Research Methodology in Education’ at post-graduate level. The operational processes related to the web search and use of OER reported in the project are findability of relevant OER materials, levels of reusability by course writers and cost-time efficiency achieved by the use of OER. These qualitative data on these variables were captured in the form of log records, written reflections, individual and focus group discussions, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, etc. // Paper ID 353