This report, funded by a grant from The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation with additional support from Pearson, examines the
attitudes, opinions, and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) among
teaching faculty in U.S. higher education. Some of the key findings:
- Faculty are not very aware of open educational resources. Depending
on the strictness of the awareness measure, between two-thirds and
three-quarters of all faculty classify themselves as unaware on OER.
- Faculty appreciate the concepts of OER. When presented with the
concept of OER, most faculty say that they are willing to give it a try.
- Awareness of OER is not a requirement for adoption of OER. More
faculty are using OER than report that they were aware of the term OER.
Resource adoption decisions are often made without any awareness of the
specific licensing of the material, or its OER status.
- Faculty judge the quality of OER to be roughly equivalent to that of
traditional educational resources. Among faculty who do offer an
opinion, three-quarters rank OER quality as the same as or better than
traditional resources.
- The most significant barrier to wider adoption of OER remains a
faculty perception of the time and effort required to find and evaluate
it. The top three cited barriers among faculty members for OER adoption
all concern the discovery and evalua- tion of OER materials.
- Faculty are the key decision makers for OER adop- tion. Faculty are
almost always involved in an adoption decision and — except for rare
instances — have the primary role. The only exceptions are in a minority
of two-year and for-profit institutions, where the administration takes
the lead.
Source: Babson Survey Research Group
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