Pros and Cons of Use of Open Educational Resources (OER): Views of Students and Lecturers at Universities of Latvia

Author(s):

Rita Birzina(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 07 A, Teacher`s and Students Attitudes and Views towards Programmes and Didactic Materials

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

17:15-18:45

Room:

102.Oktatóterem [C]

Chair:

Rita Birzina

Contribution

Theoretical Background

Theoretical framework of present research is based on ideas about ubiquitous development of digital technologies and together with the associated opportunities for people: use of open educational resources (OER) for their education.

Today, our society lives in connected communities where more and more people of all ages use of digital technology daily. The online world is changing educational resources, its delivery process and learners opportunity to learn. The learning is focused during the process of activity, there takes place individual’s adaptation, individualization, and integration (Garleja, 2006).

Higher education also faces a digital challenge: with the number of EU students set to rise significantly in the next decade, universities need to adapt traditional teaching methods and offer a mix of face-to-face and online learning possibilities, such as open educational resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which allow individuals to access education anywhere, anytime and through any device (European Commission, 2013).

Historically the term “open educational resources” was coined by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2002 (Caswell et al., 2008) as “the open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for noncommercial purposes.” (UNESCO/IIEP, 2002).

Concerning to higher education OER is a relatively new phenomenon, a new paradigm (Lane and Van Dorp, 2011). The currently most used definition of OER is: “Open Educational Resources are digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research.” (Hylen).

In context of that research the term OER includes teaching, learning and research materials as identified D.E.Atkins et al (2007): full courses/programmes, course materials, modules, student guides, teaching notes, textbooks, research articles, videos, assessment tools and instruments, interactive materials such as simulations, role plays, databases, software, apps (including mobile apps) and any other educationally useful materials.

The benefits and problems of use OER in studies are analysed from learning/teaching activities affected factors: situational or life factors, institutional or structural factors, dispositional or attitudinal factors, and academic factors (Cross, 1981; Mackerracher et al, 2006).

Research Aim and Research Questions

Two consecutive studies were conducted in 2013-2014 at the University of Latvia to explore the universities lecturers’ and students’ viewpoint of the role of OER in the study process.

The aim of the research is to explore universities students’ and lecturers’ understandings about benefits and problems of use of OER.

The research questions are:

1. What are universities lecturers’ and students’ opinions of benefits of use of OER in the studies?

2. What are universities lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of problems of use of OER in the studies?

Method

The research sample comprised 16 universities lecturers of universities of Latvia (the University of Latvia, Turiba University and Latvian Academy of Sport Education (Nasongkhla et al, 2014) and 127 students of the University of Latvia (Birzina&Gudakovska, 2014). Lecturers represented age groups 25-36 (3), 41-50 (7), and 51-74 (6), gender – 7 females, and 9 – males, nationality – Latvians, education – master degree (1) and doctor degree (15), current position – assistant of professor (2), docent (3), leading researcher (1), associated professor (4), professor (6). Students were divided into 3 age-related demographic quarters: 50 (years 17-21), 38 (years 21-24) and 39 (years 25-50). Research Design The data have been obtained by the online asynchronous snowballing e-interview of universities lecturers and online questionnaire of students. The qualitative content analysis was carried out, based on the common framework for coding, in relation to use of OER influencing factors: situational or life factors, institutional or structural factors, dispositional or attitudinal factors, and academic factors. The Design of the Questionnaire The structured e-interview was developed in order to find out universities lecturers’ viewpoint of the benefits and problems of OER in the study process. It consisted of two parts: general and conceptual. The general part consisted of 5 items related to the description of position of the universities lecturer. The conceptual part of the questionnaire concerns to benefits and problems of use of OER in teaching/learning process. Carrying out the online questionnaire of students, were taken into account conditions, that improve response rates: introductory letter was send and estimated time needed to complete the questionnaire was identified, the researcher's identity was validated, clear instructions was provided, simple questionnaire format was used, thanking participants for completing the survey and informing them about their progress, emphasise confidentiality (Madge et al, 2006). To find out students' understanding of OER the questionnaire with open items has been used. It consisted of two parts: general and conceptual. The general part of the questionnaire consisted of 6 items related to the description of position of the students. The conceptual part of the questionnaire concerns to benefits and problems of use of OER in study process. Data Processing and Analysis Program AQUAD 7.0 was used for qualitative data processing and analysing, as well as linkages constructing. Than the qualitative data was converted into quantitative data and used to identify the hidden relationships by use of SPSS 17.0 and R program.

Expected Outcomes

The Findings of the Research The results of the evaluation universities lecturers and students viewpoints of the benefits of use of OER, as well their views of barriers of use of OER confirmed such findings as: Target group: Students Finding 1. There is considerable uncertainty in comprehension of OER – the majority of students in all age groups do not use OER . The main reasons for non-use of OER are related to students’ perceptions of their ability to seek out information about OER, and their computer skills and foreign language literacy. The relationships among information searching skills and computer literacy skills or foreign language skills are confirmed by preconstructed linkage. Finding 2. Students' responses indicate that there is a direct correlation between perceptions of the benefits given them by the use of OER and their personal development. Target group: Lecturers Finding 1. There are important enablers and barriers on OER development in Latvia, and its need suggestions on governmental, institutional and personal level, how they can be overcome. Finding 2. The implementation of OER is a good opportunity and gives impact on learning media in Latvia at national and international level; it could be a challenge for an educational institution to change deliver education of higher quality and efficacy and gain competitiveness and growth for educators. Conclusions The students’ views of benefits and problems of use of OER are mainly related to attitudinal and academic factors, less to situational or life factors. The lecturers’ perceptions of benefits and problems of use of OER are mainly related to institutional factors.

References

Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., Hammond, A. L. (2007) A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Creative Commons: San Francisco, California Available (28.01.2015) from http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf Birzina, R. & Gudakovska, I. (2014) Students as Adult Learners' comprehension of Open Educational Resources and It's use in Self-directed Laearning. In 2013 e-Asem Conference Proceedings Open Educational Resources in Lifelong Learning. Asia-Europe Meeting, Korea National Open University Press, p. 133-150 Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jenson, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling Universal Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9/1 Cross, K.P. (1981) Adults as learners: Increasing participation and facilitating learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. European Commission. (2013)Commission launches 'Opening up Education' to boost innovation and digital skills in schools and universities. Brussels, 25 September 2013. Available (27.01.2015) from http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-859_en.htm Garleja R. (2006) Cilvēkpotenciāls sociālā vidē. Rīga: Izdevniecība RaKa. Hylén, J. Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges. Available (12.01.2015) from www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/37351085.pdf Lane, A. and Van Dorp, K. J. (2011) Open educational resources and widening participation in higher education: innovations and lessons from open universities. In : EDULEARN11, the 3rd annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (04-05 July 2011, Barcelona) Mackeracher, D., Suart t., and Potter, J. (2006). Barriers to Participation in Adult Learning. State of the field report: University of New Brunswick. Ottawa, Ont. : Canadian Council on Learning, 2006. Available (2.01.2015) from www.ccl-cca.ca/pdfs/AdLKC/.../BarrierstoParticipation.pdf Madge, C., O'Connor, H., Wellens, J., Hooley, T. and Shaw, R. (2006) Advantages and disadvantages of online interviewing. Exploring online research methods, incorporating TRI–ORM; an online research methods training programme for the social science community. Available [28.01.2015] from http://www.restore.ac.uk/orm/interviews/intads.htm]. Nasongkhla, J., Chen, S-H., Birzina, R., Pushpanadham, K., Khirwadkar, A., Kováčová, J., Szüdi, G., Pistovčáková, A., Wang, L. (2014) Open Educational Resources Pedagogical Perspectives of Asian and European Scholars. In book OER in Lifelong Learning. Chapter 5: Pedagogical Approach to Lifelong Learning through OER. ed. Bowon Kim. [Seoul] : KNOU Press. ISBN 9788920013843. P.141-166. URL: http://asemlllhub.org/fileadmin/www.asem.au.dk/publications/e-ASEM_OER_2014.pdf ISBN 9788920013850. UNESCO/IIEP: (2002) Available [02.01.2015] from http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/forums.php

Author Information

Rita Birzina (presenting / submitting)

University of Latvia

Institute og Pedagogical Sciences

Riga

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