Adult education system was heavily challenged by the Covid pandemic we are facing. The online teaching and learning we were exposed to shows the limited capacities for using digital education, both in terms of competencies of the teachers and learners to handle technologies for educational purposes, and in terms of access to the needed infrastructure.

Trying to address the conference topic on adaptability to expectations of the changing societies, we propose the focus on open educational resources and practices (OER/OEP). The movement toward open education, encompassing the dissemination and use of OER and engagement with these resources and OEP more generally, is gaining momentum. In the last year it was dramatically accelerated the use of OER, due to the remote educational process. While the concepts that underpin OER, its sharing, (co)creation and (re)use, are not new to education, the evolving technology infrastructure supporting education initiatives are fast changing the education landscape (Masterman & Wild, 2012). The documents shaping European Education Area by 2025, 2030 emphasize digital education and skills as landmark for the nowadays and future society (EC, 2020).

From its first conceptualization by UNESCO (2002), the OER have enjoyed a continuous expansion and attention, both of policy makers, educational managers, and practitioners, as well as of the researchers trying to identify, analyze, explain, reflect how it can be ensured extended and improved practices.

"Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes"  (European Commission, 2012) indicates the need to make extensive use of OER in the educational process. The 2013 Open Education Communication states that validation should address the challenges of the emergence of OER, to better reflect the learning landscape.

Further OER initiatives were coagulated at European level through the Open Education Europe portal, launched in 2013, to provide access to all existing OERs in different languages, for students, teachers and researchers. Another significant response to the OER movement has been created with the European Platform for Adult Learning and Education (EPALE), an open multilingual community for everyone with professional role in adult learning across Europe. In addition, pan-European research studies (Redecker, Castaño Muñoz, Punie, 2013; (McGill et all, 2013; Ecorys & Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2015) have highlighted the features, potential and conditions for success, supportive and hindering factors in the adoption of OER and OEP, state of development, OER approaches to adult learning, impact, etc., drawing recommendations for improved and extended use. Online training of trainers using OER has emerged as a new approach to address such trend (Alemdag, Cevikbas, Baran, 2019).

In spite of stipulations and support know-how infrastructure created, the last year showed a rather limited pedagogic competence of adult learning professionals (ALPs) to integrate OER in didactic contexts.

Researchers have illuminated how educators build knowledge and expand their practice while using OER, developing and validating a scale for measuring their level of engagement with OER (Hood, Littlejohn, 2017; Littlejohn, Hood, 2017). Also, a systematic literature review on OEP (Koseoglu, Bozkurt, 2018) has revealed that ” the way one goes about OEP is heavily informed by pedagogical skills and values,…, as well as by the way openness is understood and exercised on, a process-oriented approach should always take contextual factors that shape learning and teaching. … There is a need to think deeply and critically (n.n. investigate further) about …. the learning ecology – the complex interaction between educational resources, methods of teaching, the institutional culture, available support mechanisms, and so on”.

Thus, through a systematic literature review, we aim to reveal the ”OER utilization in a range of contexts”, exploring what are the ”learning processes surrounding educators’ engagement with OER” (Hood, Littlejohn, 2017) in adult education? 

Starting from this question, 3 directions of research are followed while systematically reviewing the literature: open education and open practice that support the integration of OER in the teaching and learning processes of adult education; level of understanding of the OER phenomenon and OEP; the challenges ALPs face while using OER in the development of a curriculum and implementation in the classroom educational process. The systematic literature review (SLR) is based on the guidelines proposed by Gough, et all. (2012), and Zawacki-Richter, et all. (2020). It aims to reveal research trends into the topic, developments and open issues, still to be addressed. The review process is also guided by the Grounded Theory Literature Review Method of Wolfswinkel et al. (2013). The fours aspects of the SLR will be shortly described: (1) the search process, (2) the inclusion and exclusion criteria, (3) the data collection, and (4) the data analysis, somehow comparable with the steps of the grounded theory: define, search, select, analyse and present. To define and revise the research question, and the focus of the SLR, we have started with the general scroll on the topic, and analysis of the most relevant articles, of their findings and open research questions indicating further needed investigation. Then, we proceed to: 1. Search process has as possible algorithm: (open educational resources OR open educational practices OR open education resource OR open education practice OR OER OR OEP) AND (adult education OR adult educator OR adult education professionals OR trainer) AND (pedagogic use OR challenge of OER in teaching and learning). The journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations/ thesis or conference proceedings are considered while searching them in ERIC, WoS, EBSCOHost, JSTOR, SpringerLink, Taylor and Francis, Proquest, Emerald, Science Direct, Sage databases. 2. The exclusion criteria cover publications addressing other levels of schooling/ higher education, or not fitting to our research purpose. 3. Data collections. The possible data to extracted from each study are: the source; scope, main topic area, the author(s) and their institution/country, summary of the study including main research questions and the answers, quality evaluation. For data analysis, reading is performed in different phases. First, during online search, before downloading each article, we scan through title, keywords and abstract carefully. Then, the study reading (close and repeated reading) is done for sample articles. For books, the index reading (located specific items and reading only the sections) was used.

Our study aims to inform both theoretic discussion and practical implications for improved, extended and qualitative use of OER in adult education. Thus, we map the research findings on the OER situation in adult education, with a focus on open education and practice, the knowledge of the phenomenon by ALPs, their practices, competences, awareness and the barriers encountered, to help decision makers in adopting a strategy and public policy proposal to support the implementation of an infrastructure, and viable use of OER by ALPs, having as a starting point the data coagulated while systematically reviewing the scientific literature. To answer the research question, through the SLR, we approach three directions of OER perspectives, as described in the first 2 parts. Thus, studies suggest that the adoption of OEP results from experimentation in practice by educators and learners (Lane & McAndrew, 2010), as well as changes in beliefs and knowledge typologies for professional learning. According to the reviewed literature, the conceptual knowledge of the OER phenomenon is essential, as well as the development of the pedagogical competencies necessary to use the OER in the educational process are basic foundations. The adoption of OEP results from experimentation in practice by educators and learners (Koseoglu, Bozkurt, 2018), as well as changes in beliefs and knowledge typologies for professional learning, curriculum and acts of teaching, which are underpinned by change in institutional culture (Beetham et al. 2012). The theoretical understanding of the whole concept becomes a barrier, along with what is surprising in most reviewed studies, the fact that there is no general policy and infrastructure to easily implement OER in the field of adult education. In this regard, the institutional and teacher-oriented pedagogical approach provided by most OER initiatives does not fit well with the needs of adult learners.

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