OER in Asia: Trends and Issues

Adapted from: Abeywardena, I. S., & Dhanarajan, G. (2012). OER in Asia Pacific: Trends and Issues. Presented at the Policy Forum for Asia and the Pacific: Open Education Resources organised by UNESCO Bangkok and Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Thailand (available for download at http://oercongress.weebly.com/uploads/4/1/3/4/4134458/oer_asia_trends_and_issues_2.pdf).

The OERAsia study (http://www.oerasia.org/oerasiasurvey) was conducted to explore the use of Open Educational Resources (OER’s) in the Asian region especially with the view to encouraging the development of an OER community that would share learning resources across institutions and nations. Several regions representative of South, South East and East Asia, which show sparks of enthusiasm in OER, were selected as subjects for study. However, as the study was conducted both online and offline, the respondents weren't necessarily limited to these few regions. The scope of the survey was clearly defined to include the broad topics covering learning content, tools and implementation resources. The topics were then sub divided into smaller areas resulting in a comprehensive survey instrument consisting of seventy plus independent items aimed specifically at individuals and institutions.  There were several objectives which the study aimed to achieve by the end of its 27 month lifespan. All of these objectives fall under the broader categories of awareness, use, re-use, policy and legal environment in the regions.

Out of 576 responses received from academics who have been exposed to OER, 420 responses from individual OER users and 98 responses from institutional representatives were identified as valid (Figure 1). The analysis of the data mainly concentrated on the key regions, namely Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Philippines, Japan, China, Hong Kong China and South Korea, which were identified at the outset. However it also took note of the responses from other countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka as well. The respondent profile showed a good mix of senior, mid-career and junior academics from public, private not-for-profit as well as private for-profit institutions. The responses also captured both undergraduate as well as post graduate academics in a ratio representative of typical Higher Education institutions.

  

Figure 1 Participant Profile

Before probing the practice with respect to OER, the survey tried to identify the extent of the practice with respect to digital resources which forms the superset of OER. A clear definition of Digital Resources was provided to the respondents to ensure that a broad canvas is covered pertaining to a set frame. Looking at the use of digital resources, it was found that text based resources were the more widely used types in the region. It was also encouraging to see that digital film and video were used by half of the respondents. This trend will possibly pickup more in the future due to video sharing portals such as YouTube and Vimeo offering large volumes of quality video material. News and other media sources have also become important suggesting that students are exposed to the latest trends in the world. Among the digital resources which weren’t that widely used, simulations and animations are worth noting as there are large volumes of rich resources of this type available especially for science education. One possible reason for this low use could be the lack of technical skills required to use and re-use them. Audio materials were also not widely preferred. This could be due to the substitution of audio material with audio/video material. Another interesting trend identified was that OER repositories and course packs were not very widely used in Asia even though generous amounts of funding have been spent on the creation of these resources. When looking at how users locate digital resources, generic search engines such as Google and Yahoo! take precedence. Although these search engines are quite apt at locating digital resources, it is somewhat doubtful whether the average user would have the capacity to conduct advanced searches to locate openly licensed content. 

The study further suggests that one of the more important areas to focus on with respect to policy would be to provide more support for the use of digital resources. Among the areas which show a lack of support; locating resources, accessing the quality of the resources and copyright concerns play a major role. However, it seems that the practice of using or creating digital resources is not seen as a career move but a social responsibility of an educator to share knowledge. This in turn creates a sense of community among the academics and students. As far as barriers are concerned, three key points stand out in the responses indicating that a lack of access to software tools and a lack of technological infrastructure at the students’ end still inhibit the wider use of digital resources. These barriers should be of special interest to policy makers at a national level as public infrastructure would need to be upgraded to facilitate the wider use of digital resources.  

OER were defined as “educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute” in the survey. The data suggests that the use of OER is widespread in Asia contrary to the general understanding among advocates. This then begs the questions whether advocates are preaching to the converted or whether there is still a sense of confusion with respect to what OER really are. The research team believes that there is some truth to the first question as many of the respondents were exposed to the Open University community which is somewhat knowledgeable about OER. They also believe that there is a considerable amount of confusion among academics with respect to the difference between digital resources and OER. However, comparing the publication with use, it seems that a majority haven’t published OER in their careers. Nevertheless it is promising to see that about 60% of the respondents are willing to publish their work as OER in the future.

Resources feely downloaded from the internet seem to be the favoured choice for academic use (Figure 2). OER produced by self are also widely used in teaching. It is also worth noting that the use of OER repositories such as Connexions is only popular in countries such as Vietnam where there is a strong national OER presence. 74% of the respondents indicated that they have produced OER in one form or the other at some point in their career. This again could be a result of the Open University influence on the respondents and the confusion regarding the concept of OER.

Figure 2 Sources of OER

Relating to the models discussed in literature for sustaining OER efforts, it is apparent that institutions need to collaborate with each other to harness the full potential of OER through partnerships and exchanges. However, the data suggests that institutions are not collaborating in the production or exchange of OER. This again is a wakeup call to the policymakers at institutional level to include collaboration as a significant component in their OER policies. 

Lack of awareness, skills and time still impedes the OER movement among academics suggesting a need for more capacity building. It is however encouraging to see that technological infrastructure is no longer a barrier at least at the institutional level. This is especially true in the case of open universities as many of them have established robust technological infrastructure. The data suggests that there are still concerns with respect to copyright and the legal use of OER. Awareness of repositories is also mentioned as a major concern. This is affirmed by the lack of use of repositories to locate OER. These concerns again hold true with respect to the publication of OER. However, it is apparent that a large majority of the individuals and institutions are aware of current copyright laws. As such it can be concluded that the concerns regarding copyright and legalities in the use and publication of OER are not due to a lack of awareness but a possible confusion in the understanding of what is permitted and what is not in the realm of OER. This point is further confirmed as a majority of the individuals and institutions are yet to use a licensing scheme such as the Creative Commons to express and exercise the 4R’s of OER. Therefore, the data suggests that policy makers should pay special attention to furthering awareness regarding copyright and the adoption of widely used licenses such as Creative Commons when setting policies at institutional and national level. The respondents agree that the use of open educational resources will have great impact with respect to the reduction of costs for both students and institutions promoting a win-win situation. It is also encouraging to see that OER are seen as a movement which can potentially improve the standards of living for many developing countries in Asia. 

In conclusion, the study suggests four points for action: (i) further support and capacity building in the use of digital resources and OER; (ii) fostering a culture of collaboration among institutions; (iii) raising awareness and capacity building in open content licensing; and (iv) the establishment of institutional policies to facilitate the wider use of OER. These four points need to be taken into consideration when contemplating the future of the whole OER movement in Asia.

The trends identified from the overall data were compared and verified against the trends in the individual regions during the third OERAsia workshop held in Hong Kong (April 2012). Further statistical analysis of the data will be conducted in the future. For more details on the survey instrument, methodology, list of collaborating researchers and institutions; results and data visit (http://www.oerasia.org/oerasiasurvey). This research project is funded through the Grant (# 102791) generously made by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada through an umbrella study on Openness and Quality in Asian Distance Education and is anchored at Wawasan Open University, Penang, Malaysia.

OER in Asia: Trends and Issues is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.