Open Educational Resources (OER) are fast becoming a global phenomenon
which could potentially provide free access to knowledge for the masses.
Since the inception of this concept, governmental and non-governmental
grants alongside generous philanthropy have given rise to a vast array
of OER repositories all over the world. With this movement gaining
momentum, more and more of the learned community have started
contributing resources to these OER repositories making them grow
exponentially rich in knowledge. However, despite the availability of a
large number of OER repositories, the use and re-use of OER are yet to
become mainstream in many regions and institutions. One reason for this
slow uptake is the inability to effectively search and locate desirable
OER using the available search methodologies as it would be next to
impossible to trawl through all the disconnected and disparate
repositories manually. The findings discussed in this paper are part of a
broader study into the OER landscape in the Asian region concentrating
mainly on China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam where close to five hundred and eighty
academics from public, private not-for-profit and private for-profit
institutions participated. This research paper discusses how Asia fares
with respect to searching and locating desirable OER and whether it is
truly a barrier to the wider adoption of OER for teaching in the region.
