ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research would not be possible without the assistance
of a number of organizations. First, we wish to thank The William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation for their considerable help in framing the project, as well
as their support of the data collection, analysis, and report creation. Their
background and knowledge of open educational resources and contacts within the
OER community was invaluable in defining the focus of the study. We also wish
to thank the Global Healthy Living Foundation for their support in the
administration of the Hewlett Foundation grant.
It may be a surprise to some that a commercial publisher
would support a study that includes a strong focus on open (non-commercial) resources.
Pearson has provided such support and done so without any conditions or special
access to the results; they see what you see. Their resources allowed the
construction of an expansive, nationally representative faculty sample.
Finally, the report presents results derived from a
nationally representative sample of higher education faculty. We want to
thank the thousands of faculty members who took the time to provide us with
their detailed and thoughtful responses. We understand that you are very busy
people, and appreciate your effort very much. This report would not be
possible without you, and we hope that you find it useful.
Co-Directors
Babson Survey Research Group
July 2016
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Most higher education faculty are unaware of open
educational resources (OER) – but they are interested and some are willing
to give it a try. Survey results, using responses of over 3,000 U.S.
faculty, show that OER is not a driving force in the selection of materials
– with the most significant barrier being the effort required to find and
evaluate such materials. Use of open resources is low overall, but
somewhat higher for large enrollment introductory-level courses.
Selecting Teaching Resources
á
Almost all (90%) of teaching faculty selected new or revised
educational materials for at least one course over the previous two years.
á
The most common activity was changing required materials for an
existing course (74%), followed by substantially modifying a course (65%).
Creating a new course was the least common activity (48%).
á The most common factor cited by faculty when
selecting educational resources was
the cost to the students. After cost, the next most common was the
comprehensiveness of the resource, followed by how easy it was to find.
á
There is a serious disconnect between how many faculty include a
factor in selecting educational resources and how satisfied they are with the
state of that factor. For example, faculty are least satisfied with the
cost of textbooks, yet that is the most commonly listed factor for resource
selections.
Required textbooks
á
Virtually all courses (98%)
require a textbook or other non-textbook material as part of their suite of
required resources.
á
Required textbooks are more likely to be in printed form (69%)
than digital. Faculty require digital textbooks in conjunction with a printed
textbook more often than using only digital textbooks.
á
Only 5.3% of courses are using an openly licensed (Creative
Commons or public domain) required textbook.
á
For large enrollment introductory undergraduate courses openly
licensed OpenStax College textbooks are adopted at twice the rate (10%) as open
licensed textbooks among all courses.
Licensing
á
There has been very little change in the past year in the
proportion of faculty who report that they are aware of copyright status of classroom
content.
á
Awareness of public domain licensing and Creative Commons
licensing has remained steady.
á
Faculty continue to have a much greater level of awareness
of the type of licensing often used for OER (Creative Commons) than they do of
OER itself, and it is clear that they do not always associate this licensing
with OER.
Open Educational Resources
á
Faculty awareness of OER has increased in the last year,
but remains low. Only 6.6% of faculty reported that they were ÒVery
awareÓ of open educational resources, with around three times that many (19%)
saying that they were ÒAwareÓ.
á
The level of faculty awareness of open textbooks (a
specific type of OER) was somewhat lower than that for open educational
resources; only 34% of faculty claimed some level of awareness.
Barriers to OER Adoption
á
The barriers to adopting OER most often cited by faculty
are that Òthere are not enough resources for my subjectÓ (49%), it is Òtoo hard
to find what I needÓ (48%) and Òthere is no comprehensive catalog of resourcesÓ
(45%).
á
There has been a decrease in faculty concerns about
permission to use or change OER materials, and increases in concerns about the
quality of OER and that it is timely and up-to-date.
á
Most faculty do not have experience searching for OER materials
and cannot compare the ease of finding OER with traditional materials.
Only 2.5% thought that it was easier to search for OER.
Future
á The number of faculty claiming that they would use
OER in the future (6.9%) is of the same order of magnitude of those already
using open resources (5.3%). A larger group (31.3%) reports that they
will consider future OER use.
Educational Resources
The objective of this study is to better understand the
process by which faculty members select the educational materials that they
employ in their courses. The educational resource that people are most
familiar with is the required textbook: faculty members select one or more
books that all students are required to use through the duration of the
course. Faculty also employ a wide range of other materials, some of
which are supplemental or optional, and others that are required for all
students. This study deals with only core (required) materials, using the
following definition:
Items listed in the course syllabus as required for
all students, either acquired on their own or provided to all students through
a materials fee; examples include printed or digital textbooks, other
course-complete printed (course pack) or digital materials, or materials such
as laboratory supplies
In addition to
examining the overall resource selection process, this study also explores two
particular classes of educational materials: those classified as open
educational resources (OER) and a sub-set of OER known as open textbooks.
The Hewlett Foundation defines open educational resources (OER) as:
OER are teaching, learning, and research resources
that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual
property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open
educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules,
textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials,
or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
The study also
examines the extent to which faculty are aware of and/or adopting open
textbooks. These textbooks are alternatives to the traditional commercial
textbook, defined by the OER Commons as:
An emerging development in OER is open textbooks,
which are textbooks that are freely available with nonrestrictive licenses.
Covering a wide range of disciplines, open textbooks are available to download
and print in various file formats from several web sites and OER repositories.
Open textbooks can range from public domain books to existing textbooks to
textbooks created specifically for OER. Open textbooks help solve the problems
of the high cost of textbooks, book shortages, and access to textbooks as well
as providing the capacity to better meet local teaching and learning needs.
An important aspect of the examination of the use of
educational resources is the licensing status of such materials – who
owns the rights to use and distribute, and does the faculty member have the
right to modify, reuse, or redistribute the content? The licensing mechanism
that faculty are most familiar with is that of copyright. As noted by the U.S.
Copyright office, copyright is:
A form of protection provided by the laws of the
United States for "original works of authorship", including literary,
dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic,
pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations.
"Copyright" literally means the right to copy but has come to mean
that body of exclusive rights granted by law to copyright owners for protection
of their work. É Copyright covers both published and unpublished works.
Of particular interest
for this study is the copyright status of the primarily textual material
(including textbooks) that faculty select as required materials for their
courses.
Copyright owners have the right to control the
reproduction of their work, including the right to receive payment for that
reproduction. An author may grant or sell those rights to others, including
publishers or recording companies.
Not all material is copyrighted. It may be
ineligible for copyright, the copyright may have expired, or the authors may
have dedicated it to the public domain.
Public domain is a designation for content that is
not protected by any copyright law or other restriction and may be freely
copied, shared, altered and republished by anyone. The designation means,
essentially, that the content belongs to the community at large.
An intermediate stage
between the traditional copyright (with Òall rights reservedÓ) and public
domain, where no rights are reserved, is provided by a Creative Commons
license. A Creative Commons license is not an alternative to copyright,
but rather a modification of the traditional copyright license that grants
additional rights.
A Creative Commons (CC) license
is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution
of an otherwise copyrighted work. A CC license is used when an author wants to
give people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that they have
created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, they might choose to
allow only non-commercial uses of their own work) and protects the people who
use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as
long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which
the author distributes the work.
For purposes of this report the term Òopen-licensedÓ will
be used for material that has either a Creative Commons license or is in the
public domain (which, strictly speaking is not an ÒopenÓ license, but rather
the absence of a license).
STUDY RESULTS:
Selecting Educational Resources
ÒTo my students cost is the most important thing.
To me, content is the most important.Ó (Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
"The cost of textbooks is a joke. How do we
stop this?" (Part-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
ÒThe most important reason I have for picking a resource:
How good are the activities and homework? To elaborate: How much
opportunity is there for students to think?Ó (Full-time Interdisciplinary
Studies Faculty)
"Having digital materials that integrate with the
LMS with a single sign-on is imperative." (Full-time Social Sciences
Faculty)
"I need the material to be customizable since I
can't cover every topic during the course of a semester. I also like a variety
of supplemental materials." (Full-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"Better access to robust, engaging, current and
attractively priced learning materials for undergraduate business students is a
critical component in reinforcing the value of the university experience."
(Part-time Business Faculty)
What is the process by
which faculty members select materials to be used in their courses? What
factors lead them to pick one resource over another? All teaching faculty
survey respondents were asked which of a series of factors were important to them
for their decision making in determining what resources would be required for
their courses.
The characteristic mentioned
by the greatest number of faculty for judging educational materials was the
cost to the students; nearly one-half (50%) of faculty said cost was ÒVery
important,Ó and an additional 37% reported that cost was ÒImportant.Ó After
cost, the next most common factor was the comprehensiveness of the resource (48%
reporting it as ÒVery importantÓ and 29% as ÒImportantÓ). This was
followed by how easy it was to find the resource (32% reported that it was ÒVery
importantÓ and 38% as ÒImportantÓ). No other factors were selected at
rates close to these top three – faculty recommendations, how
adaptable/editable the resource was, and the inclusion of supplemental material
were all mentioned as ÒVery importantÓ or ÒImportantÓ by a total of at
least 40% of the respondents. The final group of factors, reported as
ÒVery importantÓ or ÒImportantÓ by nearly 30% of the respondents, were the
ability to work with the institutionÕs Learning Management System (LMS), familiarity
with brand/publisher, and the inclusion of test banks.
|
 |
There is a serious disconnect between how many faculty think a factor is
important in selecting educational resources and how satisfied they are with the
state of that factor. Of the three most commonly mentioned factors, only one is
also ranked among the top three for level of satisfaction. That factor, resources
being easy to find, is facultyÕs third most mentioned factor and second for
satisfaction. Cost to the student, selected most often as a factor, has
the lowest level of satisfaction. The comprehensiveness of the content and
activities, the second most commonly mentioned factor, is fifth in terms of
satisfaction. Conversely, the one factor for which faculty are most satisfied,
familiarity with the brand/publisher, is not mentioned by as a decision
criteria by many faculty.
Cost to the Student
ÒI would like to find material at low cost, but high
quality is more important.Ó (Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
ÒAt a time when we are concerned about the cost of
a university education and student debt, a $246 text is obscene.Ó (Full-time
Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
ÒI am extremely conscientious of student cost and have
attempted to use alternative texts but have found them to be marginal in
quality.Ó (Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
ÒThe cost of texts is out of control. If I could
find more open resources, I would use them gladly.Ó (Full-time Communications
Faculty)
"The text is far too expensive--I am the author of
the textbook, and the publisher is charging more than twice the price that we
had set." (Full-time English Language and Literature Faculty)
A high proportion of faculty at all types of
institutions mention
cost to the student as an important factor in
selecting educational resources. There is a greater proportion at two-year
institutions and somewhat fewer at Doctoral / Research institutions, but the
variability is small and it remains the most commonly cited factor for all
groups.
Is this answer a Òfeel
goodÓ response, or do faculty really base their decisions on the cost of the
resources that they select? We know that the pattern of responses match
those seen in other studies, with one finding 86% of faculty ranking the cost
of material for students as a top issue in selecting course materials – nearly identical to these results.
However, faculty actions may belie their stated level of concern; if cost were
primary in their decision process we would expect to see far more low cost and no
cost textbook options, both open and commercial, to have been.
It is critical to
understand that while faculty are more likely to include cost than other
factors in selecting educational materials; this does not mean that they consider
cost the most important factor. The difference is subtle, but
important. A typical faculty member reports five, six, or more factors as
important to their selection process – cost is only one of them. The
relative important of these factors varies by faculty member and by course for
a particular faculty member. More faculty include cost in the list of
factors that they consider, but for many it may be the least important.
In our previous study, when faculty were forced to select
their top three factors from a list as opposed to rating each factor, only 2.7%
included cost among their top three. This rate is far
below that for other factors, such as working with the LMS, ease of finding
OERs, and comprehensive content. A low rate on a forced priority selection
indicates that faculty do not consider cost as a primary factor, but rather one
to be considered only after their other criteria have been met.
Based on a reading of the open-ended comments in this
study, it appears that faculty consider cost ceteris paribus – all
other things being equal. Comments from faculty reinforce the idea that
cost to the student is important, but only after content, relevance, quality, and
presentation have been considered. Cost alone is not sufficient to drive
the resource selection. A further issue is that faculty may not be aware
of the cost of the materials that they select: a study by the New York Public
Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) found that 28% of faculty reported that they
did not typically know the prices of the books that they assigned.
Regardless of how faculty factor cost into their
decision-making process, it is clear that they are not satisfied with the
current state of affairs related to course material cost. Faculty satisfaction
with cost is lower than that for any other factor.
The impact of cost in the selection of educational
materials, especially required textbooks, is clearly ripe for further study.
Awareness of Open Educational Resources
ÒI am curious and intrigued by these educational
resources; but simply do not know enough about them to effectively evaluate
them.Ó (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"Only heard of OER in last 1-2 years, generally
unaware of what available" (Part-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"I don't know anything about Open Resources. My main
concern would be that they're vetted properly, and that there was a sufficient
presence in my discipline for them to be useful. But I'm definitely open
to them." (Full-time English Language and Literature Faculty)
"I use all OERs in ALL of my courses and do not see
significant barriers to any faculty member using them." (Full-time Social
Sciences Faculty)
ÒI would like to know more about OER that will help
enhance learning for my students as well as giving me some variety of teaching
material.Ó (Part-time Humanities Faculty)
As noted in our
previous report, the
exact wording of the question is critical in measuring facultyÕs level of OER
awareness. Many academics have only a vague understanding of the details
of what constitutes open educational resources. Many confuse ÒopenÓ with
Òfree,Ó and assume all free resources are OER. Still others will confuse
Òopen resourcesÓ with Òopen source,Ó and assume OER refers only to open source
software. Because of these differing levels of understanding, the phrasing
of the awareness question needs to be specific. The question should provide
enough of the dimensions of OER to avoid confusion, without being so detailed
that the question itself educates the respondent sufficiently that they could
claim to be Òaware.Ó
Multiple question
wordings were tested for the prior reports in this series. A question
with broad definitions but no examples was found to be more precise than a
question just using the term Òopen educational resources.Ó Adding a
series of detailed examples of OER was even more precise, but proved too
leading for the respondents and artificially boosted the proportion that could
legitimately claim to be Òaware.Ó The version used here was found to have the
best balance in differentiating among the different levels of awareness, while
avoiding leading those with no previous knowledge of the concept.
This question wording has been used for the past two years so that year-to-year
comparisons can be made.
When
faculty members were asked to self-report their level of awareness of open
educational resources, a majority (58%) said that they were generally unaware
of OER (ÒI am not aware of OERÓ or ÒI have heard of OER, but don't know much
about themÓ). Only 6.6% reported that they were very aware (ÒI am very
aware of OER and know how they can be used in the classroomÓ), and
around three times that many (19%) said that they were aware (ÒI am aware of
OER and some of their use casesÓ). An additional 17% of faculty reported
that they were only somewhat aware (ÒI am somewhat aware of OER but I am not
sure how they can be usedÓ).
The 2015-16 results represent increased
awareness of OER as compared to the same question in the 2014-15 survey.
Those claiming to be very aware increased from 5.1% to 6.6%, those ÒawareÓ from
15% to 19%, and those Òsomewhat awareÓ from 14% to 16%. The proportion
that reported no awareness dropped from nearly two-thirds (66%) in 2014-15 to
58% this year.
Awareness of Licensing of Open Educational Resources
"I am against freely giving faculty intellectual
property. It is tantamount to working for nothing. The Universities
donÕt want to pay us and the book companies don't want to pay us."
(Full-time Engineering Faculty)
ÒI am always surprised that not a lot of my students are
aware of free public domain resources available to them for self-study. I am constantly
having them look for information online and try to read more and find resources
in the public domain in addition to the prescribed text book and digital
resources. (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"I have attended several seminars on OER and Open
Textbooks and therefore know a considerable amount about what is available, how
it can be used, limitations and reliability. However, in general, I think
faculty are not as informed about Creative Commons classifications and the
limitations on copyrighted materials." (Full-time Natural and Physical
Sciences Faculty)
"How do the authors of the open/free materials get
paid for their work?" (Full-time Social Sciences Faculty)
Because the availability of open licensing and the ability to reuse and
remix content is central to the concept of open educational resources, it is
critical to understand faculty awareness of these concepts.
Most faculty continue to report a high degree of awareness of copyright status
of their classroom content (80% ÒVery awareÓ or ÒAwareÓ), representing a very small
increase over the 78% rate reported last year. Awareness of public domain
licensing remained virtually unchanged (67% this year compared to 68% last year).
Likewise, the reported level of awareness of Creative Common licensing has
shown very little change, with the number reporting that they were ÒVery awareÓ
or ÒAwareÓ growing from 36% last year to 38%.
|
|
 |
While the level of awareness of Creative
Commons might lag behind that of copyright and public domain, it is significantly
higher than the level of awareness of open educational resources. Faculty
continue to have a much greater level of awareness of the type of licensing
often used for OER than they do of OER itself. It is clear that they do
not always associate this licensing with OER
.
As
described earlier, faculty members may have only a ÒfuzzyÓ understanding and
awareness of open educational resources. By asking additional questions
about the related details, we can begin to understand how precise that
understanding and awareness might be. Since licensing and the ability to
reuse and remix content is critical to the concept of OER, examining the
difference between faculty who report that they are aware of OER and faculty
who report that they are aware of both OER and Creative Commons
licensing provides us a good indication of the depth of understanding of OER
among faculty members. If faculty who report that they are unaware of
Creative Commons licensing are removed for any of the ÒAwareÓ categories of the
measure of OER awareness, we create a much stricter index of OER awareness.
The
level of OER awareness drops when we apply this stricter definition, but only
somewhat. Those classified as ÒVery awareÓ dips from 6.6% to 5.9%, ÒAwareÓ
from 19% to 16%, and ÒSomewhat awareÓ from 16% to 12%. The overall
proportion classified into any of the ÒAwareÓ categories changes from 42% when
awareness of Creative Commons is not required to 34% when it is required.
The level of combined awareness of OER and Creative Commons has increased
substantially over the levels seen last year. All three categories of awareness
are higher in 2015-16 than they were in 2014-15. The total percentage of
faculty claiming some degree of awareness using this stricter definition has
increased from 26% in 2014-15 to 34% in 2015-16.
Faculty at two-year institutions
report consistently higher level of awareness of OER than faculty at four-year
institutions. Faculty at two-year institutions claim higher levels of
being ÒVery awareÓ (7.4% versus 4.5%) as well as a greater fraction saying that
they had any level of awareness (41% versus 32%).
There is little difference in the level of awareness among faculty for most
disciplines. The two groups with the lowest level of awareness, Law and
Social Sciences faculty, have rates about two-thirds that of the average, while
faculty in Computer and Information Sciences and those in Mathematics lead the
way in awareness of open educational resources. Nearly one-third of each
of these groups claim to be aware or very aware, double the rate of Law and
Social Sciences faculty.
Awareness of Open Textbooks
"I've never heard of these open textbook resources,
but they sound incredibly useful. My colleagues and I often share ideas and
resources, and this sounds similar, but on a much broader scale."
(Part-time English Language and Literature Faculty)
"'Open textbooks' sounds, at least from the title,
like an assault on copyright. If academics are going to continue to edit and
publish textbooks, copyright must be protected." (Full-time English
Language and Literature Faculty)
"If you can help us disrupt the textbook-industrial
complex, please do so!" (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"I have no interest in destroying the business model
for academic publishing." (Full-time Communications Faculty)
"Increasingly, it is becoming evident that the model
of publishing text for higher education is grossly overpriced. To this extent,
I expect that increasing numbers of us will move away from using large
publishers. Honestly, they come across as crooked, greedy and dishonest...not
much unlike the healthcare industry and associated insurance." (Full-time
Education Faculty)
"Sometimes, you get what you pay for. While open
textbooks are a good idea, it takes considerable time and effort to produce a
quality product. Who will subsidize this?" (Full-time Education Faculty)
In addition to
questions about awareness of open educational resources in general, faculty
were asked about their awareness of open textbooks. A definition was
provided to faculty as part of the question:
Open
textbooks are textbooks that are freely available with nonrestrictive licenses.
Covering a wide range of disciplines, open textbooks are available to download
and print in various file formats from several web sites and OER repositories.
The faculty level of awareness of open textbooks
was somewhat lower than that seen of open educational resources, as only 34% of
faculty claimed some level of awareness. Of these, 6.9% reported that
they were very aware (ÒI am very aware of open textbooks and know how they can
be used in the classroomÓ), with around twice that many (12%) saying that they
were aware (ÒI am aware of Open Textbooks and some of their use casesÓ).
An additional 15% of faculty reported that they were only somewhat aware (ÒI am
somewhat aware of Open Textbooks but I am not sure if they are appropriate for
my needsÓ). Nearly two-thirds of faculty (66%) report that they were
generally unaware of Open Textbooks (ÒI am not aware of Open TextbooksÓ or ÒI
have heard of Open Textbooks, but don't know much about themÓ).
|
|
 |
There is concern that, as with open educational resources, faculty members may
have only a ÒfuzzyÓ understanding and awareness of the concepts of ÒopenÓ that
apply to open textbooks. Adjustments were made here to create a stricter
measure that included awareness of
both open textbooks and Creative
Commons licensing. If faculty who report that they are unaware of Creative
Commons licensing are removed for any of the ÒawareÓ categories of the measure
of open textbooks awareness, we create a much stricter index of open textbooks awareness.
The level of open textbook awareness drops
when we apply this stricter definition, but less so than the drop for
OER. Those classified as ÒVery awareÓ go from 6.9% to 6.3%, ÒAwareÓ from
12% to 10%, and ÒSomewhat awareÓ from 16% to 13%. The overall proportion
classified into any of the ÒAwareÓ categories changes from 34% when awareness
of Creative Commons is not required, to 29% when it is required.
Educational Resource Decision Process
Previous
studies in this series have demonstrated that faculty are the key decision
makers in finding, reviewing, and selecting educational resources.
Academic administrators play a role in some types of institutions (two-year
Associates institutions and for-profit institutions), but even here faculty
make up the overwhelming majority of decision makers.
While it is clear that
faculty hold the locus of control of these key decisions, it is not obvious how
frequently they engage in this process. Some faculty report that they are
always looking for new material for their courses, with no formal beginning or
end to their decision process. These faculty change educational materials
whenever they find an alternative sufficiently better than what they are
currently using. Other faculty tell us that they review their courses one
at a time, often on a rotating schedule.
In
order to better understand the frequency of (and factors that impact) the
decision about core educational materials, it is necessary to understand when
the specific decision is being made. Faculty in this study were asked
about three different activities that represent the faculty member making a
decision on the required materials for a particular course: creating a new
course, substantially revising an existing course, or adding or changing
required course materials. The specific question wording used was:
Over the
past two years, either working alone or with others, have you...
Created a
new course (A course that was not previously listed in the course catalog)
Substantially
modified an existing course (Examples include making a substantive change in
the content included in the course, changing the delivery method (e.g.,
converting a face-to-face course to online) or a similar change of this
magnitude. Do not count the normal fine-tuning to a course during its
delivery or the typical term-to-term refinements that all courses go through)
Added or
changed required course materials (Items listed in the course syllabus as
required for all students, either acquired on their own or provided to all
students through a materials fee, examples include a printed or digital
textbook, other course-complete printed (course pack) or digital materials, or
materials such as laboratory supplies)
Deciding on new or revised educational materials is a very
common occurrence for teaching faculty. The vast majority (90%) reported that
they had performed at least one of these activities over the previous two
years, and large numbers had done more than one. The most common activity
was changing required materials for an existing course (74%), followed by
substantially modifying a course (65%). While creating a new course was
the least common activity, almost one-half of faculty (48%) had performed this
action over the previous two years.
The release of a new edition of a faculty memberÕs
current book or program, typically every 2-3 years, may act as a trigger for a
faculty material review. This is consistent with the observed 74% rate
for Òchanges course materials.Ó Over half of all survey respondents said that
they had both substantially modified an existing course as well as having
changed the required materials for another course. One-third (33%) of the
respondents reported that they had performed all three types of activities.
The
reasons for faculty engaging in the decision process varied considerably,
ranging from the need to fill a gap in the curriculum to just being bored of
teaching the course the same way for multiple years:
"I was dissatisfied with the level at which
students were acquiring (or more accurately, failing to acquire!) essential
course content." (Full-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"A new monograph altered my view of the
subject sufficiently to believe a complete revision of the course, including
texts, to be worth undertaking." (Part-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"An old instructor left and took the materials
with her" (Part-time Allied Health Faculty)
"Better course book became available as open
education resource so was free to my students. This lowered their costs
substantially which was desirable plus it is available so allows easy
accessibility to my students." (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences
Faculty)
"Always like to keep courses up to date"
(Full-time Education Faculty)
"As an old instructional designer, I get bored
with teaching the same class the same way after a couple of times. I need
to make it "new for me" to really enjoy it. It is also better (at
least I always hope so) for my students." (Full-time Computer Science
Faculty)
"I inherited the course from a colleague and
wished to update the framing of the course to reflect what I saw as current
trends in the field." (Full-time Business Faculty)
"Students requested the course; department
faculty felt it was a course that should be added to the catalog."
(Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"The course had been taught the same way for
some time and failure rates were high. We wanted to try something
different." (Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
"A student asked me if such a course existed
at our school. The answer was no. I decided to design this course. I proposed
it to my department. They accepted it." (Part-time Fine and Applied Arts
Faculty)
All types of faculty are equally involved in
the decision process for required course materials; there is little variation
from the overall 90% rate. Even the least involved, part-time faculty
members only drop to 81%, while the most involved – those teaching at
least one online or one blended course – report 97% levels of
involvement.
The factors that
influence a faculty memberÕs particular resource selection decision for one
course may be very different than for another course. The availability of
different resource options, the timeliness of the course material, the level of
the student, the time since the course was last revised, as well as a host of
other factors can influence that decision. To allow this research to
focus on a single decision, the respondents who reported that they had
performed an educational resource selection process over the previous two years
were asked to select only one course to consider for their responses to a
series of questions about those resource selections.
Because one of the
concerns of the impact of educational resource selection is the impact on
students, faculty who made resource decisions for more than one course were
asked to select the one course with the largest enrollment for their
responses. If more than one such course had the same level of enrollment,
they were then instructed to select the course they were most familiar
with. Faculty were then asked a series of resource-related questions
about this specific course.
The most common activity that resulted in
the selection of required resources was selecting new required materials for an
existing course (43%), followed by substantially modifying an existing course
(34%). Slightly less than one-quarter (23%) reported on a newly created
course.
The courses being
considered were overwhelmingly undergraduate courses (77%) and those delivered
face-to-face (75%), with 13% blended and 12% online. Faculty classified these
courses primarily as an ÒIntroductory courseÓ (41%), but intermediate (28%) and
advanced level (29%) courses were both well represented.
Asking faculty to focus on the largest
enrollment course skews the course size higher than for a typical course: the
average enrollment for the courses selected by the faculty was 154
students. Faculty responding about new courses had the smallest average
enrollment (71 students), while those replacing required materials for an
existing course had the largest (199 students). Required courses,
introductory level courses, and courses taught in multiple sections all had
average enrollments over 220 students.
Virtually all of the courses (98%) being
considered had a required textbook or other non-textbook material as part of
the suite of required resources. Most courses required both a textbook as
well as other textual materials.
Required textbooks were more likely to be in printed form
(69%) than digital, with digital textbooks more often required in addition
to a printed textbook (19%) than courses requiring only digital textbooks
(8.5%). Over three-quarters of all the reported courses require a textbook
of some variety.
Advanced courses were
less likely to require a formal textbook than introductory or
intermediate-level courses. Courses taught using some online component
(either as a blended course or fully online) had the highest rates of requiring
a formal textbook, and the largest proportion of these textbooks being digital
(either in conjunction with a printed text or using only digital textbooks).
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Faculty were far more certain when asked
about the licensing status for their required textbooks than they were when asked
about licensing in general. Only 2% reported that they did not know the
licensing status for their printed textbooks, and 6.8% were unable to reply for
their digital textbooks. The overwhelming majority (97%) of faculty with
a required textbook report that at least one of their required printed
textbooks is copyrighted, with very small percentages reporting either Creative
Commons licensing or public domain. (Note that faculty with more than one
required printed textbook could select more than one licensing choice.)
Digital
textbooks are much more likely to be either Creative Commons licensed (7.9%) or
public domain (12%) than their print alternatives. While the
overwhelmingly majority of digital textbooks are copyrighted, the relative
proportion of openly licensed (Creative Commons or public domain) material is five
times higher for digital distribution than it is for printed textbooks.
The proportion of openly licensed material among non-textbook required course
material is far higher than it is for textbooks. This non-textbook material
may be viewed by faculty members as non-core or supplemental, but it is of
sufficient importance in the view of the faculty member that it is listed among
the requirements for the course.
A large proportion of non-textbook
printed material is reported as public domain (44%), as is a majority of the
digital-formatted required non-textbook materials (52%). Compared to textbooks,
a much larger fraction of this type of material is licensed as Creative Commons
(15% for printed, 19% for digital).
When summed across all courses reported by faculty for
this survey, only 5.3% report that they are using an openly licensed (Creative
Commons or public domain) textbook of any variety. Of these, 2.1% are
using an openly licensed textbook, but are not using any openly licensed
non-textbook material, while 3.2% are using both an openly licensed textbook as
well as openly licensed non-textbook material. The proportion of required
non-textbook material that is openly licensed is far higher, with 39% of
faculty reporting its use: 3.2% in conjunction with an openly licensed textbook,
and 36% using non-textbook material alone.
It is important to note that the 5.3% rate of open-licensed textbook use
represents the rate for the largest enrollment course where faculty have made a
choice of required course material over the previous two years. It does
not include use in other courses that faculty may teach. So while it
represents a good estimate of the proportion of larger enrollment
courses
using these types of resources, it may not be an accurate estimate of the
proportion of
faculty using open-licensed textbooks.
Most types
of courses have open-licensed usage rates close to the overall rate of 5.3%,
with the only exceptions being graduate-level courses (10%), online courses
(7.2%), and courses that faculty classify as ÒAdvancedÓ (7.0%).
The difference in open-licensed usage rates between different types of faculty
is smaller than the differences observed between course types. Part-time
faculty have adopted open-licensed textbooks at only 60% of the rate of
full-time faculty (3.5% as compared to 5.8%). Faculty outside of the
tenure track system also have a higher adoption rate (6.3%) than those in the
system.
Higher
education faculty are not yet major users of open-licensed material for their
required textbooks, with only about one course in twenty having an
open-licensed textbook selected over the previous two years. This rate
tracks very closely to those who report that they are ÒVery awareÓ of open
textbooks (5.3% reporting use, and 6.9% reporting that they are aware).
Turning our
attention to the adoption of non-textbook materials paints a very different
picture, with nearly eight times as many faculty reporting using open-licensed
non-textbook resources than having adopted an open-licensed textbook.
Potential Barriers
"My biggest hindrance to switching to more open
books and OERs is simply the amount of time it takes to find all of these
resources on my own. I've gotten to know more common sites to help in
these searches, but I've not taken the time to really decide to make the big
switch from what I have now (mostly publisher and self-created materials) to the
available OERs." (Full-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"I have a concern about the peer reviewed nature of
the open access texts. I also think that authors who use their expertise and
knowledge to create a textbook are entitled to making money off of them. Why is
it okay for people outside of education to publish books and make money, but
not educators?" (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"My biggest concerns about switching to an open-source textbook are
revising my class notes and PowerPoint slides." (Part-time Natural and
Physical Sciences Faculty)
"I'd love to be given a redirection towards good
catalogs of open-education resources, along with some sort of feedback from
users who have successfully (or unsuccessfully!) incorporated them into their
courses." (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
Previous
reports in this series have shown that both faculty and academic leaders
believe that one of the most serious issues facing wider adoption of open educational
resources is the effort needed to find and evaluate suitable material.
Faculty opinions in this study show that this has not changed. The three
most-cited barriers to adopting OER all relate to the availability and
difficulty in finding suitable resources. Nearly one-half of all faulty
report that Òthere are not enough resources for my subjectÓ (49%), it is Òtoo
hard to find what I needÓ (48%), and that Òthere is no comprehensive catalog of
resourcesÓ (45%).
The limited distribution and awareness of OER is also
a factor in the fourth-ranked barrier (30%) – other faculty known to the
respondent are not using OER. Concerns about quality (28%) are also present
among faculty members. Given the limited awareness of Creative Common
licensing, it is not surprising that faculty also report (21%) that they have
concerns about permissions to use or change the materials. Other potential
barriers, while present for some, were not as widely reported as a concern by
the survey respondents.
|
|
 |
The pattern of reported barriers is very much the same between those who
reported that they were aware of OER and those who were not aware, with three
important differences. Faculty who are aware of OER are far less
concerned about whether it is used by other faculty (24% compared to 40% for
faculty who are unaware of OER). They also have less concern about
knowing if they have permission to use or change the material (19% compared to
26%). Faculty who are aware of OER, however, are more concerned about the
quality of OER offerings, with 32% citing this as opposed to only 19% of those
who were not aware of OER.
The
lower level of concern of those aware of OER about Òpermission for useÓ and Òknowing
other faculty that use itÓ most likely comes from their personal exposure to
OER, and their greater knowledge of the nature and scope of OER
materials. The greater concern about quality for this group should be
troubling for the OER community: is awareness of OER confirming concerns about
its quality, or does greater OER awareness mean that traditional publishers are
being more aggressive in arguing against it?
|
|
 |
Comparing the results for the 2015-16 academic year to those for the previous
year (2014-15) shows that while the overall pattern is very similar, there have
been some important changes. The top three concerns remain the same for
both years, albeit in a different order. There has been a drop in the
proportion of faculty citing the lack of a comprehensive catalog for OER, and
increases in the proportion citing that it is too hard to find the resources
they need, and that there are not enough resources for their subject. This may
reflect a growing awareness of OER, with more faculty now sufficiently aware to
be concerned of coverage for their particular area.
There has been a decrease in
faculty concerns about permission to use or change OER materials, and an increase
in concerns about the quality of OER and that it is timely and
up-to-date. There has also been an increase in faculty reporting that OER
not being used by other faculty represents a barrier.
The Process of Textbook Adoption for Introductory Courses
"In introductory chemistry fads alter the
organization of texts over periods of decades, but the content remains the
same. A comparison of common texts (which I did a few years back) demonstrated
that all of the most popular texts are effectively interchangeable, down to the
examples." (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"For large enrollment courses we are considering
free, online textbooks that others have made available. Many students at the
freshman level do not purchase expensive text books, so we will experiment with
this approach in the 2016-17 academic year." (Full-time Natural and
Physical Sciences Faculty)
"We are looking into adopting OpenStax Precalculus
to decrease cost to students. However, we are concerned with the content and
its rigor. The book lacks depth in a number of topics. Also, there are some
faculty who would like a textbook that has online homework for students."
(Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
Faculty members who were
creating a new course, substantially modifying an existing course, or selecting
new required materials were asked about the specifics of the course for which
they were responding. Additional questions were then presented to those
faculty who were responding about one of the following large enrollment
undergraduate introductory courses:
á
Principles of Economics
á
Macro Economics
á
Micro Economics
á
Pre-Algebra
á
Algebra and Trigonometry
á
College Algebra
á
Pre-Calculus
á
Calculus
á
Statistics
á
Anatomy and Physiology
á
Biology
á
Chemistry
á
College Physics (Algebra Based)
á
University Physics (Calculus Based)
Faculty
responding about one of these courses were presented with a list of the most
commonly used commercial textbooks (up to eight) for that specific course,
along with an open text alternative from OpenStax College, a non-profit OER
publisher based out of Rice University. OpenStax has been developing texts
and ancillaries designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of
introductory courses since 2012, and have an OER offering for each of the
above-listed courses.
Faculty
respondents were asked to indicate if they were aware of each book, if they
considered the textbook for their course, or if they adopted the text.
Faculty teaching introductory undergraduate courses are
aware of, on average, 5.5 of the listed textbooks. Of these they
considered only 2.8 for adoption, and adopted an average of 1.2 texts per
course. The vast majority adopted only a single required text, and a few selected
two, three, or more. The average adoption rate for a textbook in its
corresponding course was 17%. There is
considerable variability in adoption rates behind this average; some textbooks
are clear market leaders with rates near 50%, while others have rates of only a
percent or two.
The adoption rate for
open-licensed OpenStax textbooks among these large enrollment courses is lower
than the average for commercial texts, but is twice that of the rate for open
textbooks in general. OpenStax textbooks are adopted at a rate of 10%
among large enrollment undergraduate introductory courses, compared to the 5.3%
rate seen for open-licensed textbooks across all courses.
Is the lower OpenStax
adoption rate (10%, as compared to 17% for a typical textbook) due to less
awareness, fewer faculty considering them, or being rejected at a higher rate
if they are considered? The answer is that all three factors play a role;
OpenStax textbooks are close to, but slightly lower than, the rates for
commercial textbooks for each of these steps.
Looking across all
textbooks, faculty claimed to be aware of 82% of listed textbooks.
Slightly more than one half of the textbooks that faculty were aware of (52%)
were then actively considered in the adoption process. Of those
considered, 41% were then adopted. Comparing the OpenStax
alternative shows a lower level of awareness (70% compared to 82%
overall). Likewise, OpenStax texts have a somewhat lower rate of
consideration (44% compared to 52%) and a lower rate of selection for adoption
(32% compared to 41%). The result is an overall lower adoption rate of
10% for OpenStax textbooks as compared to all introductory courses textbooks
(17%).
|
|
 |
The OpenStax adoption rate, while lower than that for commercial textbooks, is surprising
given the newness of their offerings, and the lack of commercial marketing
weight behind them. The awareness rate, consideration rate, and adoption
rate for OpenStax textbooks are all close to, but somewhat lower than, those
for commercial textbook alternatives. OpenStax textbooks will require
improvements in each of these steps in order to match the overall adoption rate
of the introductory course textbooks. Better awareness, by itself, will
not be sufficient.
Faculty teaching large enrollment introductory courses
have ratings similar to their peers teaching other courses, when considering the
importance of the various factors in determining their required material
selections. Those who have decided to use an OpenStax textbook, while
very similar on most dimensions, show some clear differences. Among the OpenStax
group, having ancillary material (test banks and supplemental instructor
materials) is far less important for their decision making process. On
the other hand, they rate resources being Òeasy to findÓ as more important to
their selection that do the faculty teaching introductory courses who have not
adopted an OpenStax text.
|
|
 |
OpenStax users, by definition, have already found an OER resource to adopt for
their course. As such, it is not surprising that they have a very
different view of the problems of resource discovery from their peers who have
not adopted OER resources. OpenStax users rate the discovery issues of Òno
comprehensive catalogÓ and Òtoo hard to find what I needÓ as far less of a
barrier than do their peers who have not adopted an open resource. They
do have the same level of concern about the lack of resources, Ònot enough
resources for my subjectÓ, as their peers. They are also a bit more
concerned about the quality of OER offerings (43% as compared to 37%) than
their peers.
A critical issue is that OpenStax users care far less about supplements and
test banks as compared to non-users. These supplements are a key selling point
for many faculty which leads them to adopt traditional texts. If an
instructor does not care about these things, it helps to level the playing
field for OpenStax.
In general, faculty
teaching large-enrollment undergraduate level courses report very similar goals
and concerns as do faculty teaching other types of courses. The adoption
rate of open textbooks for these introductory courses is roughly twice that for
all courses, probably reflecting the emphasis that open textbook developers
have had on these large enrollment courses. It can be expected that the
open text adoption rate will continue to increase for these courses, as most of
the open alternatives are new to the market and have only begun to compete
against well-established commercial texts with their long histories and
substantial marketing support.
Discoverability
"I don't know anybody who is using open source
textbooks, and I don't have the time at the moment to research what will work
best." (Part-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"I am interested in open resources, but have not had
the time to explore them. That has been more of an issue for not adopting them
than anything." (Full-time Social Sciences Faculty)
"I have not even checked for open resource
educational materials since I lack the time to investigate what is available
and how I can use it. " (Full-time Agriculture and Animal Science Faculty)
"I have used OER in the past and do so currently but
it is very difficult to find OER materials to use and incorporate into my
classes." (Part-time Natural and Physical Sciences Faculty)
"Textbooks sent to me with data supporting why this
text is a good one to use summarized on one page would help me determine if I
should spend time looking into it or not." (Full-time Natural and Physical
Sciences Faculty)
"A resource that lists available course materials
along with cost, list of supplementary materials, and reviews by other faculty
members. It would be nice to have an independent website that offered
this for materials from multiple publishers/sources." (Full-time
Mathematics Faculty)
The
top three barriers that faculty cite impacting their adoption of open
educational resources are related to the ease of finding and selecting the
appropriate resource. How do these issues compare to finding and selecting
traditional resources? Is the effort required to find appropriate OER materials
substantially higher than that for traditional materials, or do faculty have
concerns for both types of resources? To probe this issue, faculty were asked
to rate how difficult it was to search for traditional resources using a four-point
scale, and asked the same question about searching open educational resources.
Nearly two-thirds of faculty reported that
searching for resources from traditional publishers was ÒEasyÓ or ÒVery easy,Ó
with 17.5% saying it was ÒDifficult.Ó Very few faculty (1.7%) considered
the ease of search for resources from traditional publishers to be ÒVery
difficult.Ó Interestingly, a sizable proportion reported that they didnÕt
know. Does the large proportion reporting that searching is easy reflect
that results of years of traditional publishers providing review copies
directly to key faculty members? If so, then OER providers may need to understand
this lesson, and do a better job of delivering their materials directly to
faculty members, rather than relying on faculty to search for and find the best
resources.
|
|
 |
The ÒVery easyÓ response for many faculty
is a reflection of the extensive marketing and support process of commercial
publishers. For many faculty, the search process is as simple as getting
the evaluation copy of the textbook from their mail box. In other cases, a
publisherÕs representative actually comes to their office. Faculty still
need to consider and evaluate each of these offerings, but the first step of
searching is often provided for them.
A far larger proportion of faculty (62%) were unable to provide a rating for
the ease of finding OER materials. Given the lack of awareness of OER among
faculty, this indicates that they have never tried to find OER materials. Of
those that could provide a rating, only 1.5% reported it was ÒVery easyÓ and 14%
that it was ÒEasy.Ó Larger percentages of those who had an opinion said it was
ÒDifficultÓ (19%) or ÒVery difficultÓ (3.9%).
There is
no corresponding support network for open textbooks that can mirror the
extensive network provided by commercial publishers. It requires much
more faculty effort to search out open textbooks, especially since many faculty
are unaware of the very existence of such alternatives.
|
|
 |
Comparing the ratings among those faculty
who rated the ease of finding both OER and traditional resources helps us
better understand if faculty who report difficulty in finding OER materials are
also those having issues with traditional resources, or if there is a real
difference in the perceived discoverability of the two types of
resources. Most faculty (70%) did not provide a rating for finding both types
of resources. The 30% that did provide a rating for both shows that OER
discoverability does lag behind that of traditional resources. Only 2.5% gave
OER a rating superior to what they gave traditional resources. A larger
group (13%) gave identical ratings for both types of materials, while the
largest segment (15%) gave a higher rating to the ease of finding traditional
resources than they did for finding OER materials.
Discoverability
continues to be an important issue for openly licensed resources. All of the
top three mentioned barriers relate to the difficulty or inability to find
appropriate resources, and faculty ratings of the ease of searching provide
further support for this point. Proponents of OER can take a Òglass half fullÓ
approach and rightfully claim that a majority of those who rated the ease of
searching OER and traditional resources report OER to be as good as (or in a
very few cases, better than) traditional resources. The Òglass half emptyÓ
approach is that nearly half of faculty report it was harder to find OER
resources.
Future Use
ÒKnowledge is free. The future of education must be in
OER.Ó (Full-time Mathematics Faculty)
ÒI only learned about things like OpenStax during this
academic year. I love the idea of open-source projects, and I would
certainly be willing to try using an open text for a course I'm teaching.
I think I would be able to convince others in the department that doing the
experiment would be a good idea." (Full-time Natural and Physical Sciences
Faculty)
"I am curious about the use of the open resources
and would like to know more about them." (Part-time Business Faculty)
Faculty members who are not current users of open educational resources were
asked if they expected to be using OER in the next three years. Only 5.4%
reported that they were not interested, while an additional 25% had not yet
decided and were unable to offer an opinion. The number claiming that
they would use OER in the future (6.9%) is of the same order of magnitude of
those already using open resources (5.3%). A larger group (31.3%) say
that they will consider future OER use.
|
|
 |
The same question was posed to faculty members who were not current users
of open textbooks to determine their future level of interest, with very
similar results. Only 7.3% reported that they were not interested, while an
additional 24% had not yet decided and were unable to offer an opinion. A small
proportion reported that they would use open textbooks in the next three years
(6.5%), while nearly one-third (30.4%) said they would consider them. Overall
OER and open textbook use could expand considerably over the next few years if
the faculty reporting that they will use or will consider OER and open
textbooks follow through on their plans.
While the overall proportion of faculty who claim that
they ÒWillÓ use open textbooks in the next three years is small, it would mean
a doubling of use if all those who say they will actually did so. The
growth potential is even greater if any fraction of those claiming that they ÒWill
considerÓ open textbooks did decide to adopt an open textbook. It must be
noted, however, that this expressed interest may be due to the exposure to the
concepts of OER and open textbooks in this survey; faculty without this
exposure may be less likely to consider or adopt OER and/or open textbooks. The
level of interest and the conversion rate for the general pool of faculty may
be far lower.
METHODOLOGY
A national faculty
sample is used in this analysis, designed to be representative of the overall
range of faculty teaching in U.S. higher education. A multiple-stage selection
process was used for creating a stratified sample of all teaching faculty. The
process began by obtaining data from a commercial source, Market Data Retrieval,
which has over one and a half million faculty records and claims that its
records represent 93% of all teaching faculty. All teaching faculty (defined as
having at least one course code associated with their record) were selected for
this first stage. Faculty were then randomly selected from the master list in
proportion to the number contained in each Carnegie Classification, to produce a
second-stage selection of teaching faculty members. This sample was then
checked against opt-out lists, as well as for non-functioning email addresses.
Approximately 12% of all email addresses were removed at this stage. The number
of email addresses that were still receiving mail but no longer actively being
used by the individual being addressed (e.g., moved or retired) is unknown.
Spam filters at both the institution and the individual level also captured an
unknown proportion of these emails.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
A total of 3,006 faculty responded to a sufficient number of questions to
be included in the analysis, representing the full range of higher education
institutions (two-year, four-year, all Carnegie classifications, and public,
private nonprofit, and for-profit) and the complete range of faculty (full- and
part-time, tenured or not, and all disciplines). More than three-quarters of
the respondents report that they are full-time faculty members. Over 28% teach at
least one online course and 27% teach at least one blended course
Institutional descriptive data come from the
National Center for Educational StatisticsÕ IPEDS database.
After the data were compiled and merged with the IPEDS database, responders and
nonresponders were compared to ensure that the survey results reflected the
characteristics of the entire population of schools. The responses are compared
for 35 unique categories based on the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions
of Higher Education.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Analysis for this report has been conducted for three different subgroups
of the survey respondents. A series of questions were directed to all
responding faulty (all teaching faculty) on such issues as their criteria for
selecting educational resources, awareness of openly licensed resources and
open textbooks, resource discoverability and quality, etc. A second set
of more detailed questions were directed only to those faculty members who had
been through a decision process related to course materials over the past two
years. Approximately 90% of all responding faculty qualified for these
questions because they had created a new course, substantially modified an
existing course, or selected new required course materials.
|
|
 |
A final set of textbook selection questions was
directed at faculty members who had recently been through the decision process
for a large enrollment undergraduate course. These faculty were presented
with detailed lists of possible textbooks that they may have considered, to
determine which books they were aware of, considered, and which they finally
adopted.
As noted in our
previous report, a critical issue in measuring the level of OER awareness is exactly
how the question is worded. Many academics confuse ÒopenÓ with Òfree,Ó
and assume all free resources are OER. Still others will confuse Òopen
resourcesÓ with Òopen source,Ó and assume OER refers only to open source
software. Because of these differing levels of understanding, the phrasing
of the awareness question needs to be specific. The version
selected (listed below) was found to have the best balance in differentiating
among the different levels of awareness, while avoiding leading those with no
previous knowledge of the concept. This is the same wording as used last
year, so that year-to-year comparisons can be made.
How
aware are you of Open Educational Resources (OER)? OER is defined as
"teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public
domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that
permits their free use and re-purposing by others." Unlike
traditionally copyrighted material, these resources are available for
"open" use, which means users can edit, modify, customize, and share
them.
m I am not aware of OER
m I have heard of OER, but don't know much about
them
m I am somewhat aware of OER but I am not sure how
they can be used
m I am aware of OER and some of their use cases
m
I am very aware of OER
and know how they can be used in the classroom
Based on our testing,
the results from this question may still slightly overstate the level of OER
awareness, but this was considered a better option than leading the
respondent. By using a series of additional questions, the results from
this question can be adjusted to remove those who might have thought that they
were aware of OER, but when probed did not have knowledge of all of the aspects
that make up the concept.
Because licensing for remixing and reuse is central
to the concept of OER, a question about the respondentÕs awareness of different
licensing concepts was asked of all respondents before any questions
about OER awareness itself:
How
aware are you of each of the following licensing mechanisms?
|
|
Unaware
|
Somewhat
Aware
|
Aware
|
Very
Aware
|
|
Public Domain
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creative Commons
|
|
|
|
|
By combining the responses from the OER awareness
question with those of the licensing questions, a combined index of awareness
can be constructed. This process was also used in our previous report, so
that year-to-year comparisons can be made.
