open educational resources: education for the world?
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Open educational resources: educationfor the world?Thomas Richter a & Maggie McPherson ba Information Systems for Production and OperationsManagement , University of Duisburg-Essen , Essen , Germanyb School of Education, Faculty of Education, Social Sciences andLaw, University of Leeds , Leeds , UKPublished online: 24 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Thomas Richter & Maggie McPherson (2012) Open educational resources:education for the world?, Distance Education, 33:2, 201-219, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2012.692068
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Open educational resources: education for the world?
Thomas Richtera* and Maggie McPhersonb
aInformation Systems for Production and Operations Management, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; bSchool of Education, Faculty of Education, Social Sciences andLaw, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
(Received 3 January 2012; final version received 20 May 2012)
Education is widely seen as an important means of addressing both nationaland international problems, such as political or religious extremism, poverty,and hunger. However, if developing countries are to become societies that cancompete properly with Western industrialized countries, not only is a fundamen-tal shift in thinking with regard to the value of education and more/better provi-sion of teaching required, but strong support from other countries is needed aswell. This article explores questions such as whether Western policymakers canavoid a repetition of some of the failures of the past few decades in terms ofproviding foreign aid; how educators and providers of educational scenariosand learning contents can foster and manage the creation of a worldwideknowledge society; and in particular, if the provision of open educationalresources (OER) can realistically overcome the educational gap and foster edu-cational justice.
Keywords: OER; educational gap; adaptability; foreign aid; developing coun-tries; illiterates
Introduction
The primary millennium goal set by the United Nations in 2010 is to “eradicateextreme poverty and hunger” by 2015 (UNESCO, 2011, p. 6). Yet a poor educationis often seen as an underlying reason for poverty, as well as for a correspondinglylow level of human capital, in developing countries (Easterly, 2005, p. 8). Degesys(cited in Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, & Miall, 2011, p. 240) claimed that as “educa-tional systems can sustain conflict within schools, they can also liberate it.”Although the situation has improved over the last 50 years, this improvement hasnot been universal. While “enrolments have expanded rapidly, the quality of educa-tion is hampered by missing inputs like textbooks and other school materials” (East-erly, 2005, p. 8). Therefore, providing developing countries with educationalresources so they can transform into fully functioning and competitive economic/social communities could be seen as a key issue for realizing the United Nationsmillennium goals.
Today, a number of high-level organizations and institutions actively promotehigh-quality open educational resources (OER), such as UNESCO OER Wiki,1
ICDE,2 and OLnet.3 Much of this is readily available and accessible via repositories,
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Distance EducationVol. 33, No. 2, August 2012, 201–219
ISSN 0158-7919 print/ISSN 1475-0198 online� 2012 Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Inc.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2012.692068http://www.tandfonline.com
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such as Merlot4 and MIT OpenCourseWare.5 Furthermore, some argue that OERcould resolve the lack of educational materials, with D’Antoni (2008, p. 8) suggest-ing that they can play a central role in achieving educational justice in the world.However, we would like to posit that the mere provision of OER is an overly opti-mistic idea and will not serve to resolve educational deficits in developing countries.
In this article, we begin our debate by explaining why we think that the sheerexistence and availability of free OER is unlikely to prove a definitive solution. Weintend to show that, even if the information included is of the highest quality andthe applied didactic and pedagogical design follows the very best possible stan-dards, OER will be of value for learners only if they fit the learners’ own contextand are thus genuinely reusable or at least fully adaptable.
Next, we explore some of the most serious barriers and what we believe, as aminimum, needs to be done so that OER can actually play their role of overcomingthe educational gap. In this respect, we feel that a much more realistic stance needsto be adopted. It is not our intention to diminish or to generally criticize theachievement and potential of a faithful and valuable movement of sharing, whichMoore (2002) characterized as a “historic tenet of academic culture” (p. 46). Never-theless, we feel it is necessary to draw attention to some critical issues that mayprevent us from fully achieving these goals. In particular, our position is that justbecause we (as education professionals and policymakers in the West) may havefound that sharing contextually biased OER can often lead to a win–win situation(Open University, n.d.) within Western environments, it does not necessarily followthat this strategy will work when transferring OER to fundamentally different con-texts (i.e., the developing world).
Finally, our stance is that if we want to achieve and/or foster educational justicein the world by producing and providing OER, we will need to do more thanmerely making such learning materials available. Thus, we discuss the necessity toturn contextually limited usable information into tangible and adaptable educationalresources, designed in a way that is easy to implement, which in turn could raisethe value of OER enormously.
However, we would like to acknowledge some limitations of our deliberationsin this article: we are not able to consider situations where there is a fundamentallydeficient infrastructure, where existing political systems prevent the use of OER(e.g., environments where information is censored); nor will we attempt to offerOER as a solution to extreme poverty (e.g., where buying a $100 laptop woulddeprive a family of a month’s worth of nutrition).
Consequently, this article specifically addresses producers, providers, and usersof OER who are charged with fostering the upcoming culture of sharing (and reus-ing) educational resources, as well as educational policymakers who are alsoresponsible for defining quality criteria to ensure the value of such resources. Tobegin with, then, we discuss key issues that need to be taken into considerationwhen discussing the potential of, and possible gaps to, providing educational sup-port with OER.
Educational support with OER
Despite the fact that many resources are highly promoted, of high quality, andfreely accessible, research by Andrade et al. (2011, p. 11) shows that a criticalthreshold in OER usage has not yet been reached in Europe. One of the main
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barriers identified by professionals, policymakers, and learners for (re)using OER isthe uncertainty as to whether higher education and adult education resources areappropriate and match the learners’ own educational contexts (p. 171). Similarly,responses to a school-level survey in Germany (Richter & Ehlers, 2011) indicatethat teachers simply have no idea how to evaluate a given OER’s appropriatenessand adapt it for their particular situation (pp. 4–6). Given these findings in highlyindustrialized contexts, we can expect to find even more uncertainty and mistrust indeveloping countries: uncertainty about contextual appropriateness of OER comeson top of the already existing suspicions regarding the motivation of Western indus-trial countries to provide development aid (e.g., Wedel, 2001, p. 167). Clearly, it iseasy to see that determining appropriateness of learning resources in particular sub-ject areas (e.g., religion) could be very difficult; however, do other subject areasalso raise the potential for conflict? When trying to find a context-free language forinternational communication, Davis (2005) found that “only within the most homo-geneous community of speakers, with extremely specialized communication needsand zero tolerance to misunderstandings, such as international commercial airlinepilots or military commanders, can we expect a thoroughly uniform interpretationof a limited English vocabulary” (p. 1). She concluded that “no single language canachieve this universal goal of establishing a mutually meaningful communicationlink in today’s widely diverse global population” (p. 8).
Although some argue that mathematics is mathematics and will easily transferbetween different cultures, this is not universally true. A UNESCO study by Bena-vot (2011) found that while a range of developing countries shared educationalstandards, these mainly revolved around routine and basic skills in mathematicalproblem solving and reasoning, but diverged when it came to more cognitivelydemanding mathematics skills. Moreover, it would seem that teaching methods inthis subject are not necessarily common either. For instance, a German course inmathematics normally teaches a number of different methods; then asks learners tochoose and adapt one of the learned methods to solve a given problem. In an Asianeducational context, it is assumed that certain methods are explicitly related to cer-tain problem classes; so as a task, the learners may be instructed to use a definedmethod to solve a certain problem. Asking a learner to modify a taught methodcould cause serious conflict, because this would be tantamount to questioning theeducator’s authority, which is considered disrespectful in that region (Richter,2011a).
Furthermore, most educational courses implicitly require prerequisite knowledgefrom learners, which might or might not be equal in different contexts, and in addi-tion, they may demand too much or too little from the targeted learners.
All these aspects indicate that without considerable thought to adaptation, OERproduced in Western industrialized countries may not necessarily fit the needs oflearners in developing countries.
Why the simple availability of OER is unlikely to be a definitive solution
The simple provision of resources (e.g., money, construction material, or agricul-tural machines) to impoverished countries often leads to greater dependency, ratherthan to sustainable development (Easterly, 2006, p. 40; Moyo, 2009, p. 74). Weargue that this insight can be extrapolated to educational contexts, and that withoutempowering educators to conduct the adaptation process themselves, purely offering
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resources for learning may prove less successful than desired, and any gains maybe simply temporary.
Other researchers concur that merely making OER available will not necessarilyserve the aim of achieving educational justice throughout the world, because provi-sion does not lead to widespread uptake. As explained by Hunt (2007), HakiElimu(an advocacy-based organization in Tanzania supporting every child’s right to basiceducation) discontinued the distribution of electronic materials by email in 2005because the recipients did not value (use) them. Albright (2005) contended thatOER could be improved by shifting from a provider–user model to one thatemploys collaborative development, but acknowledged that creating a collaborativeenvironment staffed by volunteers to adapt OER for language, culture, and rele-vance is a significant challenge (p. 15). Research by Richter (2010) shows that fail-ure to take the targeted learners’ culture into consideration when implementingeducation in foreign contexts can lead to significant frustration and greater dropoutrates. This phenomenon is particularly apparent in e-learning where, to overcomedifficulties that arise in self-regulated learning scenarios, motivation and confidenceare understood to be significant success factors (Richter & Adelsberger, 2011).Thus, if OER are reused without appropriate thought and without modification,inequity between the rich and the poor may grow (Reich, 2011), and the gapbetween industrialized countries and the developing world may widen even further.
In line with the UNESCO subsidiary principle, Bogardi and Hartvelt (2001) rec-ommended that any educational “action should be executed on the lowest possiblelevel” and that education “taking place within a national framework is likely to bemore efficient than within an international one” (p. 20). Correspondingly assigningthese recommendations to the context of OER, sustainability may be possible onlyif the offered resources also support lower-level education and can be fully inte-grated into the local context.
OER adoption barriers and overcoming the educational gap
There are many barriers to OER adoption in developing countries. So, the key ques-tion here is: What are the most serious barriers to the adoption of OER and whatneeds to be done to help overcome the educational gap?
Historical effects of colonialism
According to Ziegler (2008), Western colonialism has not yet been fully abandoned;it is just that the methods have changed (p. 83). Today, developed countries stillcontrol the African continent by speculatively manipulating the price for food andother trade goods (pp. 88–89). Furthermore, where developing countries had a nega-tive colonial experience prior to independence, offers of Western help might not befully accepted or even appreciated as such. In the context of modern African educa-tion, Thiong’o (2005) argued that “the very mandate as African producers of knowl-edge is to connect with the continent” (p. 157). Consequently, there is still potentialfor a good deal of underlying animosity toward the West, which may in turn leadto suspicion of OER produced by industrialized countries.
Another historical issue that needs to be taken into consideration is that oflanguage gaps. This applies particularly to Africa, where the Western colonialist
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countries artificially established borders without taking tribes and/or different lan-guages and cultures into consideration (Robbins, 2005, p. 302).
Language issues
As long as educational materials continue to be based on a very few (Western Euro-pean) languages, not only are the languages of minority groups fading away, butalso access to higher education remains limited to people who have had the privi-lege to learn one of those elite (foreign) languages (Ouane, 2002, p. 12). Kickbusch(2001) wrote that “Four out of five websites are in English, while only one in 10people on this planet speaks this language” (p. 289). DePalma, Sargent, and Benin-atto (2006) found that 32.6% of Internet users never or rarely ever visit English lan-guage Web sites (p. 4). We presume that this would apply equally to e-learning,where consumers would be candidates for adult and higher education. Chumbow(2002) claimed that for the African context “the use of national languages will be agreater stimulus to learning and this will lead to a greater and higher level of educa-tion” (p. 173).
If we want to successfully support developing aid with OER, the language gapis a significant obstacle that needs to be dealt with. Yet even if OER were to betranslated to the local language of the targeted learners, adaptation would still beneeded, because if left unchanged, OER would still not necessarily be suitable forthe targeted regional context (Leonardi, 2002).
Contextual gaps
According to Deyrich and Matas-Runquist (2006), language not only means differ-ent words, but also offers a different way to express thoughts and build sentences,and such ideas could be regarded as context specific. Corresponding to this, multi-language Web sites are often drawn directly from the originator’s view of the world,and simply use the words belonging to other languages, with some culturally related(verbal) pictures thrown in.
In view of this, it seems unlikely that contextual and language gaps could beeasily managed and overcome by the (mostly voluntary) producers or providers ofOER as envisaged by Albright (2005, pp. 11–12). Addressing these concerns, Rich-ter and Pawlowski (2007) argued that e-learning content providers should at leastsupport translations and improve adaptation by better design and description oflearning materials. Andrews (2009) explained that “without a proper understandingof [and thus, provision for] the culture of the people aid seeks to help, no effectiveimpacts should be expected” (p. 8).
Lack of cultural diversity
Research by Woolman (2001) indicates that most educational material is notdesigned to foster the development of national identities and does not support cul-tural diversity (pp. 30–31). Thus, his stance is that OER are usually produced for acertain context and while they can be reused in another one, they are not explicitlydesigned for reuse. Woolman went on to state that for “the most part, educationalpolicy decisions and implementation remained highly centralised and reflected thewill of ruling elites” (p. 28).
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Educational privilege and literacy
In many countries, education is seen as a privilege of the elite. Woolman (2001)pointed out that changing this view would be another significant step towardreaching a higher educational standard and social justice throughout the world(p. 28). Nevertheless, the ability to read and write is still seen as an importantindividual skill (Wallendorf, 2001, p. 505) and possession of such expertise isrelated to, or leads to, powerful positions in the society. Williamson (2009) sug-gested that a key barrier for successful foreign aid is the lack of effort to explain(particularly to those who are part of the ruling elites) why changes in behavior,social structures, and political systems are crucial for development and beneficialfor all.
Sachs (2005) claimed that greater literacy is one of the main reasons why devel-oped countries have less corruption and better working political systems. Accordingto Sachs, literacy is a skill that leads to more critically thinking societies and thusto better control and more (direct) feedback by the people (p. 378). The UNESCOInstitute for Statistics. (2011) reported that in 2009 adult literacy rates in 11 Sub-Saharan African countries and in some Southwest Asian countries were below 50%(p. 2). In addition, more than 50% of the whole world’s illiterates live in South andWest Asia, and 21.4% of all illiterate adults live in Sub-Saharan Africa (p. 3). How-ever, it should be noted that the percentage of illiterate adults in Sub-Saharan Africavaries enormously between countries (e.g., 74% in Mali as opposed to 7% in Equa-torial Guinea) (p. 2). Taking these statistics into account, it seems that one of themost pressing issues is to address the high levels of illiteracy.
The need for basic education
Such statistics indicate that in developing countries, basic literacy skills educationfor the general public is often very limited, if available at all. This view is con-firmed by UNESCO’s declaration (1995–2011b):
Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all otherhuman rights. It promotes individual freedom and empowerment and yields importantdevelopment benefits. Yet millions of children and adults remain deprived of educa-tional opportunities, many as a result of poverty. ({1)
Thus, it seems that the most urgent need is for OER producers to support basicreading, writing, and numeracy skills, and not just to focus on higher education andadult education, as they appear to do now. In a context where disadvantaged learn-ers predominantly need to acquire very fundamental literacy skills, this raises thequestion as to whether e-learning in general, and not just OER, can actually replaceface-to-face teaching for such basic education. What special challenges are relatedto this scenario? With respect to foreign aid through educational support, literacy isa key issue that needs to be addressed prior to, or at least at the same time as, dis-cussing higher education OER provision. Can existing OER actually help in thisregard, and are there approved approaches in place to support people in developingliteracy skills?
Added to this, there are other context-related impediments that could causemajor conflicts during the learning process, or prevent it completely, that need to beovercome (Richter & Pawlowski, 2007).
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In the following, we consider the context of learning; that is, all the factors thatinfluence the design, application, and success of learning scenarios but that cannotreadily be manipulated by the learning design.
Even though educators, authors, or distributors of OER cannot directly influencethe context of the learners, they could help avoiding related conflicts by improveddesign and appropriate allocation of the content (e.g., by sufficiently describing theoriginators’ context). In many cases of reusing educational materials in other con-texts, contextual adaptation will be necessary. As we indicated before, a simpletranslation is not a solution to bridge cultural or contextual gaps. In terms of sup-porting the adaptation of learning resources, initially we present a possible solutionand then discuss simple design procedures that would be likely to support anyadaptation process.
E-learning in the context of improving literacy skills and basic education
The virtual learning platform Time To Know (http://www.timetoknow.com) isimplemented in the context of schools with low socioeconomic status (SES) inIsrael. In an analysis of outcomes, Rosen and Wolf (2011) found a high potentialfor success among low-SES students as a result of appropriately implemented edu-cational technology programs. According to Poulová, Sokolová, and Šimonová(2010), “adequate ICT equipment and students’ computer literacy are inevitable pre-conditions of running the process of instruction” (p. 157). This suggests that forlearners to make effective use of OER, they need to learn basic IT skills beforebeing taught via e-learning. On the other hand, Mitra et al. (2005) carried out mini-mally invasive educational experiments in India and claimed that even with nocomputer skills (i.e., just from natural curiosity), children between the ages of 6and 14 were not only able to learn how to use computers by teaching each other orby themselves (p. 409) but also learned basic English language skills. In this Holein the Wall project in several Indian cities, computers installed and embedded intobrick walls close to slums were used by the slum children. However, although thedevelopment of IT skills is one of the basic issues to be resolved in education(Mitra et al., 2005, pp. 410–411), this experiment was designed to monitor thedevelopment of self-taught computer literacy and did not specifically focus on gen-erating basic literacy skills. Moreover, the computers appeared to be runningalready, which meant that the participating children did not need to switch them on.Furthermore, the children seemed to be already somewhat literate.
Theoretically, once learners attain basic computer literacy skills, they can go onto learning higher order skills, such as more advanced reading and writing. Thereare some successful examples where children achieve basic education in all sectors(partly in scenarios of blended learning) via e-learning, for example, the AliceSprings School of the Air, designed for children in rural areas of Australia withvery low population density;6 the school for circus kids in North Rhine-Westphalia,7
supporting children of permanently traveling parents in Germany; and the K-12International Academy8 in the USA, which is designed as an online school to sup-port learners from kindergarten to the end of their school education in a comple-mentary way.
Although there are examples of successful basic education via e-learning,designed as pure online learning and/or blended learning, which also seems suitable
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for the achievement of literacy skills, transferring such scenarios to developingcountries needs to be put into question due to two reasons.
Firstly, learning to read and write is based on spoken sounds and correspondingletters (Ministerium für Schule und Weiterbildung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2011, p.26); this assumes that we can teach literacy skills to people only where their verbalcommunication has some form of parallel written language. Thus, speakers of non-Semitic Languages, such as Mursi (southwest Ethiopia), may not be able to achievewritten literacy skills without learning an alternative language that does support awritten form. Furthermore, we need educational resources in related languages anddesigned for related scenarios. If a native language does not have a written form, orif educational resources are not available for a particular language, a suitablealternative language has to be learned and/or resources need to be adapted to thecontexts of the learners (e.g., children in the Sahara region and children from amiddle-European context will know and use different words in their daily life). Thisis particularly relevant to literacy skill development where, for pedagogical reasons,real and concrete scenarios are being used as learning exemplars. Thus, if OER areto serve those requirements, they either need to be produced using relevant scenar-ios and in understandable languages; or they need to be fully adapted to the newcontext.
The second problem is of a more technical nature. Basic education does notsimply serve the purpose of accumulating information needed for developing liter-acy skills and going on to participate in further and higher education. According tothe UNESCO. (2009) report, “Experts’ Conclusions on the Operational Definitionof Basic Education: Conclusions,” the purpose of basic education
is directed to the full development of the human personality. It develops the capabilityfor comprehension and critical thinking, and it inculcates the respect for human rightsand values, notably, human dignity, solidarity, tolerance, democratic citizenship and asense of justice and equity. (p. 2)
The claim for developing a human personality implies social interaction betweenpeople and the development of communication skills (also see pp. 8–9). Thus, ifbasic education is to be conducted entirely online, as a minimum requirement, Inter-net access with appropriate stability and speed is essential so that communicationcan be ensured. This is not yet possible in all regions of the world.
Adapting e-learning resources to other contexts
In this section, we will discuss the processes that we have identified as being neces-sary to make an OER reusable in a different context to that for which it was origi-nally intended. Tong, Yang, Liu, and Liu (2006) suggested that adaptation is the“process of selection, generation or modification of content (text, image, and anima-tion, etc.) to suit to users’ computing environment and usage context” (p. 322).Considering learners’ needs in the context of e-learning, Rosmalen, Boticario, andSantos (2004) defined adaptation as “creating a learner experience that purposelyadjusts to various conditions […] over a period of time with the intention ofincreasing pre-defined success criteria” (p. 59). This includes all necessary tasks,for example, translation, visual/technological redesign, and changing teaching strate-gies and methods. These views concur with findings of a study with teachers from
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different school levels in Germany (Richter & Ehlers, 2011), which reveals that sev-eral gaps for reusing OER could easily be overcome by a better design of theresources. First of all, German teachers seem to rarely use the OER in a digital for-mat because they do not have the necessary technology in their classrooms. Instead,they print the resources and provide them to the learners in paper form. As a barrierto use, the teachers said that OER are often provided in formats, such as PDF orJPG, which cannot be edited. For instance, if the teachers find a chart that containstext, they are unable to change/translate the text for their learners within the chart,so for this to be of any use, they have to recreate it, and in most cases, this exceedstheir abilities. Granted, this study was conducted in the industrial West; however,our own experience of working in the developing world leads us to believe thatthese problems can be extrapolated to those contexts.
To better explain the learning resources adaptation process model shown inFigure 1, we think it would now be helpful to introduce the adaptation circle, whichwas developed by Richter (2011b). This adaptation process model is the result of aconjunction and extension of the adaptation process models from Rosmalen et al.(2004, p. 60) and Pawlowski and Zimmermann (2007, p. 269). Both models, in ouropinion, were not detailed and/or flexible enough for the purpose of internationaladaptation.9
(1) Each adaptation process starts with the search for a suitable resource (Step 1).(2) Once the OER is found, its reusability in the new context needs to be vali-
dated (Step 2). The original context then needs to be contrasted against thetargeted context, resulting in a list of differences between the two contextsthat must be taken into consideration. For the adaptation of educational mate-rial, the determination of the usability of a resource is the most crucial step(Richter, 2011b), since not only the adaptability but also the potential adapta-tion needs have to be decided.
Figure 1. The learning resources adaptation process (Richter, 2011b, p. 166).
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(3) If the identified resource is adaptable, the critical aspects determined in Step2 need to be checked to see whether they apply to the specific resource andcontext and then the changes have to be conducted (Step 3). (Please note thatif the resource is not adaptable, Step 1 will need to be repeated.)
(4) Once the adaptation has been carried out, the contextual matching of theadapted resource needs to be validated. Depending on the resource type,there are several levels of validation possible. Those vary from sight checkto long-term studies. Pawlowski and Richter (2010) described such a possi-ble design for an experimental long-term study.
(5) If the validation was successful, the learning resource can be republished inthe new context. If not, Step 4 will need to be repeated.
It should be noted that although the adaptation process may be quite differentdepending on the configuration of contexts, culture, and type of resource that is tobe adapted, the basic principle remains the same, and the finally (re)produced OERshould end up being of an equivalent quality to the original course context.
The learning context
Since 2007, we have conducted intensive research on contextual factors that influ-ence learning scenarios. The first comprehensive list (Richter & Pawlowski, 2007)was drawn from the literature and derived from an analysis of conflict situationsoccurring in learning scenarios but was not evaluated in terms of comparability ordescriptiveness and did not further take cultural aspects into consideration. We thenfollowed up this initial research by systematically collecting concrete data from sev-eral sources, such as national statistical offices, local publications, national Websites, further data collections,10 and our standardized questionnaire on learningculture (Richter, 2011a) in a variety of contexts, such as Germany, South Korea,Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, Ireland, and Bulgaria. The purpose of this fol-low-up investigation was to verify the descriptiveness and comparability of theseinfluences in various contexts. To date, the datasets themselves have not yet beenfully verified (apart from those from Germany and South Korea). However, duringthis second phase, the list significantly changed due to the fact that some factorsproved to be extremely difficult to describe, just specific to a single context, or hadmissing aspects. Nonetheless, a number of aspects have already been verified.Table 1 presents an excerpt of the number of displayed attributes per influence fac-tors defining the context of learning. For a comprehensive explanation and completelist, see Richter (2012).11
Turning to the learning context, we consider that there are entities in any educa-tional system that are responsible for the differences between settings, providing dif-ferent frameworks for the context-specific learning scenarios. Those entities do notjust influence the learning scenario itself, but also each other. In Figure 2, we proposethree main stakeholder groups (author/educator, tutor/advisor, and learner) and envi-ronmental factors that are responsible for contextual influences on learning scenarios.
Our analysis of the stakeholders indicates that learners, tutors/advisors, andauthors/educators are the main contributors of contextual influence factors: all threegroups of stakeholders are more or less influenced by environmental entities, suchas economic communities and military alliances, countries/regions, and companies/institutions. Furthermore (as shown in Figure 2), the different levels of environmen-
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tal entities influence each other from outside to inside, for example, a European lawhas a higher relevance for the member states of the EU than a national law on thesame issue. While the tutors and learners usually belong to the context in whichthey interact, authors/educators may originally belong to another context. Thus, weshow them a little outside of the national context of the learner/advisor. For exam-ple, an author from Germany may also be writing learning content for a school,university, or enterprise in Austria, and when checking a resource, may find thattwo contexts have influence on the design of this particular OER: the original con-text of the author and the author’s interpretation of the context for which theresource has been designed. All displayed entities (stakeholders and environmental
Table 1. Displayed attributes per influence factors (excerpt).
Context-block (type) Name Description (kind)
Culture Teacher’s role Assistant or unfaultable authority? (survey LC)Value of errors What do errors mean: a chance to learn or a
disaster? (survey LC)Index for avoidinginsecurities
Hofstede’s UAI value
Language Language name(s)Communicationstyle
Direct or unsealed communication style
Humor Kind of humor, classification possible?Gender differences Are learners with different genders treated
equally?Social capital Key value for social developmentInteractionprotocols
How do people communicate?
Emotional stability How (and how fast) do learners react tounexpected circumstances (acceptance level)?
Culture-relatedknowledge
Locally developed context specific insights
Pedagogicalapproach
Are there culture-related special pedagogicalapproaches?
Demographicdevelopment
Birth rate Absolute, maybe regional differencesNumber ofinhabitants per agegroup
Absolute value, maybe regional differences
Family status Role of the familyEducationalachievement
National divide of education (absolute/percent)
Ethnic makeup Ethnic groups, divisionsEconomic status Division of riches
Human actors Ability to bearcriticism
Is critic comparable to learners?
Learningpreferences
Are certain learning styles preferred? (surveyLC)
Self-determination Do learners want to influence their coursemanagement system and content? (survey LC)
Generalpedagogicalphilosophies
Are there general pedagogical philosophies?
Significant lifeexperience
Wars, times of extremely fast development,catastrophes, etc.
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contexts) influence the educational scenario (depicted in the lower part of the fig-ure). In terms of definable data (for each type of influence)—which we call influ-ence factors—those entities are responsible for providing/producing influencefactors. With regard to learners, their particular cultural background plays a signifi-cant role and influences their expectations and behavior. We particularly focused onthe cultural context of e-learning, because there appeared to be little insight as towhich cultural aspects influence attitudes and expectations of learners (Richter,2011a). Finally, we have now identified and verified several culture-related influencefactors. These influence factors seem to have a considerable impact because theydirectly influence the satisfaction, and thus the motivation, of the learners, which isa critical success factor in e-learning (Richter & Adelsberger, 2011).
In our analysis, we arranged the concrete influence factors in various groupscalled “influence factor classes.” We categorized them informally according to theirroots/general topics, such as rights, human actors, culture, state of development,politics, religion, companies, and geographical issues. During this process, we real-ized that there are interdependences between the different influence factors (andthus, also between the influence factor classes), as shown in Figure 3.
On the one hand, Figure 3 displays the defined influence factor classes. On theother hand, it shows that the influence factor classes must not be understood asselective, as some influence factors obviously belong to more than one class. When,for example, taking specific symbols with a positive or negative meaning within acertain society, those can have a cultural background but additionally a historicaland/or legal one. One concrete example would be the use of the swastika as sym-bol. In Germany, the swastika has a historical background related to German fas-cism in the Second World War. Apart from educational purposes, German lawgenerally forbids displaying this symbol.12 In other countries, the swastika has apositive meaning, such as luck, sun, or life. For instance, when adapting SouthKorean OER, it would be crucial to check whether a swastika is being used, forexample, as bullet points.
Figure 2. The learning context—entities.
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The overlaps shown in Figure 3 represent interdependences between the influ-ence-factor classes identified to date. The different sizes of the ellipses do not havea specific meaning but were needed to visualize the overlaps. It is conceivable thatthe intensity of some influence factors may change the impact or relevance of othersby, for example, overloading the capability of people to accept differences. Conse-quently, it is not yet possible to make definitive statements, such as, a certain con-flict may not appear if the deviation between both contexts is below 20% (insofaras the influence factor can be quantitatively measured at all). The problem of identi-fying and evaluating cross-effects between the influence factors remains. To solvethis problem (if it is solvable at all), more research on clashes between concreteeducational scenarios in general, and in e-learning in particular, is needed.
Returning to the OER adaptation process, our list of potential influence factorsmay be understood as an indicative tool to systematically determine differencesbetween the genuine context that a learning resource originally has been designedfor and its target context. In our upcoming research, which will be conducted from2012 to 2015, we plan to define the specific data for the determined contextualaspects for as many countries as possible. In previous investigations, we discoveredthat it is difficult, if not almost impossible, for a foreigner to collect data in othercountries, particularly where the researcher does not possess a profound knowledgeof the national structures and the local languages. Thus, we consider that we stillneed partner institutions supporting the collection and verification of national/regio-nal data, particularly when working beyond the European context.
Figure 3. The learning context—influence factor classes.
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The aim for our next research phase is to provide an open access database thatsupports the display of national/regional contextual data. Additionally, we plan toimplement a function that allows us to contrast the specific attributes of the influ-ence factors of two countries/regions in order to get an initial idea of potentialadaptation needs. However, our contextual model is limited to those influence fac-tors identified in the literature as having led to conflicts and to those we imagine asfurther potentially critical aspects. Although our model will never be complete, itcan help to avoid already known conflict situations in educational processes. Weconsider it unlikely that an OER author who allows others to reuse his/her learningmaterials will be able or willing to invest additional time for collecting or definingcontextual data. Instead of authors having to put effort into their own contextdescription, our database will offer authors a chance to simply link their OER tothe specific contextual datasets in the database. Future users of the OER will thenhave access to both the information on the context of the OER and a description oftheir own context and be able to compare one against the other.
As a vision for the future, we would like to change the open database to anopen decision-support system. However, before we can do so, and if this is possibleat all, we need to collect enough information on occurred conflicts, their sources,and negative consequences, based on differences between specific contexts. Wethink that with those insights we might be able to give reasonable recommendationsfor adaptation needs, at least in terms of some influence factors and with regard tospecific regional and national contexts needing special attention during the adapta-tion process.
Conclusion
In this article, we have attempted to show that OER can indeed play a fundamentalrole in supporting educational development throughout the world. The approach thatwe have taken in this research is an attempt to resolve an existing dilemma: that is,while a huge effort is being made to provide a great deal of high quality educa-tional resources freely, many potential beneficiaries are unable to make full use ofthese in the contexts where they are needed. In doing this study, we have identifieda number of major OER obstacles that first need to be overcome, such as a failureto take foreign contexts into consideration, producing resources that cannot bealtered (Schwertel, Pawlowski, Mikroyannidis, & Pirkkalainen, 2011) and/or notproviding sufficient information on contexts/content.
As a consequence of our study, we would like to propose the following recom-mendations on the design of e-learning resources to support reuse/adaptation:
(1) When producing OER, a printable version of the learning resources shouldbe provided.
(2) Short abstracts should be provided for resources longer than a single page,particularly those that cannot be understood in a single view, and should ifpossible be written in English.
(3) Where resources include combinations of pictures and text, these should beprovided in a changeable format or else their reusability will be very limited.
(4) In addition, particularly with regard to repositories, republishing of adaptedresources should be encouraged and easily manageable for educators. Most
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educators are not sufficiently proficient in using ICTs to make alterations toOER with more than just a few clicks.
(5) When researching for suitable resources, educators need to be able to quicklydecide if a resource matches their needs. Such an abstract should roughlydescribe the content of the resource, for which scenario it originally has beenproduced and what its purpose was.
(6) In future, a context description should also be linked to the resource. As forrepositories, the opportunity to evaluate a resource on its usefulness in spe-cific contents should be possible. Educators would be encouraged to writesuch reports, including successes and failures. Such reports would help oth-ers to decide if a resource might be reusable in their own context of educa-tion.
From these recommendations, it can be seen that with a little more sensitivitywith regard to identifying contextual differences, a consequently changeable design,and by incorporating a description of resources, producers, and providers of OERcould make a fundamental difference to the usability of their resources. However,we would like to end this article on a positive note and announce that UNESCO isworking on developing an OER platform that supports the documentation ofadapted versions of learning resources (UNESCO, 1995–2011a). The OPEN Scoutproject also supports the reporting of success-and-failure stories (Mikroyannidis,Okada, Little, & Connolly, 2011). Other institutions providing repositories are rec-ommended to follow this example. Nevertheless, despite these initiatives, it seemsclear that if we really want to make a difference to those in greatest need, we needto try to follow the subsidiarity principle, and to seriously pursue the concept ofimplementing “aid for self-help” in a more viable fashion.
Notes1. http://oerwiki.iiep.unesco.org/index.php/Main_Page2. http://www.icde.org/OER+Mandate.9UFRzG5a.ips3. http://www.scoop.it/t/olnet-oer-research4. http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm5. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm6. For information on the Alice Springs School of the Air, see http://www.assoa.nt.edu.au/_
HISTORY/history.html7. See Schule für Circuskinder in Nordrhein-Westfalen at http://www.ekir.de/circusschule/
schulkonzept/index.htm8. See Online Public Schools at http://www.k12.com/schools-programs/online-public-
schools9. For example, Rosmalen et al.’s model (2004) did not explicitly consider any search and/
or rewrite options and both models did not include any refinements to already completedsteps (Pawlowski and Zimmermann’s model is linear [2007]).
10. In case of sources from outside the countries, we followed the journalistic principle thatthe same information had to be provided from two independent sources, like the CIAWorld Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/) and theFischer Weltalmanach [Fischer World Almanach] (http://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/der_neue_fischer_weltalmanach_2012/9783596720125).
11. http://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-30019/021_Due-Publico_Learning_Context_Metadata_Richter_April2012.pdf
12. http://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/86.html
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Notes on contributorsThomas Richter works as a researcher and project manager at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His fields of research are related to e-learning, learning culture, intercultural learningscenarios, students’ attitudes to learning processes, OER, and empirical educational research.
Maggie McPherson is a senior lecturer and postgraduate research tutor. Her doctorateinvestigated e-learning critical success factors, using an emancipatory and critical researchapproach. She teaches online (MA ICT in Education) and is committed to innovativeinternational interdisciplinary research collaborations that will enable educators to providemore equitable learning opportunities.
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