This thesis details a study that investigated the role of open educational resources (OER) in the work of post-secondary educators in British Columbia. An aim of this study was to assess the current state of knowledge about the development and use of OER in post-secondary institutional contexts in British Columbia, with a focus on describing practices of instructors. The study sought to determine the factors that affected instructor adoption and development of OER and instructors’ engagement in contributing to the general pool of available OER. The study participants were post-secondary instructors who had received grants through the BCcampus Online Program Development Fund (OPDF). BCcampus is a publicly funded organization that sponsors the development of open educational resources through its Online Program Development Fund (OPDF). All BCcampus OPDF projects produced open educational resources that were available for free sharing and reuse among educators from BC’s public post secondary system. As projects completed their development cycle, they were licensed for sharing and reuse, and then uploaded to the BCcampus Shareable Online Learning Resources repository (SOL*R). While there is a growing body of literature on OER development and implementation practices, there appeared to be a gap in addressing specific issues of implementation of OER from the perspective of front-line actors - instructors in post-secondary settings where the potential for OER use was situated. This study addressed the instructors’ understandings of the implications for sharing and reuse of OER, the technical skills and practices required for proficiency with these resources, and the business and policy implications for OER use. The study also examined a more general gap in work-based research that related to a potential need for new instructional development practices to specifically address emergent opportunities that may be afforded by OER. A further goal of this research was to generate knowledge that could support decision-making and policy development about OER implementation practices in post secondary settings.

Keywords

educational policy · educational practices · innovation · OER · Open Educational Resources · open licenses