Open educational resources (OER) have been defined by the Hewlett
Foundation 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. 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.

Formal initiatives in OER can be traced to the late 20th Century through developments in distance (and now online) learning.The term ‘open educational resources’ was first adopted at UNESCO's 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries.

As part of the ongoing Babson Survey Research Group’s online learning reports, we have asked institutional academic leaders questions on their knowledge, use and opinion of OER as part of the 2009 - 2011 surveys. In addition, we have
conducted surveys asking faculty in higher education and academic technology administrators their opinions of these resources3. Finally, our survey of faculty on their use of social media also asked for faculty opinions on OER. This
report contains the results from all these data collection efforts.

• Most academic leaders are at least somewhat aware of open education resources (OER) and slightly over half list themselves as ‘Aware’ or ‘Very aware.’

• Only one-half of all chief academic officers report that any of the courses at their institution currently use OER materials.

• In 2011, most surveyed academic leaders report that open education resources will have value for their campus; 57 percent agree that they have value and less than five percent disagree.

• Nearly two-thirds of all chief academic officers agree that open education resources have the potential to reduce costs

• is wide agreement among academic leaders that open education resources will save time in the development of new courses.

• Chief academic officers at over a majority of institutions reported that individual faculty developing courses, faculty committees, programs or divisions, and the administration all have a role in a decision to adopt open education resources.

• Only two groups, individual faculty members and the administration, are seen as having the primary decision responsibility on the adoption of open education resources.

• Over one-half of academic leaders agree or strongly agree that open education resources would be more useful if there was a single clearinghouse.

• Among faculty, cost (88% reporting as important or very important) and ease of use (86%) are most important for selecting online resources.

• The time and effort to find and evaluate are consistently listed as the most important barriers by faculty to the adoption of open education resources.

• Older faculty have a greater level of concern with all potential barriers to open education resource adoption than do younger faculty.

• Female faculty members report higher levels of concern for all potential open education resource adoption barriers examined.

Keywords

case study · higher learning · OER adoption · OER challenges · OER history · OER research · OER statistics