Presentation at the Global Meeting Open Education Consortium, Cape Town, 10 March 2017.

1. The Value of Open and Open as a Value
Adoption of sharing and reuse of open materials
in Dutch HE
Robert Schuwer & Ben Janssen

3. Agenda
• Motivation
• Methodology
• Findings
• Conclusions & recommendations

4. Motivation
• National strategic Agenda HO2525 “Value of knowledge”
• Action plan taskforce Ministry of Education
• Survey Fall 2015: no widespread adoption of OER
• No clear picture of state-of-the-art in Dutch HE

5. CC-BY Hester Jelgerhuis
Methodology

6. Research question
What will lead to or is needed for widespread adoption of
sharing and reusing open learning materials and online
courses by academic and teaching staff (teachers) in
publicly funded Higher Education institutions in the
Netherlands?

7. Terminology and assumptions
• Widespread adoption: adoption by early majority (Rogers)
• Open sharing and reuse: sharing and reusing open learning
materials and online courses
• Open sharing and reuse is seen as an innovation in Dutch HE
(OECD, 2014)
• Teachers are decisive change agents in the process of
adoption (autonomous) (Sloep & Jochems, 2007)

8. Teacher
Management
Support
Motives
Ambition
Barrier
Experience
TeacherMinistry Institution
Accelerator
Institution
Department/team
Policy
Boundary
condition
Teacher
Teacher
Teacher
Teacher
Teacher

9. Methodology
• Approach: Theory of diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 2002)
(Rogers, 2003)
• Semi-structured interview
– In total 55, each 30-60 minutes
– Recorded, transcripted, coded
• Teachers, management, support staff
– Some experience with “open sharing and reuse”
– Mixture of subject fields
• Connected to interviewee’s idea of “open”

10. HE institutions

11. Model
• Open license
• In OER repository
or on MOOC-site
• For the world
• Copyright
clearing
• Metadating
(Issack, 2011)

12. Code tree
Code
Ambition Role of the teacher
Policy
Role open online education Notion of open
Motives Share, reuse
Behaviour Share, reuse
Accelerators Stimulate sharing, stimulate reuse
Barriers Cultural, infrastructural, legal, QA, organisation,
professionalisation
Support
Boundary conditions Policy, financial, infrastructural, legal, knowledge about
open, vision on quality, organisation
Influences Top down, bottom up, outside in

13. Findings
CC-BY Hester Jelgerhuis

14. Findings, quantitative

15. Findings, quantitative

16. Findings, qualitative

17. Motives
• Institutional gains: marketing, reaching new target
groups, financial (expensive resources)
• Educational gains: blended learning, efficiency, handling
diversity, improving quality
• Personal gains: recognition, idealistic, counterbalancing
commercial publishers

18. Some quotes
Whatever materials staff has
prepared, fact is that these
materials have a life cycle of just
one year. (...) The speed of progress
is so fast that we in fact discourage
the development of materials by
our staff.
Take the basics of
mathematics for example,
why should we develop
materials on this matter
ourselves?
I myself have developed an
increasing hate against this
copyrights’ terror (...). I also
think (...) that if an edition of a
book is ten years old, by
definition the book should be
made available by open access,
period.
For the sake of our children and
the planet, it is necessary that all
those people cooperate and solve
problems in cooperation
There are many examples of
teachers who really want to
help others with their
knowledge. In return, they
often receive input for their
research. I sometimes call
these people knowledge
communists.

19. Sharing
• There exists a great variety of practices of sharing and reuse
of learning materials:
– Informally (between 2 teachers, across institutions)
– With and without open license
– A variety of channels (Youtube, Slideshare, Facebook, Dropbox)
– In teams, within a faculty, within institution, between institutions, for the
world
• Receiving feedback on shared materials is a crucial factor in
achieving a structural behavior of sharing by teachers
• MOOC as a format for sharing is more attractive

20. Some quotes
One has to be very careful, especially
if one also stores materials. So to
protect myself, if I use things of which
I have doubts, I will not even try to
use our own portal, because it could
bring my institution into trouble.
My impression is that, at least
with teachers with whom I speak,
all of them are very willing to
share

21. Reuse
• Most mentioned: video and slides
• Awareness on copyrights (open license) not always
present
Reuse has bigger advantages when you
give a basic course, while a course in the
Master's phase or a more advanced
course you modify the materials in line
with the associated research.

22. Barriers
• Most mentioned: lack of time, copyrights
• IT-skills and aversion to IT
• Not aware of opportunities of open learning materials
• Too little support available
• Uncertainty about quality and what is allowed

23. Some quotes
Because of all the effort invested
into creating resources, I also would
be very nervous about letting them
out on the street and never hear
anything about them.
The not invented here syndrome is
heavily present here (...). And this
attitude holds for nearly everything,
except for the publishers. I really
can’t figure out why publishers are
seen as right.
One of the things I really notice, is the
unfamiliarity of teachers with anything
regarding copyright. (..). And they have no
idea what they are doing. So when we want
to open it using Creative Commons, we are in
trouble.
Being an excellent researcher
and being less in teaching is
accepted much more than vice
versa
An LMS like Blackboard impedes
sharing of learning materials.

24. Support
• Legal
• IT
• Educational
• Necessary precondition
• Often unknown if support is available

25. Some quotes
Every now and you have a “yes-but” type of
person in your team, who says: yes, it is nice
but have you thought about this? Have you
thought about that? This is not always a
pleasure, but I think it ultimately helps to
improve the quality.
What I find important is convenience; so
automatic metadata, automatic
recommendations based on the learning materials
you are just creating, have contact with
colleagues, et cetera.

26. Conclusions &
recommendations
CC-BY Hester Jelgerhuis

27. Conclusions (1)
• Autonomy of teacher is recognized by both management and teacher
• Teachers are insufficiently familiar with presence or content of policies
of their management with regard to sharing and reuse of learning
materials;
• Support and “what’s in it for me” are necessary preconditions for
adoption

28. Conclusions (2)
• Publishing MOOCs is experienced as an accelerator for
the adoption of open sharing of materials and courses
within an institution
• Acceptance of open sharing and reuse at institutional
level, expressing itself in a policy that is translated into
concrete activities and guidelines, affects widespread
adoption by teachers in a positive way

29. Recommendations (1)
1. Make the added value of open sharing and reuse of
learning materials clear to teachers;
2. Ensure that this change towards open sharing and reuse
is accompanied by structural support, in terms of time
(money), a supporting infrastructure, IT-related services,
legal and educational support, and safe spaces for
experiments;

30. Recommendations (2)
3. Formulate policies on open sharing and reuse of
learning materials, both at the level of institution and
departments, in order to enable the activities mentioned
under recommendations 1 and 2;
4. Link these policies on open sharing and reuse to other
themes on educational innovation or to themes like
internationalization.

31. Thank you!
r.schuwer@fontys.nl openedconsult@xs4all.nl

32. Colofon
References
Issack, S.M. (2011). OERs in Context--Case Study of Innovation and Sustainability of Educational Practices at the University of Mauritius.
European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning.
OECD (2014). Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective, Educational research and Innovation, OECD Publishing. Series.
Rogers, E.M. (2002). Diffusion of preventive innovations. Addictive Behaviors, 27, 989–993.
Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. 5th. Edition, Free Press, New York
Sloep, P. B., & Jochems, W. (2007). De e-lerende burger. In J. de Haan & J. Steyaert (red.), Jaarboek ICT en samenleving 2007; Eindelijk digitaal
(171-187). Amsterdam: Boom
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