Build it and They Will Come? – Inhibiting Factors for Reuse of Open Content in Developing Countries

Hatakka, Mathias

doi:10.1002/j.1681-4835.2009.tb00260.x

Cited by 60 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…They believed their own content would be better and even quoted the phrase "a not invented here syndrome" to refer to resistance to content developed externally. Hatakka (2009) found similar resistance where participants thought foreign content hindered their creativity as teachers.…”

Section: Socio-cultural and Economic Issuesmentioning

confidence: 91%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Ngimwa

Wilson

2012

Learning, Media and Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan AfricaWithin the past few years, Africa has joined the rest of the world as an active participant in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement with a number of home-grown and externally driven initiatives. These have the potential to make an immense contribution to teaching and learning in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). However, certain barriers prevent full participation. This paper reports on qualitative research that sought to investigate SSA's readiness to adopt OER. The study involves three case studies based in higher education institutions involved in OER projects and located in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. Findings indicate contrary to popular belief that low technology levels in Africa do not necessarily impede adoption of such educational technologies; the real challenges facing readiness to adopt OER appear to be related to socio-economic, cultural, institutional and national issues. This paper argues for a complete mind shift in how people perceive OER. It also proposes raising awareness of OER at all levels, involving institutions and government, versioning OER for the African context and conducting more research on OER adoption.Keywords: open educational resources; OER in Africa; challenges of adopting OER IntroductionWhen the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) was conceived, supporters perceived it as a way of making knowledge accessible to all, especially those in most need (Smith & Casserly, 2006 Framing the investigation within an existing OER project (i.e. Teacher Education in SubSaharan Africa (TESSA)) it was possible to interview institutional practitioners (already involved in OER in higher education institutions (HEI)) in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa and discover challenges and success factors that had an impact on their readiness to adopt OER in this region. Although a single project is not representative of a greatly diverse continent such as Africa, the choice of TESSA presented an appropriate study context as it provided access to African practitioners conversant with OER who had first-hand experience of developing and using such content within their own context. Additionally, nine non-TESSA participants from the same institutions were included to help identify socio-cultural issues that potentially influenced non-adoption of OER. We first present a brief literature review followed by a background section which includes a description of the TESSA project.An account of the research method used is then provided, followed by the research findings which are discussed within the context of existing knowledge. The paper concludes with suggestions for future OER development in SSA and similar contexts. LITERATURE REVIEWIssues around adoption of OER have been identified in relation to the African continent; however the discussion has been anecdotal in nature since little documented empirical evidence exists (Hodgkinson-Williams, 2010). Although broadband access can be limited and costly (OECD, 20...

show abstract

Section: Socio-cultural and Economic Issuesmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…English is not necessarily the first language in South Africa, which has a number of different official languages. Hatakka's (2009) study also identified culturally embedded issues in the style of the English language used when Western OER have been developed. This made the content difficult for students to understand.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Ngimwa

Wilson

2012

Learning, Media and Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such barriers relate to lack of awareness of OER and related copyright and intellectual property issues (Chen, 2010;Yuan et al, 2008;Hatakka, 2009), Institutional regulations and restrictions (Yuan et al, 2008;Hatakka, 2009), quality of resources (Hatakka, 2009;Richter & Ehlers, 2011), and so on. As indicated by Chen (2010) and Hatakka (2009), not all challenges become significant, and barriers can be highly context-dependent. Therefore, many challenges could occur depending on the types of educational practices in the region or country and depending on the background, experiences, and perceptions of the educators and learners.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming Cultural Distance in Social OER Environments

Pirkkalainen

Jokinen

Pawlowski

et al. 2014

Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:Open educational resources (OERs) provide opportunities as enablers of societal development, but they also create new challenges. From the perspective of content providers and educational institutions, particularly, cultural and context-related challenges emerge. Even though barriers regarding large-scale adoption of OERs are widely discussed, empirical evidence for determining challenges in relation to particular contexts is still rare. Such context-specific barriers generally can jeopardize the acceptance of OERs and, in particular, social OER environments. We conducted a large-scale (N = 855) cross-European investigation in the school context to determine how teachers and learners perceive cultural distance as a barrier against the use of social OER environments. The findings indicate how nationality and age of the respondents are strong predictors of cultural distance barrier. The study concludes with identification of context-sensitive interventions for overcoming the related barriers. These consequences are vital for OER initiatives and educational institutions for aligning their efforts on OER.

show abstract

“…Discussions about OER are generating significant interest regarding how these resources can increase access to and quality of education, reduce educational inequality, and decrease educational costs, particularly in developing countries (Hatakka 2009;Kanwar, et al, 2010;Masterman & Wild, 2011). In this context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this regard, contextualisation is considered a conditio sine qua non for a more culturally grounded understanding of adoption of OER (Willems & Bossu, 2012). While there are particular OER initiatives in developing countries (see OER Africa, www.oerafrica.org, SciELO, www.scielo.org, Redalyc, http://redalyc.uaemex.mx), the immense majority of OER are produced by individuals, organisations, or institutions from developed countries, and this imbalance is problematic (Hatakka, 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

IRRODL Volume 14, Number 2

Authors

2013

IRRODL

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Build it and They Will Come? – Inhibiting Factors for Reuse of Open Content in Developing Countries

Abstract: Open content has the potential to change the playing field when it comes to every individual's right to education.

Cited by 60 publications

References 14 publications

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

An empirical investigation of the emergent issues around OER adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

Overcoming Cultural Distance in Social OER Environments

IRRODL Volume 14, Number 2

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About