Interim Report

1. Awareness of open educational resources
(OER) and open educationalpractice (OEP)
in Scottish Higher Education Institutions
Survey Results
Interim Report
Beatriz de los Arcos, Pete Cannell, Rosemarie McIlwhan
August2016

2. 1
Executive Summary
Key findings
 Awareness of open educational resources (OER) among Scottish HE educators is generally
low
 Awareness of CC licenses is lower than public domain or copyright (but awareness of all
license types is higher than awareness of OER in general)
 Most educators share teaching materials via their institutions VLE but few share them
openly online
 Lack of awareness is perceived as the highest barrier to adoption of OER
 Scottish HE educators use OER to broaden the range of materials available to their
students
 Staff who attend CPD opportunities are more likely to engage with OER and OEP
Recommendations
 Efforts to raise awareness of OER and OEP among HE teaching staff in Scotland need to
be scaled up
 Opportunities for development around the use of OER in the curriculum, and especially
the affordances and limitations of open licenses, should be provided
 Institutions should consider the possibility of ‘opening up’ their VLEs, and establish how
to best support and encourage their teaching staff to share resources openly

3. 2
The HE survey
Context
The OpeningEducationalPractices in Scotland (OEPS) project1
facilitates best
practice in Scottish open education.The project aims to enhance Scotland’s
reputation and capacityfordevelopingpubliclyavailableand licensed online
materials,supportedbyhigh qualitypedagogyand learningtechnology.
Part of the project’s objectives is to identify current awareness of open educational resources
(OER) and open educational practice (OEP) in Scotland across tertiary education and informal
learning. This survey is part of that work and also forms part of a wider engagement with Scottish
higher education institutions (HEIs). The project has held four open forums, which have been
attended by staff from eighteen out of the nineteen HEIs. It has also held numerous workshops
and discussions with staff from all HEIs; co-produced a free openly licensed course with one HEI
and is working with other HEIs on further exemplar courses. The project team see the project as a
large-scale action research project in which qualitative data is garnered through an iterative cycle
of action, evaluation and reflection. This process of participatory events and collaborative activity
has been a source of valuable insights into the level of awareness of OER and OEP in Scottish
institutions.
About this survey
The Open Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Project conducted a survey to find out about
the level of awareness of OER and OEP among HE institutions in Scotland. The survey questions
were adapted from research instruments by the Open Education Research Hub2 (OERH), the
Babson Survey Research Group3 and the Boston Consulting Group4, which allowed, to a certain
extent, for comparison of results across educational contexts around the globe. The survey was
constructed in SurveyMonkey and shared online by institutional contacts. In total 235 valid
responses were collected in a five-week period from 19th October 2015 to 23rd November 2015.
The survey was distributed in 19 HE institutions, and responses were obtained from 15 of them;
however, as Figure 1 shows, most respondents came from the University of Glasgow (n=59), The
Open University in Scotland (n=54), Scotland’s Rural College (n=42) and the University of St.
Andrews (n=28), making unadvisable any conclusion that these results are necessarily
representative of the sector as a whole. Having said that, it is worth highlighting that findings
hereby reported do not differ radically from findings obtained in previous research (de los Arcos,
1 www.oepscotland.org
2
http://oerhub.net/
3
http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/oer.html
4
http://www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/The%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20Ecosystem_1.pdf

4. 3
Farrow, Perryman, Pitt, & Weller, 2014; Allen & Seaman, 2014; de los Arcos, Farrow, Pitt,
Perryman, Weller & McAndrew, 2015).
Figure 1. Distribution of responses
Characteristics of the sample
The sample (Table 1) comprises of a majority of female (54.5%, n=128), highly experienced
educators –29.5% (n=69) with over 20 years of teaching experience. Most teach full-time (55.4%,
n=129), face-to-face (62.1%, n=146) and at undergraduate level (73.9%, n=173). Figure 2 shows a
breakdown of responses by discipline taught.
Table 1. Sample Characteristics
ALL RESPONSES
N=235
Gender Female 54.5%
Male 42.1%
Teaching experience > 20 years29.5%
16-20 years13.2%
Teaching mode Full-time55.4%
Part-time 44.6%
0%
1.3%
4.3%
0.4%
1.3%
25.2%
0.4%
0%
0%
0.4%
23.1%
0.9%
7.3%
2.6%
17.9%
12%
0%
1.7%
1.3%
University of Aberdeen
Abertay University
University of Dundee
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Napier University
University of Glasgow
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow School of Art
Heriot-Watt University
University of the Highlands & Islands
Open University in Scotland
Queen Margaret University
Robert Gordon University
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
Scotland’s Rural College(SRUC)
University of St Andrews
University of Stirling
University of Strathclyde
University of the West of Scotland

5. 4
Teaching context Face-to-face teaching62.7%
Blendedteaching21.7%
Online teaching15.5%
Teaching level Undergraduate 73.9%
Figure 2. Breakdown of responses by discipline
Awareness of OER
Respondents were asked to self-report their awareness of OER, after reading the following
definition:
“OER are 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. Unlike traditionally copyrighted material, these resources
are available for "open" use, which means that users can edit, modify, customize, and
share them”.
Results show that level of awareness of OER in this particular sample is generally low: 40.4%
(n=95) of respondents indicated they were unaware of OER, 40% (n=94) that they heard of OER
but didn’t know much about them, and 19.6% (n=46) that they were aware of OER and knew how
to use them in the classroom. Note that 6 out of the 46 respondents who declared themselves
aware of OER also said that they did not use OER; accordingly, responses were merged to create
three groups for comparative analysis, as shown in Table 2.
Arts & Literature
6%
Business
Administration
6%Computer &
Information
Science
4%Economics
4%
Education
6%
Engineering
7%
Humanities
3%
Linguistics /
Language
3%Mathematics
4%
Medicine
3%
Natural Sciences
23%
Psychology
4%
Social Sciences
7%
Health & Social
Care
14%
Other
6%

6. 5
Table 2. Categories of survey respondents
ALL RESPONSES
N=235
Count % Valid %
OER users 40 17 17
OER aware but non-users 100 42.6 42.6
OER unaware 95 40.4 40.4
Total 235 100 100
These findings mirror those reported by the Babson Survey Research Group (Allen & Seaman,
2014) in their examination of the attitudes, opinions and use of OER among teaching staff in US
higher education, wherein only 20% of those surveyed claimed to be aware or very aware of OER.
Selecting resources for teaching
All respondents were asked to rate on a four-point Likert scale a series of factors in relation to
their selection of resources for teaching. A majority (98.3%, n=228) selected ‘high-quality and
factually correct’, followed by ‘current and up-to-date’ (96.1%, n=221) and ‘easy-to-use’ (93.5%,
n=214) as important or very important.
When comparing groups (Table 3), we found that 100% of OER users select teaching resources
that are of high-quality and factually correct, and 97.5% current and up-to-date, but consider
discoverability, having materials that are adaptable and editable, and proven to improve student
performance ahead of ease of use or subject coverage, setting them apart from the other two
categories of respondents.
Table 3. Factors influencing selection of teaching resources
ALL
RESPONSES
N=235
OER users
n=40
OER
non-users
n=100
OER
unaware
n=95
Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid %
Cost 171 75.7 27 73 74 74.7 70 77.8
Proven to improve student
performance
200 87.7 36 90 85 86.7 79 87.8
Easy to find 210 90.9 38 95 90 90 82 90.1
Includes all the materials
I need
145 63.1 24 60 59 59.6 62 68.1

7. 6
High-quality and factually
correct
228 98.3 40 100 98 98 90 97.8
Covers my subject area
sufficiently
206 89.9 33 84.6 89 90.8 84 91.3
Mapped to learning
outcomes
154 66.4 27 67.5 64 64 63 68.5
Current & up-to-date 221 96.1 39 97.5 92 93.9 90 97.8
Easy to use 214 93.5 33 84.6 94 94.9 87 95.6
Used by other colleagues
in my Department
46 20.1 27 69.2 19 19.4 21 22.8
Provided by my institution 88 38.3 8 20 40 40.4 40 44
Ready to use 154 67 28 65 69 70.4 59 64.1
Adaptable/editable 202 87.1 36 90 84 84 82 89.1
Invited comments on other factors that influence choice of teaching resources reveal a student-
centered approach: HE educators in Scotland look for resources that are “engaging, interesting”,
“novel, attention-grabbing for students”, “free of copyright complications”, “likely to prompt
discussion by students”, “user-friendly for students” or resources that “explain a point or technique
better than the course materials [students] already have”.
Use of repositories
The most commonly used repositories and educational sites reported in this particular sample are
YouTube (85.2%, n=196), followed by TED Talks (46.1%, n=106) and Creative Commons (30.9%,
n=71) (Figure 3). YouTube remains the most popular when comparing the three groups of
respondents, but Creative Commons is ahead of TED Talks among OER users, and OpenLearn takes
third place among OER non-users (a third of these being OUiS responses). The latter point raises
the argument that use of repositories of open content does not necessarily imply awareness of
OER.
Findings from a survey of educators around the world conducted by OERHub show very similar
figures: while YouTube, TED and Khan Academy are widely-used, repositories of open resources
occupy a much less prominent position (de los Arcos et al., 2014).

8. 7
Figure 3. Use of repositories
Sharing teaching resources
Results indicate that sharing teaching resources is common practice among surveyed educators,
with only 6.8% (n=16) declaring their unwillingness to part with their materials. Overall, a majority
share via their institution’s VLE (65.5%, n=154), via email if asked privately (48.5%, n=114) and in
person (37.4%, n=88). In this sample of educators in Scottish HE institutions, only 9.4% (n=22)
publish their teaching materials publicly online. The following quotes are relevant as they
exemplify current attitudes towards sharing:
“I post my slides, weblinks and readings on our Moodle website for students to access.
Would be happy to share with colleagues if they asked”.
“No, I don’t [share]. Only because no one has expressed an interest in my material”.
“I tend to share the [materials] I've created myself”.
45%
97.5%
57.5%
2.5%
75%
25%
17.5%
5%
40%
65%
30%
19.2%
83.8%
43.4%
3%
30.3%
19.2%
5.1%
7.1%
16.2%
29.3%
0%
13.2%
81.3%
44%
1.1%
11%
7.7%
3.3%
0%
6.6%
17.6%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
iTunes/iTunesU
YouTube
TED talks/TED-Ed
Merlot
OpenLearn
Khan Academy
Jorum
Connexions
MIT Open Courseware
Creative Commons
OER Commons
OER unaware OER non-users OER users

9. 8
“Of course, this is a nonsense question. Some yes, some not. As long as we put
hundreds of hours developing new teaching material, where only the delivery and not
the development counts in our workload, giving it away for free seems like a bad idea...
I still do this with some of it, but far from all my teaching material and try to make it
the way that it is very obviously mine...”
Figure 4 shows the differences in sharing practice by group. Respondents who use OER also
engage in sharing (and sharing publicly online) more often than their counterparts; respondents
who declare themselves unaware of OER tend to share much less.
Figure 4. Sharing teaching resources
Awareness of Creative Commons Licenses
Respondents were asked to rate how they perceived their awareness of Public Domain, Copyright
and Creative Commons (CC) licenses on a four-point Likert scale (Figure 5). 82.4% said they were
aware or very aware of Copyright, 60.6% that they were aware or very aware of Public Domain,
and a lower 50.3% aware of CC licenses. Note the disparity: while overall awareness of CC stands
at 50.3% (counting only ‘Aware” and ‘Very Aware’ responses), awareness of OER stands at 19.6%.
2.5%
80%
22.5%
40%
40%
4%
69%
7%
39%
53%
11.6%
55.8%
6.3%
34.7%
47.4%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Don’t share
Through institution's VLE
Publicly online
In person
Via email, privately
OER unaware OER non-users OER users

10. 9
Figure 5. Awareness of licensing
Table 4. Awareness of licensing by group
OER users
n=40
OER non-users
n=100
OER
unaware
n=93
Count Valid % Count Valid % Count Valid %
Public Domain 30 75 62 62 49 52.7
Copyright 38 95 79 79 75 80.6
Creative Commons 36 90 46 46 35 37.6
A comparison of responses by group (Table 4), reveals that awareness of CC is high among OER
users (but not at 100%), while it is at its lowest among those unaware of OER (but not at 0%).
OER users: types of OER used, purpose and impact
Users of OER in this particular sample (n=40) reported using OER regularly as supporting material
to enhance teaching or as further reference for students rather than primary course material (30%
versus 10.3% respectively). When used occasionally however, the difference between OER as
primary or secondary material used in class is much smaller (66.7% versus 70% respectively).
Figure 6 shows the wide range of OER used by surveyed educators: images (97.5%, n=39) and
videos (92.5%, n=37) are the most popular type of OER, while at the lower end of the scale we find
whole courses (15%, n=6) and lesson plans (20%, n=8). This diversity finds a parallel in results
reported by OERHub (de los Arcos et al., 2015) and Babson Survey Research Group (Allen &
Seaman, 2014), where images and videos are also the highest ranked type of educational resource
used by educators.
18.5%
42.1%
24.5%
15%
34.3%
48.1%
15.9%
1.7%
18.5%
31.8%
20.6%
29.2%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% 120%
Very Aware
Aware
Somewhat aware
Unaware
Public Domain Copyright Creative Commons

11. 10
Figure 6. Types of OER
Table 5. Purpose of using OER
ALL RESPONSES
n=40
Count % Valid %
To prepare for my teaching 37 92.5 92.5
To get new ideas and inspiration 38 95 95
To broaden the range of my teaching methods 34 85 85
To broaden the range of resources available to my students 40 100 100
To make my teaching more culturally diverse 21 52.5 52.5
To stay up-to-date in a subject or topic area 32 80 80
To engage my students more fully in a topic area 36 90 90
To interest hard-to-engage learners 23 57.5 57.5
To be able to accommodate diverse learner needs in class 32 80 80
All the educators in this particular sample (Table 5) indicated that they use OER to broaden the
range of resources available to their students. In addition, and coinciding with findings reported in
de los Arcos et al. (2015), 95% (n=38) said they use OER to get new ideas and inspiration, and
92.5%
60%
97.5%
50%
42.5%
65%
51.3%
55% 55%
15%
52.5%
20%
42.5%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%

12. 11
92.5% (n=37) to prepare for their teaching. Using OER to make theirs a more culturally diverse
classroom received the smallest number of responses.
When asked about the most important reason why they use OER, flexibility and modularity of
materials was ranked highest (28.1%, n= 9) –“I am prepared to use material that is not ‘perfect’
providing that it can be adapted to suit my particular circumstances”, followed by subject
coverage (25.8%, n=8) and low cost (21.2%, n=7). The fewest number of preferences were
recorded in relation to materials being of trusted quality (6.9%, n=2), having been adopted by
others or suggested by Faculty/Department (3.3%, n=1), and seen as an opportunity for sharing
(3.2%, n=1). A study by the Boston Consulting Group (2013) reports similar findings in the context
of K12 education: 29% of US schoolteachers adopt OER mainly for the flexibility they afford to
adapt the content, and their low cost.
A majority (60.5%, n=23) of OEPS-surveyed educators said they were aware of OER being used by
students, i.e. YouTube and Wikipedia content, OpenLearn, FutureLearn, etc. A majority (89.7%,
n=35) also said they encourage their students to use OER, particularly “If they need to develop
some skills that are not adequately taught or addressed in the course that I teach”.
Table 6. Impact of OER use
OER users
n=40
Count % Valid %
Use of OER leads to improvement in student performance 20 50 54.1
Use of OER leads to improvement in student satisfaction 17 42.5 45.9
The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption patterns
than other online resources
26 65 70.3
Open educational models lead to more equitable access to education,
serving a broader base of learners than traditional education
27 67.5 73
Use of OER is an effective method for improving retention for at-risk
students
8 20 22.2
OER adoption at an institutionallevel leads to financial benefits for
students and/or institutions
16 40 43.2
Use of OER leads to critical reflection by educators 16 40 43.2

13. 12
Engaging in staff development or CPD opportunities
Overall data show that the percentages of those who have attended CPD events were generally
much higher across all development opportunities in the group of users of OER compared with
non-users of OER.
Table 7. Development opportunities attended by OER users/non-users
ALL RESPONSES
N=140
OER users
n=40
OER non-users
n=100
Count % Valid % Count % Valid %
Open licensing 11 27.5 28.9 12 12 12.4
Use of already existing OER 28 70 73.7 39 39 40.2
Creation of new OER 21 52.5 55.3 16 16 16.5
Remixing of OER 13 32.5 34.2 8 8 8.2
Open educational practice 15 37.5 39.5 15 15 15.5
Open scholarship 9 22.5 23.7 15 15 15.5
Open research 12 30 31.6 31 31 31.2
Barriers to the adoption of OER
A majority of OEPS respondents considered lack of awareness of OER the biggest barrier for the
adoption of OER –82.5% (n=32) of those who use OER, 88.3% (n=83) of those who don’t use OER
despite being aware of them, and 93.3% of those unaware of OER (n=83) (Figure 7). These results
correspond to findings reported in other international studies: Dhanarajan and Abeywardena
(2013) highlight that awareness and knowledge of OER in the higher education community in Asia
is low; in the US, schoolteachers who self-classify as non-OER users mention that lack of
awareness, and not being sure how to use OER, together with time constraints are the main
barriers to their adoption of OER (Boston Research Group, 2013).
The second biggest barrier in the OEPS survey for those unaware and those who don’t use OER is
knowing how to use resources (71.6% and 77.7% respectively), while users of OER rank second
most important barrier to the adoption of OER the lack of knowledge about permission to use or
change OER (64.9%, n=24). This serious concern with licensing and its implications when using
and/or adapting open resources has also been found in research by Allen and Seaman (2014),
concerning US HE educators.

14. 13
Figure 7. Perceived barriers to adoption of OER
Discussion
Fewer than half of Scottish HEIs generated significant responses to the survey. The low response
rate was disappointing, however, feedback from institutional contacts suggests that the primary
reason for low take up was a lack of familiarity with the terminology associated with free openly
licensed educational resources. These observations are consistent with the findings of the OEPS
team’s other engagement with HEIs. Open educational resources (OER) and open educational
practices (OEP) are not well known in Scottish higher education. It’s possible therefore that the
respondents to the survey contained more staff who have some awareness than is true of the
sector at large.
The survey finds that awareness of Creative Commons licenses and other license types is greater
than explicit awareness of open educational resources (OER). Moreover, some staff are using
material from sites that host openly licensed material without necessarily having knowledge of the
terminology associated with these resources. Lack of awareness is perceived as the highest barrier
to adoption of OER. Most staff share teaching materials with colleagues but this is usually through
their institution’s VLE and few share openly online. In order to enable greater awareness of the
issues relating to OER and open licenses and to potentially gain greater value from the propensity
of staff to share good practice opportunities for continuing professional development (CPD) are
important. A 2013 report commissioned by the Scottish Enhancement Themes (Cannell & Gilmour,
82.5%
59.5%
56.8%
48.6%
24.3%
24.3%
37.8%
36.1%
64.9%
56.8%
43.2%
10.8%
18.9%
88.3%
77.7%
26.9%
28.7%
16%
24.5%
25.8%
18.3%
43.6%
38.3%
16%
10.6%
14.7%
93.3%
71.6%
18.2%
12.5%
5.7%
4.5%
13.6%
4.5%
14%
19.5%
10.3%
5.7%
17.2%
Lack of awareness about OER
in general
Not sure how to use OER
Too hard to find
Not enough subject coverage
Not high-quality
Not current/up-to-date
Not relevant to one's local
context
Too fragmented
Not knowing about permission
to use/change
Lack of support from institutions
Too difficult to change/edit
Not effective at improving
student performance
Not used by colleagues in my
Department/Faculty
OER users
OER non-users
OER unaware

15. 14
2013) highlighted that teaching staff in Scottish HEIs would like more opportunities to share
practice with colleagues within and between institutions. The survey also shows that staff who
attend CPD opportunities are more likely to engage with open educational resources and open
educational practice.

16. 15
References:
Allen, I.E. & Seaman, J. (2014). Opening the Curriculum: Open Educational Resources in U.S. Higher
Education, 2014. Available from
http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthecurriculum2014.pdf
Boston Consulting Group, The (2013). The Open Education Resources ecosystem: An evaluation of
the OER movement’s current state and its progress toward main- stream adoption. Available from
http://www.hewlett.org/sites/default/files/The%20Open%20Educational%20Resources%20Ecosys
tem_1.pdf
Cannell, P. & Gilmour A. (2013). Staff: enhancing teaching, Final project report. QAA Enhancement
themes publications. Available from
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/publications/staff-enhancing-teaching-final-project-
report.pdf?sfvrsn=8
Dhanarajan, G. & Abeywardena, I. S. (2013). Higher education and Open Educational Resources in
Asia: An overview. In G. Dhanarajan & D. Porter (Eds.) Perspectives on open and distance learning:
Open Educational Resources: An Asian perspective. Commonwealth of Learning. Available from
https://oerknowledgecloud.org/content/higher-education-and-open-educational-resources-asia-
overview
de los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Perryman, L.-A., Pitt, R. & Weller, M. (2014). OER Evidence Report
2013-2014. OER Research Hub. Available from http://oro.open.ac.uk/41866/
de los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Pitt, R., Perryman, L-A., Weller, M. & McAndrew, P. (2015). OER
Research Hub Data 2013-2015: Educators. OER Research Hub. Available from
http://www.slideshare.net/OER_Hub/oerrh-data-report-20132015-educators

17. 16
Acknowledgements
The Opening Educational Practices in Scotland project gratefully acknowledges the support of each
higher education institution who distributed the survey and to the participants who completed the
survey.
We also acknowledge the financial support of the Scottish Funding Council which funds the project.
This report is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Survey data available at
https://figshare.com/articles/Awareness_of_OER_OEP_in_HEIs_in_Scotland/3980256
Suggested citation: de los Arcos, B., Cannell, P., & McIlwhan, R. (2016) Awareness of open
educational resources (OER) and open educational practice (OEP) in Scottish Higher Education
Institutions Survey Results: Interim Report. Edinburgh, Opening Educational Practices Scotland

18. 17
Get in touch
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Email: oepscotland@gmail.com
Web: www.oepscotland.org and www.oeps.ac.uk
Twitter: @oepscotland