Open educational resources in developing nations : lessons from an Open Online Course

Abstract

This thesis starts by introducing Open Educational Resources and ponders searching the decade long history for factors which has made OER a success in some countries and trivial impact in most developing nations. The aim of the thesis is to learn from the success stories of OER movement in the developed nations and to see if that can be replicated in developing nations. The main purpose of this study is to examine the interests, opinions, and thoughts about OER movement and its suitability for elementary education by involving educators from developing nations. The study's perspective has been to design a short open online course on Wikiversity for educators (primarily targeted towards K-12) from developing nations, which will introduce them to OER movement and record their experience. This online course has followed the action research guidelines and adhered to unobtrusive data collection methods. The participants from different nations were asked to create their own blog/group community blog to submit their comments, assignments, and recommendations to make OER a success in their geographic area. The records collected from the participants were interpreted and analyzed to learn the trends and themes to conclude with recommendations for future OER projects to be implemented in the developing world. The data collected are interpreted in a narrative manner and then evaluated to see if the participants have gained knowledge from the open online course and to recommend for further improvements in OER in developing nations based on the findings from the open online course. Essential issues in this thesis are to examine the motivation level of K-12 educators from the developing world towards OER adoption, and to provide valuable recommendations to future researchers of OER implementation in the developing world. The result of the thesis talks about nurturing collaborative spirit among the K-12 stakeholders from the developing world. This collaborative effort could fuel the OER adoption further and help improve the quality of elementary education in the global south.