Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)

The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project was proposed to investigate in what ways and under what circumstances the adoption of open educational resources (OER) could address the increasing demand for accessible, relevant, high-quality and affordable education in the Global South. The project was originally intended to focus on post-secondary education, but the scope was expanded to include basic education teachers and government funding when it launched in 2013. In 2014, the research agenda was further expanded to include the potential impact of OER adoption and associated open educational practices.

The ROER4D project sought to build on and contribute to the body of research on how OER can help to improve access, enhance quality and reduce the cost of education in the Global South. By examining various aspects of OER use and OER-related practices in secondary education, tertiary education and teacher training in a range of countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia, the ROER4D studies aim to improve open education policy, practice and research in developing countries. 

ROER4D was funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Open Society Foundations (OFS), and built upon prior research undertaken by a previous IDRC-funded initiative, the PAN Asia Networking Distance and Open Resources Access (PANdora) project. 

ROER4D’s main research output comprises an edited volume, Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South, and an associated open data collection.

The project received the Open Data award in the Open Education Consortium (OEC) 2018 Open Resources, Tools & Practices Awards and  the OEC Open Research Award in 2016. 

For more detail on the ROER4D project:
Visit the project website.
Access the ROER4D open access content collection  
View the Project Activity Toolkit
View the Open Research Toolkit

Papers
Cox, G. & Trotter, H. (2017). An OER framework, heuristic and lens: Tools for understanding lecturer’ adoption of OER. Open Praxis, 9(2), 151–171. Available at: https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/571

Cox, G. & Trotter, H. (2016). Institutional culture and OER policy: How structure, culture, and agency mediate OER policy potential in South African universities. International Review of Research on Open and Distributed Learning, 17(5). Available at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2523  

Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Glover, M. & Walji, S. (2016). MOOC-making and Open Educational Practices. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 29, 81–97. Available at: http://rdcu.be/nzlw  

Goodier, S. (2017). Tracking the money for Open Educational Resources in South African basic education: What we don’t know. The International Review of Research on Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4). Available at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2990/4195

Goodier, S. (2018). Evaluating the Network: A Workflow for Tracking Twitter Interactions Using Social Networking Analysis. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2018(1): 2, 1–13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.449

Karunanayaka, S. & Naidu, S. (2018). Designing capacity building of educators in open educational resources integration leads to transformational change. Distance Education, 39, 87–109. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2017.1413933 

King, T., Hodgkinson-Williams, C., Willmers, M. & Walji, S. (2016). Dimensions of open research: Reflections on ‘critical openness’ in the ROER4D project. Open Praxis, 8(2), 81–91. Available at: http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/285  

Mishra, S., Sharma, M., Sharma, R. C., Singh, A. & Thakur, A. (2016). Development of a scale to measure faculty attitude towards Open Educational Resources. Open Praxis, 8(1). Available at: http://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/236

Moura, V. F., Souza, C. A., Olivera Neto, J. & Viana, A. B. N. (2017). MOOCS’ potential for democratizing education: An analysis from the perspective of access to technology. European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS 2017: Information Systems), pp. 139–153. Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-65930-5_12

Panda, S. (2017). Book review: Promoting use and contribution of Open Educational Resources. Journal of Learning for Development, 4(3), 379–381. Available at: http://jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/257/249

Pete, J., Mulder, F. & Olivera Neto, J.D. (2017). Differentiation in access to, and the use and sharing of (open) educational resources among students and lecturers at Kenyan universities. Open Praxis, 9(2), 173–194. Available at: http://www.openpraxis.org/~openprax/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/574/327  

Oates, L. & Hashimi, J. (2016). Localizing OER in Afghanistan: Developing a multilingual digital library for Afghan teachers. Open Praxis, 8(2), 151–161. Available at: http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/288

Toledo, A, Botero, C. & Guzman, L. (2014) Public expenditure in education in Latin America. Recommendations to serve the purposes of the Paris Open Educational Resources Declaration. Open Praxis, 6(2), 103–113. Available at: https://oerknowledgecloud.org/sites/oerknowledgecloud.org/files/119-547-2-PB.pdf

Walji, S., Deacon, A., Small, J. & Czerniewicz, L. (2016). Learning through engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision. Distance Education, 37(2), 208–223

Book chapters

Czerniewicz, L., Cox, G., Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Willmers, M. (2015). Open education at the University of Cape Town. In C.J. Bonk, M.M.Lee, T.C. Reeves & T.H. Reynolds (Eds.). MOOCs and Open Education Around the World. Routledge

Trotter, H., King, T., Hodgkinson-Williams, C., Willmers, M., Goodier, S., Walji, S. Cartmill, T. (2018). Reflecting on Open Education Research in the Global South: The Case of the ROER4D project. In M.R. da Cruz Duran, T. Amiel & C.J. da Costa (Eds.). Utopias e distopias da tecnologia na educação a distância e aberta. Campinas/Niteroi: Unicamp/CEAD-UFF. Available at: https://zenodo.org/record/1328233 

Monographs

Karunanayaka, S. & Naidu, S. (2016). Dreamweaving open educational practices. Open University of Sri Lanka. Available at: http://www.ou.ac.lk/home/images/OUSL/publications/Dreamweaving%20Open%20Educational%20Practices.pdf

Mishra, S. (2017). Promoting use and contribution of open educational resources. New Delhi, India: Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11599/2659

Edited volume

Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Arinto, P. B. (2017). Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South. Cape Town & Ottawa: African Minds, International Development Research Centre & Research on Open Educational Resources. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1005330  

Reports

Hodgkinson-Williams, C. (2018). Adoption and Impact of OER in the Global South: Chapter summaries. Cape Town & Ottawa: African Minds, International Development Research Centre & Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1195880 

ROER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development). (2017). Spotlight on OER Policy in the Global South: Case studies from the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project. Cape Town. Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.844695 

Open research toolkit

ROER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development). (2018). ROER4D open research toolkit: Meta-synthesis conceptual and analytical frameworks. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1217423

ROER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development). (2018). ROER4D open research toolkit: Meta-synthesis methodology. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1217420

ROER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development). (2018). ROER4D open research toolkit: Bibliography. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1217231

RER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development). (2018). Metasynthesis dataset 2017 [dataset]. Version 1. Cape Town: ROER4D [producer], 2018. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2018. Available at: https://datafirst.uct.ac.za/dataportal/index.php/catalog/696/ 

Project activity toolkit

Goodier, S. (2018). ROER4D project activity toolkit: Evaluation. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1221325

Goodier, S. & Hodgkinson-Williams, C. (2018). ROER4D project activity toolkit: Networking. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1221323 

Trotter, H., Hodgkinson-Williams, C. & Willmers, M. (2018). ROER4D project activity toolkit: Research capacity building. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1221331

Walji, S. (2018). ROER4D project activity toolkit: Communication. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1221329

Willmers, M. & King, T. (2018). ROER4D project activity toolkit: Curation and dissemination. Cape Town: Research on Open Educational Resources for Development. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1221327