Abstract: Open content has the potential to change the playing field when it comes to every individual’s right to education. Development of new course content is both expensive and time consuming and open content can help educational organizations to deal with these problems by offering free-to-use educational resources. Despite the benefits of open content the usage is very low in developing countries and understanding why content developers choose not to use open content is the first step towards finding a solution to the problem. Which inhibiting factors for reuse do content developers in developing countries experience with open content? To answer the question interviews, questionnaires and observations have been made with content developers from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and from UNESCO Open Training Platform. Findings show that many of the inhibiting factors with reuse of open content do not necessarily relate to the actual content. Educational rules and regulations, lack of infrastructure, teaching practices and traditions etc. are major obstacles that need to be overcome if the usage of open content should increase.
From the body of the paper:
...In this study eleven inhibiting factors were found, educational rules and restrictions, language, relevance, access, technical resources, quality, intellectual property, awareness, computer literacy, teaching capacity, and teaching practices and traditions....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/21/2009 10:12:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
