Research

The Open Education Group is a wonderful organization that has lead the way for open education research.

“The Open Education Group is an interdisciplinary research group that (1) conducts original, rigorous, empirical research on the impact of OER adoption on a range of educational outcomes and (2) designs and shares methodological and conceptual frameworks for studying the impact of OER adoption. We also teach courses in topics relating to open education.”

Many of the studies and articles listed on our site can be found here: http://openedgroup.org/

Perceptions of OER Quality:

Quality of Open Education Resources (OER), including open textbooks, remains the primary concern of educators. The Open Textbook Network recently curated 9 peer-reviewed studies on OER quality which surveyed 2,484 faculty members and 2,717 students. In aggregate, these studies found that approximately 50% of respondents found OER resources to be of equal quality to traditional resources, 35% of respondents found the OER resources to be of higher value than traditional resources, and 15% reported inferior quality of the OER resources in comparison to a traditional resource. The following bibliography provides resources focused on the quality of OER resources.

Studies of OER Efficacy:

Student success is the ultimate goal of everyone working in higher education. It makes sense for educators to be concerned about the impact of OER adoptions on the overall learning and skills mastery of their students. The Open Textbook Network recently curated 13 peer-reviewed studies on the effectiveness of OERs in both higher education and K-12 education. These studies, which involved over 100,000 students, found no detrimental impact on student success (i.e., grades, dropout rates, performance on standard department finals, etc.) for students using OERs in comparison to students using traditional resources. Some studies found a positive increase in student success measures for those using OERs. The following bibliography provides resources focused on the efficacy of OER resources.