Adaptability as a Special Demand on Open Educational Resources: The Cultural Context of e-Learning
Thomas Richter
[thomas.richter@icb.uni-due.de]
University of Duisburg-Essen, Department Information Systems for Production and
Operations Management, Universitätsstr. 7, 45141 Essen, Germany [http://www.wip.wiwi.uni-due.de/en]
Abstract
Producing and providing Open Educational Resources (OERs) is driven by the concepts of openness and sharing. Although there already are a lot of free high-quality resources available, practitioners often rather rewrite learning resources than creatively embed (and thus, reuse) existing OERs. In this paper, we analyse the reasons for this in two different educational contexts. As a result of this analysis, we found that the uncertainty on possible adaptation needs is one of the major barriers. In order to overcome this barrier and make different learning contexts comparable, we analysed the context of learners and in particular, in the research project ‘Learning Culture’, we investigated the field of culturally motivated expectations and attitudes of learners. This paper shows the results of this research project and discusses which cultural issues should be taken into consideration when OERs are to be adapted from one to another cultural context.
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