Continuing with international examples of OER and open education, tonight I watched the Open Ed 2021 session entitled “Remote Education During The Pandemic: The Teachers’ Perspective – Quantitative European Study” presented by Maja Bogataj, Magda Biernat, Teresa Nobre, and Anahita Rezaei. This recorded session started with Rezaei, Open Education & Advocacy Specialist at Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation, describing how they collected 100 responses to a questionnaire from secondary schools in seven countries (Poland, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Germany, and Italy). They used the concept of “average result” for every country. The materials and data are available on a website for public consumption. Rezaei shared charts on the usage of free and paid digital resources. During remote education, most teachers used free educational resources with YouTube and Google search results being the most frequent. Usage of paid digital resources was limited, yet some reported using commercially available textbooks. More than half of the teachers knew about the concept of OER. Fifty-four percent of teachers reported regular use of OER. More than half of the teachers surveyed experienced “issues with copyright” while teaching online. I thought this was surprising! Nobre and Bogataj presented conclusions and recommendations. Only 35% reported regularly using paid or subscription-based resources. Forty-seven percent of teachers mentioned sending links to students. They recommended “broadening the existing legal framework of exceptions and limitations for the use of copyright materials in educational activities.” They suggested supporting teacher networks even informally. I thought it was interesting that teachers used 4.5 tools and platforms and this was described as “not very diverse.” With 54% of surveyed teachers using OER and 22% using digital versions of commercial textbooks or 17% commercial webpages and educational platforms, it is important to develop policies to support the development of high-quality resources. I am still impressed with the number of teachers using OER and different tools: 4.5 seems like a lot of tools in my mind! This study produced survey data that will help quantify the use of OER and highlight the need for guidelines.
