Students As Active Contributors In The Creation Of Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OER) provide promising opportunities to share and create learning materials without violating copyright law. Until now, the use and creation of OER were mainly discussed with regard to faculty and instructors. Less attention has been paid to students, so this paper is focused on their perspective on OER and argues that students can and should play an important part in the context of OER. A brief introduction to the concept of OER and their advantages is followed by an overview of the principles of Service-Dominant Logic (SDL), a theoretical framework that we consider to be a useful instrument for a better understanding of the student's role in the use and production of OER. Focusing on the creation of value in service exchanges, this theoretical approach supports the notion that students who are using OER do in fact play an active role in the value creation of OER. We also present results from a recent empirical survey conducted in Austria, which was also focused on the students' perspective on OER. Based on the available evidence, we conclude that an OER-friendly environment for students enhances the use and production of OER at Higher Education Institutions (HEI), which benefits all involved parties in the long term. Consequently, we propose a set of recommendations that should effect positive changes, and suggest some practical means of implementing them.