University Teachers and Open Educational Resources: Case Studies from Latin America

The Open Education movement has made efforts to systematise experiences and to evaluate the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER). However, OER adoption is not part of the prevailing paradigm in higher education, both at the global level and in Latin America. This paper describes results of a study that analysed the social representations regarding the development, use, and reuse of OER by university teachers in their pedagogical practices. We conducted a study of 12 cases from Latin American universities based on Grounded Theory. The results show that the use and reuse of OER lacks of public and institutional policies. The main agents are teachers organised in teams that support OER adoption. The reasons that encourage the creation of OER are mainly intrinsic, such as the pleasure derived from contributing and sharing, as well as external and related to professional development needs from the reflection on one’s own educational practice. Educators consider it essential to evaluate the resources created so that they can be reused in continuous improvement processes. Commercial use and misappropriation of the works are two of the main tensions identified. The community factor of teaching guides most behaviours in OER adoption in educational institutions and is presented as an inherent part of the development and transformation of the curriculum.


Article abstract
The Open Education movement has made efforts to systematise experiences and to evaluate the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER). However, OER adoption is not part of the prevailing paradigm in higher education, both at the global level and in Latin America. This paper describes results of a study that analysed the social representations regarding the development, use, and reuse of OER by university teachers in their pedagogical practices. We conducted a study of 12 cases from Latin American universities using data analysis based on Grounded Theory. The results show that the use and reuse of OER lacks of public and institutional policies. The main agents are teachers organised in teams that support OER adoption. The reasons that encourage the creation of OER are mainly intrinsic, such as the pleasure derived from contributing and sharing, as well as external and related to professional development needs from the reflection on one's own educational practice. Educators consider it essential to evaluate the resources created so that they can be reused in continuous improvement processes. Commercial use and misappropriation of the works are two of the main tensions identified. The community factor of teaching guides most behaviours in OER adoption in educational institutions and is presented as an inherent part of the development and transformation of the curriculum.

Introduction
Spanning over 20 years, the practice of creation, use, and open sharing of digital educational resources is far from being widespread in educational environments. Besides, Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption in the Global South is not yet fully understood . This paper presents the results of a study on OER adoption in Latin American (LATAM) Higher Education (HE) context. The study focuses on the social representations (Moscovici, 2006) regarding the development, use, and reuse of OER by university teachers in their pedagogical practices.
From an interpretative paradigm, we implemented a qualitative methodology on 12 cases from three public universities in three countries. Findings lead to identify three core categories: Institutional factors of the OER adoption; Attitudes and perceptions towards OER; and Practices of use, creation, and sharing of OER . This paper is organised as follows: First, we introduce state of the arts on qualitative and mixed studies about the adoption of OER, then we explain the research methodology, and, finally, we address the results, discussion, and the most significant conclusions.

State of the Arts
Many efforts have been made to evaluate OER adoption, creating frameworks, and good practices.
Despite the difficulties, OER dissemination has reached a maturity level, especially since the appearance of national and regional policies in the English-speaking north (Mulder, 2013;Stacey, 2013;de Langen, 2013;Falconer, Littlejohn, McGill, & Beetham, 2016).
However, Hodgkinson-Williams and  show that 51% of academics from nine developing countries have used OER, with slightly different rates by region.
OER adoption in LATAM HE has been sparsely studied, showing early stages of adoption, mainly caused by the lack of visibility, mobilisation, and articulation of existing experiences (Inamorato, Cobo & Costa, 2012;Abeywardena & Westermann, 2017).
Findings show that most university teachers are still not familiar with OER, and that these are not considered in the decision-making process regarding which educational materials will be used.
Several studies identify teachers as the main agents of the OER adoption decision-making process (Allen & Seaman, 2014;Cox, 2017;D'Antoni, 2008;Rolfe, 2012) and the prevailing institutional culture as a relevant factor (Cox, 2017). Tensions related to educators' practice and OER are aligned with educators' practice, professional development, and wider societal factors in the educational field (Kaatrakoski et al., 2016).
Regarding policies, incentives, and academic promotion are enabling conditions for the adoption by academics (Annand & Jensen, 2017;Conole, 2013;Hylén, 2006;McAndrew, Farrow, Elliott-Cirigottis, & Law, 2012;Nkuyubwatsi, 2017). Nevertheless, recent studies show that policies can act as a motivating factor depending on the type of institutional culture it is embedded (Cox, 2017), and simultaneously lead to changes to both organisational and individual practice (Kaatrakoski et al., 2016).

Purpose of the Study
This study aims at identifying the adoption dimensions of OER by university teachers in LATAM HE.
The study deepens up in understanding social representations (Moscovici, 1979;Moscovici, 2006) of lecturers regarding OER in the context of their institutions and teaching practices.
The research questions that guided the study were:  RQ1. What factors influence the adoption of OER among lecturers in LATAM universities?  RQ2. How can these factors be addressed for enhancing the use and reuse of OER in LATAM universities?

Methodology
The study falls within the interpretive paradigm, where situated interpretations are used to understand social life. The methodological approach is qualitative, based on Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967;Strauss & Corbin, 1990;Miles & Huberman, 1999;Charmaz, 2006).
Grounded theory both guides the research and the researcher, towards theoretical development (Charmaz & Mitchell, 2001). What is constructed through this process is substantive theory, that is, theory that can be applied only to the area that is being analysed. Validation of the theoretical scheme with other actors, and the inclusion of new cases, people, or groups, can be developed.

Participants
We selected a population of university teachers who participated by sending their own educational resources to the Latin American Conference on Learning Technologies (LACLO) Learning Objects Contest, for the years 2012, 2013, and 2014.
The selection of this community is based on the understanding that participants are close enough to the creation and publication of digital educational resources to have the relevant experience within the subject of study. Although they may not necessarily be experts, they can be identified as representatives of the population of university teachers who create, use, and share digital educational resources.
On the database, a longitudinal quantitative study was conducted to characterise the population by pointing out some of its main demographic characteristics (Rodés, Pelerino, Gewerc, & Llamas, 2016).
The variables number, country, gender, discipline, and institution were analysed.

Theoretical Sampling
The aim of theoretical sampling is to compare events, incidents, or situations, to determine how a category can differ in terms of its properties and dimensions.
The participants were puposefully selected to maximise the differences between comparison groups, established by country, institution, disciplines, gender, and communities or work teams. Therefore, the dataset was designed as follows: a country from each group according to the degree of participation classification (high, medium, low) presented above. We selected Venezuela, Costa Rica,

Data Collection
We chose an open thematic interview to identify attitudes and practices regarding open educational resources.
The interviews were conducted between November 2015 and September 2016 using Google Hangouts live, which allowed us to make video calls and to record them automatically on YouTube. Between two and three interviews were conducted with each subject, lasting between 40 min and 1h 20 min each.
Over 24 hours of recordings were obtained.

Data Analysis
To perform the analysis we transcribed the interviews and then studied the resulting texts with the qualitative data analysis software Maxqda. The first stage of the analysis was coding the data, an analytical process through which data is fragmented, conceptualised, and integrated as theory through successive comparison processes (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The analysis led to developing 500 codes and identifying 3,547 text segments from the interviews that were identified through open codification-focusing on the main idea and not on pre-established dimensions.
The analysis results allowed us to identify three categories: 1) institutional components of OER adoption; 2) practices of use, creation, and sharing OER; and 3) knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions towards OER. In UNED, we identified a structured, standardised, and planned work method to produce resources, based on the work of content experts, instructional designers, and graphic designers, in addition to a connection with distance education [12].

Institutional Components of OER Adoption
All the work teams studied have a member who becomes the leader and whom others recognise as a source of reference and initiatives in the field of OER. The academic structures include teams that manage VLEs, libraries, and editorial committees.

Practices of Use, Creation, and Sharing of Open Educational Resources
Reasons that drive the creation of OER. We identified the following reasons driving the creation of educational resources in the respondents' discourse: how widespread classrooms are; distance education; students' academic paths (high school-university transition and graduation); the demand for making teaching methodologies more active; use of digital technologies in education; personalisation of learning; motivating students; theory-practice relationship; practice, experimentation, and simulation; students' need to have a good command of scientific language; support to students so they develop specific expertise; and encouraging reflexivity and critical Within these validation processes, they assess various aspects of educational resources: multimedia and digital design, content, compliance with learning objectives, and their contribution to academic performance.
The review process gives rise to changes in formats and media, within the process of integration of technologies to education.
Within reuse, there is an emerging concept: the so-called "inspiration," which refers to the process of All respondents mention authorship attribution as a requirement for sharing educational resources.
They agree that licensed resources must be shared in the same way, and there is evidence of a broad rejection of the use of licenses that allow derivative works to be marketed. Commercial use is linked with the need to monitor the balance between creation and consumption of educational resources, in particular between institutions. In addition, they link the licensing that allows for its commercial use with problems related to the globalisation and privatisation of higher education and the fear of indiscriminate appropriation of the resources developed by them [24].
They also discuss about attitudes to be promoted in the areas in which material is shared, particularly regarding caring for resources, rejecting copyright infringement and for-profit use. Another emerging and significant aspect is the requirement to monitor and approve modifications.
Regarding authorship practices, there are several emerging models. First, individual authorship, according to which the work belongs to the teacher that created it. A second model acknowledges the role of the university within which the work was produced. Here, authorship would be shared between the teacher and the university. The third model integrates the two above, and includes the relevance of other roles that participate in the creation of the work: graphic designers, educators, content specialists, etc. This points to a model of collaborative or collective authorship.
Enablers for OER adoption. Pleasure and willingness to contribute are the first reasons mentioned for adopting open creation and publication models. The second reason is the promotion of professionalisation and academic development associated with a teaching career, regarding concepts such as recognition, internationalisation, and visibility.
Willingness to share comes in third in order of relevance, and respondents link it to other concepts such as reuse, utility, quality of content, openness, use, and comparison.
Other relevant reasons identified were socialising knowledge, collaborating, making other people's work easier, helping others, collaborative work, and support teaching. These ideas appear linked to concepts such as facilitating students' access, motivating students, and promoting knowledge creation.
The creation of communities (establishing links, exchanging experiences, and receiving contributions from others) is a motivation that appears in their discourse, though not significantly. The same happens with the improvement and transformation of practices (associated to concepts such as change, analysis, and reflection). Though less frequently, there are reasons related to catering to the needs of the digital society, multidisciplinarity, being a way of life, or a duty. Remuneration is the least relevant aspect in the list of motivations for adopting open publishing models.

Perceived barriers for OER adoption. As identified in the interviews, the main barrier to
the adoption of open publishing is the lack of understanding regarding copyright, as well as the fear of appropriating others' works. The following aspect in order of relevance is the time it takes to search for, reuse, and create educational resources. The reference made to the quality of the works and the conditions that would determine the "publishability" of resources is also relevant; these are works designed, in principle, to support teaching, so they feel a fear of exposure. The lack of training and knowledge on OER are also barriers, as well as the lack of recognition and of institutional support.
Other barriers found less frequently are problems in the searching processes, and finally, localisation and adaptation of educational resources to educational contexts and situations.

Discussion
This study identifies dimensions of the adoption of OER in higher education in Latin America.
Working in three countries, with 12 cases including respondents from three public universities, we aimed to contribute to the studies on adoption conducted within the Open Education movement in a variety of contexts and regions.
Our research contributes to the development of substantive theory, identifying practices and modalities followed by university teachers for creating, publishing, sharing, and reusing educational resources, as well as the inclusion of OER philosophy in these processes.
First, it contributes to the study of the barriers and motivations involved in the adoption of OER in university teaching practices, including the Latin American perspective, allowing for additional comparisons across the vast corpus of existing research at an international level on the subject.
The results are consistent with research conducted by Allen and Seaman (2014) and Hilton (2016).
Not all the cases studied reflect a wide knowledge of OER as a concept, knowledge of open licensing systems, or the use of OER repositories for searches. However, in relation to perceptions of, and attitudes toward, open publication and sharing, these findings showcase a general willingness to adopt open publishing models. Therefore the adoption of OER appears to be encouraged in university education (See also Nkuyubwatsi, 2017;Cox, 2017;Reed, 2012;Rolfe, 2012).
This study has identified the role of decision-making as key for teachers regarding the development of educational resources, which is consistent with previous findings (See Allen & Seaman, 2014;Cox, 2017;D'Antoni, 2008;Rolfe, 2012). Given the lack of regulation and systematic and widespread action frameworks, both the creation of educational resources and publication procedures depend on the will and decision of the faculty (Cox, 2017;Reed, 2012;Rolfe, 2012). Therefore, faculty empowerment is essential for the adoption of open publication practices.
Our study showcases the links between the educators' experiences of online teaching and the adoption of OER, which was also identified in Zhang and Li (2017). This can be seen in both the origins and formation of work groups, and in the close connection between the development and adaptation of teaching resources into digital formats, as a way to embed technologies in university teaching.
The findings on reuse practices are relevant as well because they allow us to observe the processes of searching and reusing as naturalised strategies that are part of the development of educational resources, in context with availability to technology. Consistent with Petrides et al. (2008), we found that the digitisation of pre-existing materials was one of the versioning practices, but not the only nor the most prevalent one.
The emerging concept of "inspiration" is another vector identified for the adoption of the OER philosophy, as long as promotion and training strategies are developed to empower teachers with essential information on open source licensing, OER repositories and good versioning practices.
Commercial use and misappropriation of the works is one of the main tensions identified in our study, similar to the findings of Falconer et al. (2016). As in Cox and Trotter (2016) and Rolfe (2012), core motivation is one of the factors for contributing and sharing, which is typical of academic communities focused on the common good. The educational communities studied follow an altruistic philosophy that includes the traditions and missions of the free, co-governed public universities in Latin America, showing the impact of institutional culture. These traditions collide with practices of misappropriation, imbalances between creation and consumption in the privatisation of education and the potential for-profit use of the works. However, contrary to numerous studies (e.g., Annand & Jensen, 2017;Conole, 2013;Hylén, 2006;McAndrew et al., 2012;Nkuyubwatsi, 2017), a very relevant finding was identifying the creation of teaching resources as part of the tasks already compensated through an academics' salary, and the use of this argument as a basis for the adoption of open publication practices that promote the dissemination of knowledge as part of the social function of their teaching role and of the Latin American universities'social missions.

Conclusions
Regarding the factors influencing the adoption of OER among lecturers in LATAM universities, the results of this study show that the creation, use, and reuse of OER in Latin American HEIs requires supportive institutional policies to be improved. However, a significant number of communities and work teams support their adoption. The collaborative component is an interface between the teaching staff and the institution allowing to overcome the absence of institutional policies, favoring the adoption of OER.
We identified a series of vectors for the adoption, showing great potential for the design of widespread and coordinated strategies and policies that promote the visibility, articulation, and consolidation of actions in OER for Latin America, in particular from the public universities and as part of its egalitarian tradition and mission .
Among the barriers to the adoption of OER, the lack of knowledge in copyright, issues related to the quality of works, and fear of exposure, are the findings that may guide the design of strategies for dissemination and training, empowering teachers with the necessary knowledge to act with confidence in the contexts of open digital publication.
The reasons that have driven the creation of OER are mainly intrinsic factors, such as the pleasure of contributing and sharing, and professional development from reflecting on their own practice, as well as external demands. It is here that it becomes essential to evaluate the resources created so that they can be reused for continuous improvement processes .
The community factor of teaching guides most behaviours in educational institutions and is presented as an inherent part of the development and transformation of the curriculum . In that sense, any technological tool and methodological framework around OER, in particular those linked to the development of educational repositories, should integrate the sharing and collaborative planning of activities and training courses within the creation of educational communities, allowing for features such as version tracking and tracing, collaborative creation, collaborative evaluation, among others.