Recommendations for Further Reading
Users who are looking for additional resources for their OER survey development might consider reviewing the following:
The Toolkit is an output of the Open Education Group, an interdisciplinary group of researchers who do work relating to OER. It comprises a guidebook written by the Open Education Group and a selection of surveys created by the group and their affiliates. In particular, the Guidebook to OER research can be a useful tool for OER advocates exploring the hypotheses that other researchers have explored before.
Similar to the Guidebook to OER, the OER Hub Researcher Pack is a publication put together by a group of researchers interested in advancing knowledge about OER. However, the OER Hub’s Researcher Pack is more focused, and contains a set of survey and interview questions that can be used and remixed by interested researchers.
Babson Survey Research Group OER Surveys
A standard in the field of OER research, the Babson Survey Research Group’s findings have been released annually since 2014, though their first OER survey was released in 2012. Over time, the coverage of their surveys has evolved, from covering only higher education institutions to covering primary and secondary institutions as well. Their surveys explore instructors’ reasons for choosing course materials, barriers and incentives to adopting OER, and awareness of OER.
Florida Student Textbook and Course Materials Surveys
Unlike many of the other surveys in this list, the Florida Student surveys have been conducted to gather data about the relationships which college students have with their course materials. The surveys collect information about how often and when students purchase required course materials and how the cost of these materials impact student learning.
The Colorado Open Educational Resources Council Report, 2017 [pdf]
The final resource on this list, the Colorado OER Council Report, contains three example surveys in its appendix, created and run by Tanya Spilovoy, director of open policy at the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET). These surveys serve two purposes: to determine what OER initiatives were already underway in the state of Colorado at the time of the survey’s dissemination and to collect feedback from students, parents, and instructors about their knowledge of and interest in free and open educational materials, like OER.
