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CORRE: a framework for evaluating and
transforming teaching materials into
open educational resources
Samuel K. Nikoi
a
, Tania Rowlett
b
, Alejandro Armellini
b
& Gabi
Witthaus
b
a
Information Services, Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth
University , UK
b
University of Leicester , Leicester, UK
Published online: 13 Oct 2011.
To cite this article: Samuel K. Nikoi , Tania Rowlett , Alejandro Armellini & Gabi Witthaus (2011)
CORRE: a framework for evaluating and transforming teaching materials into open educational
resources, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 26:3, 191-207
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2011.611681
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CORRE: a framework for evaluating and transforming teaching
materials into open educational resources
Samuel K. Nikoi
a
*, Tania Rowlett
b
, Alejandro Armellini
b
and Gabi Witthaus
b
a
Information Services, Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth University, UK;
b
University of
Leicester, Leicester, UK
Open education resources (OER) are taking centre-stage in many higher educa-
tional institutions globally, driven by the need to raise institutional profiles,
improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning and achieve universal access
to education. Many academics attracted to the idea of turning teaching materials
into OER have, however, found the experience challenging and daunting. This
article puts forward a workflow framework that provides guidance for evaluating
existing teaching materials and turning them into OER using indicative ques-
tions against which they can be assessed on quality, ease of access, adaptability
and potential usefulness. Recommendations are also made for moving the OER
agenda forward, including changing institutional cultures, designing for open-
ness, quality assurance and sustainability.
Keywords: open educational resources; CORRE; OTTER; openness
Introduction
We live in a world that is increasingly becoming open. Openness has become a
defining quality of the twenty-first century, being associated with values such as
freedom, participation, empowerment and collaboration (Straub, 2008). One effect
of the global drive towards openness within higher education is the growing
interest, nationally and internationally, in what is now termed ‘open educational
resources’ (OER). OER are defined as digitised materials offered freely and
openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching,
learning and research (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
[OECD], 2007). The growing interest in OER is based on the vision of ‘unlock-
ing knowledge and empowering minds’ (MIT Open Courseware, 2002), driven
by the belief that ‘all human beings are endowed with a capacity to learn,
improve, and progress’ (Utah State University, 2008), and that education must
be accessible to all without constraint (Cape Town Open Education Declaration,
2007). Various arguments have been put forward in support of the vision of
making educational materials freely and openly available, including the
following:
The threat of monopoly on scientific knowledge by commercial pub-
lishing houses (OECD, 2007).
*Corresponding author. Email: skn@aber.ac.uk
Open LearningAquatic Insects
Vol. 26, No. 3, November 2011, 191–207
ISSN 0268-0513 print/ISSN 1469-9958 online
Ó 2011 The Open University
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2011.611681
http://www.tandfonline.com
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The need for increased transparency in the quality of teaching and
learning (McGill et al., 2008).
Competition amongst higher education institutions and also growing
public interest in lifelong learning (Yuan, MacNeil, & Kraan, 2009).
To achieve the above vision, systems and processes are needed for supporting the
development and release of OER to a worldwide audience. This article puts forward
an integrated workflow framework developed as part of a UK government-spon-
sored OER project at the University of Leicester called OTTER (Open, Transferable
and Technology-enabled Educational Resources).
Open education in UK higher education institutions
In the United Kingdom, government policy reflecting current thinking on OER can
be found in the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and Higher Education
Academy (HEA) OER initiative. The JISC and HEA made available £5.7 million
towards the development of OER across the United Kingdom by institutions, spe-
cialist subject centres and individual experts in 2009/10. The objective was twofold:
first, to increase global visibility of UK higher education via high-quality, free-
to-use OER, possibly leading to additional student recruitment, especially from
overseas; and second, to enhance the quality of learning materials used by UK
higher education programmes. The programme was designed to release different
types of materials, including both full courses and self-contained smaller resources.
This involved, among other aspects, copyright clearance and formatting for ease of
access. The first (pilot) phase of the programme came to an end in April 2010, with
many OER having been released into JorumOpen (2010) under appropriate Creative
Common licences that permit free use and adaptation.
Challenges faced by academics in the development of OER for teaching and
learning
Because of the new learning opportunities that OER offer, their rising popularity is
challenging established views on teaching and learning in higher education (Yuan,
MacNeil, & Kraan, 2009). Studies by Bates, Loddington, Manuel, and Oppenheim
(2007), Carey and Hanley (2008), and Harley (2008) have found discrepancies
between the rising culture of openness and existing approaches to teaching, with
issues such as lack of time to adapt OER, disciplinary differences and culture and
support for OER development emerging as major impediments for academic staff.
Related issues are the lack of suitable pedagogical forms of open teaching and
learning (Laurillard, 2008), intellectual property constraints (UNESCO, 2009), lack
of data on user experience (McGill et al., 2008), and the relevance and quality of
OER in current use (Commonwealth of Learning, 2009).
The problem for some academics goes beyond simply capacity to adapt and use
existing OER, to how to develop new OER that meet specific pedagogical needs.
To address this challenge, OER authoring and content management tools such as
eduCommons, LAMS, GLO Maker II, and Xerte have emerged to help academics
generate their own OER for teaching (Boyle & Bradley, 2009; Learning Activity
Management System, 2007; TechDis, 2009). For example, GLO Maker II aims to
‘empower teachers to develop highly adaptable multimedia learning objects with a
192 S.K. Nikoi et al.
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focus on pedagogical designs as the basis for reuse’ (Boyle & Bradley, 2009). The
answer to the challenges faced by academics, however, is not simply tools that sup-
port development of new OER, but rather frameworks and processes that support
turning existing teaching materials into OER (Lane, 2006), further raising many
questions and concerns around quality, training and support and sustainability.
Another area of challenge for academics is copyright. It has been observed that
current copyright laws are, to some extent at least, incompatible with the core prin-
ciples of OER, and calls have been made for alternative copyright laws more suited
to the needs of the OER community and which allow for (re)usability, availability
across different learning platforms and domains, and trackability (Bissell, 2009;
Hodgkinson-William & Gray, 2009). Whilst Creative Commons (2001) licences,
especially ccLearn, provide the legal tool that supports the redistribution and remix-
ing of OER, it needs to be pointed out that many academics are using materials that
are not entirely theirs and therefore feel reluctant to make them open (Cormier,
2009) even with Creative Commons.
The key challenges faced by academics in turning teaching materials into OER
can thus be summarised as follows:
Operational, related to the time and effort required to develop and adapt
OER
Pedagogical, related to the suitability and reusability of OER in learning
design.
Legal, related to copyright frameworks that support free sharing and
remix.
Technical, related to tools, systems, formatting and standardisation.
Sustainability linked to production processes and evidence (or the lack of
it) of the impact of OER.
Table 1. Production methods and approaches.
Institution Method or approach
Open University, UK OER production via three approaches:
a. Integrity model: OER is kept very similar to the original
teaching material
b. Essence model: the source material for the OER is cut back to
essential features.
c. Remix model: provision is made for sections of the material to
be dropped or altered, and new ones added.
MIT, USA Production is supported by the OpenCourseWare platform as
follows:
a. Pilot: this involves low level production of selected courses
b. Ramp-up: wider offering of courses
c. Steady-state: a programme of publishing new and updated
courses
Connexions (Rice
University), USA
A collaborative non-institutional approach:
a. Inter-institutional and development of modular content
b. Links worldwide communities of authors to collaboratively
create, expand, revise, and maintain a Content Commons.
Open Learning 193
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Over the years, various OER production frameworks and approaches have emerged
offering support for academics to produce quality and legally usable OERs. Notable
examples are shown in Table 1.
Whilst many such frameworks exist to support academics in dealing with the
numerous OER development challenges, they can be a source of confusion due to
their disparate nature and their meta-level description of processes. A simple, user-
friendly, workflow framework that addresses the operational issues and challenges
holistically and provides a step-by-step process is bound to be of value to academics
(Geser, 2007, p. 12). Creating such a framework was one objective of OTTER.
The Open Transferable Technology-enabled Educational Resources (OTTER)
project
OTTER was one of seven JISC-funded and HEA-funded institutional pilot projects
on OER. The project ran from May 2009 to April 2010 and enabled the evaluation
of systems and processes designed to support individuals, teams and departments at
the University of Leicester in releasing high-quality OER. OTTER made extensive
use of learning technologies and maximised the affordances of the JorumOpen plat-
form and Plone, the University of Leicester’s own institutional open source platform.
As a pilot, OTTER was designed to achieve the following objectives:
Promote University of Leicester and UK higher education globally.
Create opportunities to transform existing digital content into OER.
Increase student satisfaction with the availability of quality learning mate-
rials.
Contribute to the growth of the higher education sector internationally
through the release of free, high-quality resources for reuse and repurpos-
ing.
A means of capitalising on the investment that has already been made at
University of Leicester in digital content, for different modes of learning
using Web 2.0 applications.
OTTER produced OER through collaboration with 13 academic partners, including
academic departments as diverse as Genetics and Law; academic units such as the
Beyond Distance Research Alliance and the Staff Development Centre; and an
international partner in the form of the South African Institute of Distance
Education.
As a pilot project, OTTER was an exemplar for the long-term adoption of
the concept of OER at University of Leicester. One major outcome of OTTER
was a workflow framework – CORRE (Content–Openness–Reuse/Repurpose–
Evidence) designed to support the evaluation of existing teaching and learning
materials and their transformation into OER, through the use of indicative
questions and evidence. CORRE arose out of a need for a structured, compe-
tence-based, workflow framework incorporating operational, pedagogical, legal,
technical, and sustainability dimensions of OER development and use. CORRE
can be used by individual academics or OER project teams working to
enhance and transform existing institutional teaching materials into OER. The
sections that follow examine this framework and its application during the
OTTER project.
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The Content–Openness–Reuse/Repurpose–Evidence (CORRE) framework
CORRE addresses the fundamental question of design for openness for OER practi-
tioners, focusing on the content, copyright, media formatting, release and tracking
of OER. Data for the development of CORRE derived from evaluation of the con-
tent of teaching materials gathered from academic staff at the University of Leices-
ter during OTTER. Data collection focused on course/module components, the
learning design, copyright and technical formats of the teaching material. CORRE
consists of four overarching stages and several sub-stages, each guided by detailed
indicative questions with a ‘sign off’ point at each stage. Figure 1 shows the key
elements of the CORRE framework. We then elaborate on each of the four stages
and sub-stages.
Content
The Content stage of CORRE is focused on identifying existing materials within an
institution. This stage is split into two sub-stages; namely, ‘gathering’ materials and
‘screening’ the content.
Gathering existing teaching materials
‘Gathering’ refers to the collection of existing teaching materials from university
academic staff for transformation into OER. A key aspect of gathering is
CORRE
: A framework for transforming teaching materials into OERs
Formatting for
accessibility
Conversion
Standardisation
Metadata
Pedagogical wrap
around
Upload to
repository
Institutional e.g.
Plone
National e.g.
JorumOpen
Others
C
ONTENT
R
EUSE &
R
EPURPOSE
E
VIDENCE
O
PENNESS
Gathering
Existing teaching
materials
Credit weighting
Memorandum of
understanding
Transformation
for usability
Decoupling
Scaffolding
Meshing
Editing
Internal
Validation
OER project team
Academic
partners
Students
Tracking
Downloads
Adaptations
User feedback
Emerging user
community
Screening
Learning and
teaching context
Media and format
Structure & layout
Language
Learning design
Rights clearance
Copyright
IPR
Licensing
External
Validation
Students
Librarians
Educators
Non-public teaching and
learning material
Open teaching and
learning material
Open Educational
Resources (OERs)
Figure 1. CORRE framework for transforming teaching materials into OERs. Note: IPR,
Intellectual Property Rights.
Open Learning 195
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ensuring that all relevant content is collected and that there are no gaps in mate-
rials supplied. At this early stage of the CORRE process, academic staff should
be made aware of what will be done to the material gathered and how the
resulting OER will be made available. This can be less than straightforward,
since many academics lack confidence in exposing to the wider world the teach-
ing materials they have developed for face-to-face teaching. Gathering can entail
much chasing and persuasion. The potential for misunderstanding the legal
(copyright) aspects of an OER can also be high. One way of tackling this prob-
lem is through a memorandum of understanding – the solution adopted by the
OTTER project. Once the material is gathered, a decision as to whether it should
proceed to the next stage of the CORRE process can be made by the OER team
and/or the author.
Screening content
‘Screening’ follows ‘gathering’ and involves a brief assessment of the work
required in transforming the material into OER based on the type of content, its
format, structure, language and learning design. At this stage, one is trying to
get a quick overview of the materials and to identify any potential barriers to
turning it into an OER. For example, does it refer to other items that are only
available within an institution’s virtual learning environment, but not to OER
users in the public domain; and if so, will this render the OER unusable?
Screening also includes an assessment of the language used; for example,
whether there is excessive use of jargon, and whether the learning outcomes can
be clearly understood. At the end of screening, a decision has to be made as to
whether the material is fit for turning into an OER. Where significant potential
obstacles are identified, clarification should be sought from the author, with a
view to negotiating possible modifications to the materials. If deemed usable,
aspects of the content to be addressed (e.g. copyright) should be flagged for
attention at the next stage of CORRE. Appendix 1 provides indicative questions
as a guide to the type of evidence that should be used at the ‘gathering’ and
‘screening’ sub-stages.
Openness
Once the ‘Content’ stage of CORRE is signed off, the teaching material can
move into the next stage of the evaluation process called ‘Openness’. Openness
reflects the legal, pedagogical and technical perspectives of turning existing
teaching materials into an OER, guided by specific questions by the OER team
to the academic staff who provided the teaching materials. Also at this stage of
the CORRE process, the OER evaluation team should address aspects of the
content that were flagged up for attention at the ‘Content’ stage (e.g. copyright
and media format). Each of the criteria used to ‘ open up’ teaching a material is
explained below.
Intellectual Property Rights clearance
Intellectual Property Rights clearance is primarily concerned with ensuring that
materials are legally compliant with regard to intellectual property and copyright
196 S.K. Nikoi et al.
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ownership. In OTTER, this was carried out by a copyright administrator, and was
critical to the successful processing of all materials as OER. Every single page,
screen or file submitted was checked for potential infringement of third-party rights.
This can be the most time-consuming part of the CORRE process, as it involves
not only checking the sources of third-party materials not owned by the institution,
but also liaison with external rights holders, who can range from individuals to
societies to large companies. If permission is not granted for the use of their materi-
als under a proposed Creative Commons licence, further discussion and negotiation
is needed to establish whether removal of the affected items would impact on use
of the resource as a whole. In the OTTER project we encountered challenges that
meant that some material did not qualify for use as OER. They included material
written by consultants who had not assigned rights to the university, material sub-
mitted which was based on a published book, materials which had screen shots
from Microsoft applications and the Blackboard interface, and materials where pub-
lishers were unwilling to allow the use in OER of extracts even in return for a fee
and full copyright acknowledgement. Appendix 2 provides indicative questions for
Intellectual Property Rights clearing materials.
Transformation
Transformation is the second sub-stage of ‘Openness’ in the CORRE process and
involves enhancing the pedagogical usability of existing teaching materials as OER
in other learning contexts. This sub-stage, like the Intellectual Property Rights sub-
stage, looks back at items flagged up during the ‘Content’ stage for redressing.
Within the OTTER project, this was carried out by an OER evaluator who assessed
whether changes needed to be made to the learning design, and whether the media
used could be replaced with more appropriate or easier-to-access media, or
enhanced with additional media (e.g. adding a podcast to print-based material).
Where appropriate, transformation also involved organising the materials into sec-
tions with sub-headings, correcting typographical errors in the text and removing
sections that made no sense in the absence of supplementary materials. The ‘trans-
formation’ process involved the following:
Decoupling: removing or amending elements of the teaching material
available only within the university’s virtual learning environment and not
accessible in the public domain.
Scaffolding: suggesting changes, where necessary, to ensure that learning
goals, and learning activities are properly aligned.
Meshing: adding or replacing images, audio files or tables, where neces-
sary, to make the content more engaging, and also checking that embed-
ded links are active.
Sequencing: making changes, where necessary, to the order of the content
for easy navigation.
Editing: for example, removing or explaining jargon and acronyms, and
checking that all references provided are correct.
The indicative questions for assessing the quality and usability of materials during
the ‘transformation’ sub-stage are shown in Appendix 3.
Open Learning 197
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Formatting and standardisation
The third and final subcategory of ‘Openness’ in the CORRE evaluation process,
involved formatting and standardising the teaching materials. This stage of the
CORRE process relates not just to the technical formats in which the material may
be made available, but also to whether the material is actually re-usable or re-adapt-
able in terms of size, visual appeal and discoverability. For example, materials were
checked to ascertain whether they were in a format that enabled remixing, and
whether they contained enough relevant metadata; that is, information used to
describe the resources to make them easy to find via common search engines.
Within the OTTER project, materials were published in as many formats as possible
to cater for the numerous ways of reusing and remixing them. Most of the resources
were originally print-based materials, which OTTER converted into RTF, MS Word
or PowerPoint, PDF and ePub (for e-book readers), as well as HTML (using the
Wimba Create software). Indicative questions used at the formatting and standardi-
sation sub-stage are shown in Appendix 4.
At all three sub-stages of making materials ‘open’ in the CORRE process, satis-
factory answers have to be found to all the indicative questions by the OER team,
in consultation with the author, before they are signed off to the ‘Reuse/Repurpose’
stage.
Reuse/Repurpose
Re-use and Re-purpose, the third stage of the CORRE evaluation process, is about
gathering views and opinions from stakeholders on the OER internally and exter-
nally to establish fitness for purpose in terms of reuse and repurposability/remixing.
Internal reality check (OER team, academic partners and students)
Within the OTTER project, an internal reality check or validation was carried out at
two levels. The first involved an OTTER team member checking that the materials
were legally ‘clean’, and had been thoroughly enhanced from the pedagogical and
technical points of view. Where necessary, the team member checked for any obvi-
ous errors and desk-edited the OER.
After validation by the OTTER team, the original authors (academic partners)
were invited to check and confirm that they were happy for the OER to be released
to JorumOpen, via completion of a short questionnaire. Any concerns expressed by
the authors were addressed when releasing the OER to the institution’s Plone con-
tent management system (described above). Links to OER were then added within
JorumOpen. The key advantage to hosting all the OER on the university’s own
Plone site, and placing only links in JorumOpen (as opposed to actual OER) was
that the OER could easily be updated locally without needing to be re-uploaded
unto JorumOpen and other repositories. As the field becomes more experienced,
and repositories more sophisticated, it will be possible to simply direct all OER
from the Plone site to a range of repositories via feeds.
Once the OER was released, students at the University of Leicester, as part of
the internal reality check, were invited to assess its quality and usability via an
online questionnaire.
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External reality check by other stakeholders
The external reality check involved stakeholders outside the University of Leicester
completing a web-based questionnaire to establish whether the OER did what it
claimed (e.g. whether learning goals and outcomes were clear). In the OTTER
project, students at the University College of Falmouth carried out the external real-
ity checks. Indicative questions for carrying out reality checks are provided in
Appendix 5.
Evidence
The final stage of the CORRE evaluation process, ‘Evidence’, is concerned with
assessing the value and usefulness of OER when released. The ‘Evidence’ stage is
designed to establish (as far as possible) who is using what resource, and how and
whether the end-users are simply using the OER ‘as is’ or remixing it. Such feed-
back is useful for making the business case regarding the impact of OER on teach-
ing and learning, and for future development and improvement of the OER for
sustainability. Within the OTTER project, the institution’s Plone site was enabled
with Google Analytics, which tracks access to the repository from global sources
and provides information on the number of visits and pages viewed from different
geographical locations. OTTER also implemented an optional questionnaire at the
point of download, to be completed by users, to assess the value and usefulness of
the OER. Indicative questions on tracking the OER are provided in Appendix 6.
Adapting and transferring CORRE to other settings
CORRE was developed and refined by the OTTER project team through practice
over 12 months. The framework has been shared and showcased at numerous
conferences (such as OER 10 (2010) and OpenLearning (2010)), workshops and
events, nationally and internationally. Different stakeholder groups (including aca-
demics, students and administrators) have offered input into the possible applica-
tions of and improvements to CORRE. The value of CORRE lies in its
simplicity, adaptability and transferability to diverse organisational contexts. For
example, the OSTRICH (OER Sustainability through Teaching & Research Inno-
vation: Cascading across HEIs [www.le.ac.uk/ostrich]) and TIGER (Transforming
Interprofessional Groups through Educational Resources [http://www.northampton.
ac.uk/tiger]) projects, funded as part of the second phase of the UK OER pro-
gramme (2010/11) are both trying out the framework. Since both projects are
developing OER from scratch (as well as converting existing teaching materials
into OER), contributors are being supported to use the CORRE model them-
selves, and the outcome is likely to be more devolved manifestations of CORRE
(tentatively named ‘d-CORRE’), which will differ from the more centralised
model adopted in OTTER.
Discussion
The process of developing the CORRE framework as part of the OTTER project
has shown that turning existing teaching materials into OER is not without chal-
lenges, as summarised below.
Open Learning 199
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Changing institutional culture and practices towards transparency
The success of OTTER was partly dependent on the support of senior management,
as well as an effective partnership between the OTTER team and academic depart-
ments across the University of Leicester. To this end, we argue that a successful
OER programme is as much about product development as it is about management
commitment and academic partnership building. We found in OTTER during the
gathering and screening of materials that the existence of an institutional culture
supportive of openness is crucial to the survival of an OER programme. Policies
that are supportive of openness in teaching and learning emphasising internal part-
nership building are likely to lead to the adoption of OER as a practice within insti-
tutions (Cormier, 2009). To be successful at embedding OER into teaching and
learning practices, higher educational institutions need to move from a consumable
product mindset to a cultural mindset that promotes transparency in teaching and
learning processes through policies in support of openness.
Design for openness and usability
We found through the development of the CORRE framework that academics are
not simply interested in technical tools and software that support production of
OER, but also purposeful learning design in support of openness. Evidence gathered
from academics through interviews also suggests that many academics want a
design structure into which they can place their own content and through which
they can adapt such content to their teaching (Nikoi, 2010). To be successful at cre-
ating and/or adapting teaching materials as OER, staff development departments
within higher education institutions might consider the introduction of training pro-
grammes that build the capacity of individual academics to design open teaching
and learning materials. One benefit of such training would be efficiency savings
arising from the ease of re-versioning teaching materials as OER rather than devel-
oping them each time from scratch.
Copyright and OER
The current model in many academic institutions is that courses are developed and
later transformed into OER, at which point staff have often forgotten where images
and other materials have come from. We found that many academics were in pos-
session of ‘pirated materials’ (for want of a better term) containing images, dia-
grams, and so forth, intended for use in a face-to-face teaching context, where
permissions from third-party copyright holders are generally not considered neces-
sary. Thus a considerable amount of time was spent by the OTTER team addressing
copyright issues. Despite the increasing popularity of Creative Commons licences
for OER, it appears that many academics are not well informed about these
licences. Opinions are divided (Bissell, 2009) on whether Creative Commons, an
offshoot of traditional copyright laws, is useful for OER development, and whether
copyright laws – which emerged from the industrial society – are in direct conflict
with the open knowledge society that OER are designed to promote. Effective han-
dling of copyright issues is critical to the success of OER, and public debate of
intellectual property laws that are fit for open access is essential as we move
towards greater openness in higher education.
200 S.K. Nikoi et al.
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Governance and quality assurance for OER reuse and repurpose
The quality of OER is important to academics – both those who are willing to
deposit their own materials, and those who re-use OER produced by others (McGill
et al., 2008). CORRE provides a tried-and-tested model for appropriate governance
mechanisms to ensure that OER meet the quality requirements for reuse and repur-
posing in other learning contexts. Quality review processes, including internal and
external user validation, are key. However, senior management need to decide
whether to adopt a centralised or decentralised quality assurance process. As noted
by Harley (2008), controlling quality by strictly enforcing pedagogical and produc-
tion standards may make it more difficult for material to be reused in other con-
texts. Based on our experience in OTTER, and interviews with academic and
senior management (Nikoi, 2010), we suggest a hybrid approach, where academic
members of staff take control over the quality of the OER during the design and
development stage and OER are released initially to an internal audience. To
release OER into the public domain, a monitoring and evaluation team comprising
a senior manager, academic staff member, copyright officer, librarian, marketing
personnel and students acting as editorial review board can add enormous value.
This way, the end user can have confidence in the integrity of OER released for
public use.
OER sustainability
A key aspect of the CORRE framework is the gathering of evidence regarding
the use of OER in teaching and learning. Evidence of the impact of OER on
teaching has become a subject of debate (Harley, 2008; McGill et al., 2008).
The problem of lack of evidence could be attributed partly to the persistence of
supply-driven OER development models, and partly to the concomitant neglect
of demand-led models (Hawkridge, Armellini, Nikoi, Rowlett, & Witthaus, 2010)
in response to expressed teaching and learning needs; for example, as identified
by OER Africa (2008). In the development of CORRE, we devised a mecha-
nism for gathering both quantitative and qualitative evidence on OER use, to
enable us to gather information about the context in which a need arose and
what difference an OER made. To assess the impact of OER on teaching and
learning at Leicester, triangulated methods of gathering data designed to under-
stand user needs and contextual factors were used. Our evidence suggests that
staff were happy to use OER as long as they could be aligned with their teach-
ing objectives (Nikoi, 2010). More research evidence, such as those published
by OpenLearn (McAndrew et al., 2009), MIT (2006, 2009) and OLCOS (Geser,
2007) is needed to make a convincing case about the value of OER and also to
inform the introduction of new OER models away from the supply development
model that has been prevalent to date.
Conclusion
Openness has become a defining feature of twenty-first-century education, and OER
are rapidly becoming a necessary hinge that enable the paradigm shift towards
openness. Despite their growing popularity, OER raise many questions regarding
policy, pedagogy, rights and technology. Rather than treat them as independent
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questions, the CORRE framework has sought to bring them together. The value of
CORRE as an integrated competence-based framework may lie not simply in its
suitability for transforming existing teaching materials into OER, but, more impor-
tantly, in its use of indicative questions for assessing the quality, ease of access,
adaptability of OER, and the potential impact of OER on teaching and learning.
Drawing on lessons learnt from the development of the CORRE framework, we
contend that the future of OER does not necessarily depend on tools and systems
that make them easily available, but rather on evidence of OER (re)use and their
impact on education.
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Appendix 1. Indicative questions for gathering and screening existing teaching
materials as OERs
Dimensions Indicative questions
Gathering Collection
(a) Has the material been used in an educational context within the
institution?
(b) Are there gaps in the materials?
Memorandum of understanding
(c) Has the contributing author(s) been identified?
(d) Has a memorandum of understanding been signed?
(e) Has an OER file type been agreed with the author(s), e.g.
e-reader, PDF, etc.?
Have the metadata been submitted by the author, including all
elements agreed by the project stakeholders? (e.g. title, author(s),
subject, keywords, description, level, date, relationship to other OERs)
Screening Learning context for which the material was designed
(a) What is the nature of the teaching material? For example:
Lecture notes or slides
Laboratory practical’s handout
Learning design as originally intended by the contributor
(b) What is the learning design, e.g. instructional? Case-based
learning? Problem-based learning or collaborative learning? etc.
(c) Are changes required to the learning goal(s), activity, etc.?
Media
(d) What format does the material come in, e.g. print-based, pod-
cast, video?
Structure
(e) Is the material standalone or does it refer to other materials?
(f) Does the material need ‘chunking’ into subsections for easy
navigation?
(g) Are web links embedded in the content and are they functional?
Language
(h) Are there editorial issues?
(i) Is the language offensive?
Originality and ownership
Are there immediate and obvious concerns about sources and third-
party rights within the materials received?
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Appendix 2. Indicative questions for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) clearance
Dimensions Indicative questions
Copyright
(a) Has the author granted permission to turn the materials into
OERs?
(b) Are there elements of the material where copyright is owned by
a third party, i.e. content not owned by the institution?
(c) Is the third-party material still covered by copyright?
(d) Have the policies, terms and conditions and licences of the
rights holders been checked by a university copyright adminis-
trator?
Licensing
(a) Has the third-party material been acknowledged in the correct
manner and have all licence requirements met?
(b) Have all third-party right holders granted written permission for
the material to be used as OER?
(c) If a quote or charge has been supplied for the use of third-party
material, is the quote acceptable, or is it cost effective to negoti-
ate?
(a) If there are multiple contributors (e.g. co-authors, illustrators,
learning technologists, editors), have all contributors been
identified and given permission to turn the materials into
OERs?
Attribution
(a) Has the appropriate Creative Commons licence been determined
and applied to the material?
Appendix 3. Indicative questions for transformation of content
Dimensions Indicative questions
Decoupling
(a) Is use of the content dependent on the institutional VLE?
(b) Should part of the content be removed or replaced?
(c) Is further material needed to be added to the content?
Scaffolding
(a) Should the learning design be changed?
(b) Should the learning goal(s) be changed or amended?
(c) Should the learning activity(ties) be changed or amended?
(Continued)
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Appendix 3. (Continued )
Dimensions Indicative questions
Meshing
(a) Should an image or audio file be added?
(b) Should images, audio files, tables/graphs be added, replaced or
removed?
(c) Are all embedded web links active?
Sequencing
(a) Is the teaching material going to be a standalone OER, or does
it require information in the metadata explaining how it links to
other OERs?
(b) Is the material well laid out with appropriate headings?
(c) Is it easy to navigate through the material?
Editing
(a) Are there offensive materials that need to be removed?
(b) Have all acronyms been explained?
(c) Has jargon been kept to a minimum and terms that are likely to
be unfamiliar to the audience (at the level stated in the metada-
ta) explained?
Appendix 4. Indicative questions on formatting and standardisation
Dimensions Indicative questions
Formatting
(a) Is the material available in the agreed formats as per the
memorandum of understanding?
(b) Is the material standalone, and if not, are the related OERs
specified in the metadata?
(c) Are special tools or software required by end user to use
the material? If so, are they stated?
(d) Does the end user require special technical help to use the
material? If so, is this stated?
Interoperability
(a) Is the material available on agreed delivery platforms?
(b) Is the file size of the material suitable for the repository?
(c) Is the material compatible with other repositories?, e.g.
JorumOpen
(d) Have metadata tags been added to the learning material,
e.g. authors, subject area, keywords, grade level (undergrad-
uate or postgraduate)?
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Appendix 5. Indicative questions for reality checking by internal and external
stakeholders
Dimensions Indicative questions
OER team
(a) Has the OER been transformed?
(b) Has the OER being IPR cleared?
(c) Has a suitable Creative Commons license been assigned
to the OER?
(d) Is the OER properly formatted for use?
(e) Is anything else required before the OER is released?
Academic staff
(a) Is the content of the OER accurate?
(b) Is the title suitable?
(c) Are the media appropriate?
(d) Is the structure and layout clear for user navigation?
(e) Is the assigned Creative Commons license acceptable?
(f) What else is required before release of the OER into a
public repository?
Students
(a) Is the learning goal clear?
(b) Is the learning activity or presentation engaging?
(c) Is it easy to navigate through the OER?
(d) On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 = very low and 5 = very
high, how would you rate the quality of this OER?
(e) Are further improvements required to the OER?
Other external
stakeholders
(f) Is the learning goal clear?
(g) Is the learning activity or presentation engaging?
(a) Is it easy to navigate through the OER?
(b) Are further improvements required to the OER?
Appendix 6. Indicative questions for tracking use of the OER
Dimensions Indicative questions
Tracking
(a) What is the title of the resource you used?
(b) From which geographical region of the world are you using this
resource?
(c) Are you a: student, lecturer, tutor, researcher, course designer,
other? (Please tick one. If ‘other’ please tell us what your role is.)
(d) Did you modify, change or adapt the resource? If ‘Yes’ in what way?
(e) Did you have any difficulties using the resource? If ‘Ye s’, can
you tell us about these difficulties?
(f) How useful was the resource for learning about this subject/topic?
(g) How would you rate the quality of resource?
(h) Would you recommend the resource to others?
(i) Are there any other comments you would like to make about
the resource?
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