Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities

Several scholars and organizations suggest that institutional policy is a key enabling factor for academics to contribute their teaching materials as open educational resources (OER). But given the diversity of institutions comprising the higher education sector—and the administrative and financial...

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Autores principales:	Glenda Cox, Henry Trotter
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2016
Materias:	open educational resources OER institutional culture policy structure culture Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4ee7c7de5d5f4f25802e5b58ac0cd941
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4ee7c7de5d5f4f25802e5b58ac0cd9412021-12-02T17:16:00ZInstitutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.25231492-3831https://doaj.org/article/4ee7c7de5d5f4f25802e5b58ac0cd9412016-09-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2523https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 Several scholars and organizations suggest that institutional policy is a key enabling factor for academics to contribute their teaching materials as open educational resources (OER). But given the diversity of institutions comprising the higher education sector—and the administrative and financial challenges facing many institutions in the Global South—it is not always clear which type of policy would work best in a given context. Some policies might act simply as a “hygienic” factor (a necessary but not sufficient variable in promoting OER activity) while others might act as a “motivating” factor (incentivizing OER activity either among individual academics or the institution as a whole). In this paper, we argue that the key determination in whether a policy acts as a hygienic or motivating factor depends on the type of institutional culture into which it is embedded. This means that the success of a proposed OER-related policy intervention is mediated by an institution’s existing policy structure, its prevailing social culture and academics’ own agency (the three components of what we’re calling “institutional culture”). Thus, understanding how structure, culture, and agency interact at an institution offers insights into how OER policy development could proceed there, if at all. Based on our research at three South African universities, each with their distinct institutional cultures, we explore which type of interventions might actually work best for motivating OER activity in these differing institutional contexts. Glenda CoxHenry TrotterAthabasca University Pressarticleopen educational resourcesOERinstitutional culturepolicystructurecultureSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 17, Iss 5 (2016)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	open educational resources OER institutional culture policy structure culture Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	open educational resources OER institutional culture policy structure culture Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Glenda Cox Henry Trotter Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
description	Several scholars and organizations suggest that institutional policy is a key enabling factor for academics to contribute their teaching materials as open educational resources (OER). But given the diversity of institutions comprising the higher education sector—and the administrative and financial challenges facing many institutions in the Global South—it is not always clear which type of policy would work best in a given context. Some policies might act simply as a “hygienic” factor (a necessary but not sufficient variable in promoting OER activity) while others might act as a “motivating” factor (incentivizing OER activity either among individual academics or the institution as a whole). In this paper, we argue that the key determination in whether a policy acts as a hygienic or motivating factor depends on the type of institutional culture into which it is embedded. This means that the success of a proposed OER-related policy intervention is mediated by an institution’s existing policy structure, its prevailing social culture and academics’ own agency (the three components of what we’re calling “institutional culture”). Thus, understanding how structure, culture, and agency interact at an institution offers insights into how OER policy development could proceed there, if at all. Based on our research at three South African universities, each with their distinct institutional cultures, we explore which type of interventions might actually work best for motivating OER activity in these differing institutional contexts.
format	article
author	Glenda Cox Henry Trotter
author_facet	Glenda Cox Henry Trotter
author_sort	Glenda Cox
title	Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
title_short	Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
title_full	Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
title_fullStr	Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
title_full_unstemmed	Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities
title_sort	institutional culture and oer policy: how structure, culture, and agency mediate oer policy potential in south african universities
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2016
url	https://doaj.org/article/4ee7c7de5d5f4f25802e5b58ac0cd941
work_keys_str_mv	AT glendacox institutionalcultureandoerpolicyhowstructurecultureandagencymediateoerpolicypotentialinsouthafricanuniversities AT henrytrotter institutionalcultureandoerpolicyhowstructurecultureandagencymediateoerpolicypotentialinsouthafricanuniversities
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Institutional Culture and OER Policy: How Structure, Culture, and Agency Mediate OER Policy Potential in South African Universities

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