examples from developed countries may not be relevant for students originating from other cultures, the pedagogy used may not be appropriate, or the level of the content may not be appropriate (Albright, 2005; Unwin, 2005; Selinger 2004). Quality can mean different things (including the legacy of the host institution of the educator/OER producer in question); however, common quality issues include accuracy of the information and knowledge distributed in the content. Just because content is 'correct' it does not, however, mean that it is appropriate to use in every context (Attwell and Pumilia, 2007; Albright 2005). Quality is also a matter of trust: the users have to trust the information provided if they are to use it (D’Antoni 2006, Hylén 2006). Analysing three interpretive case studies (Teachers in Blangadesh, Content developers in Sri Lanka, UNESCO OTP’s users), Hattaka (2009) reveals how not only factors related to content issues (such as quality, relevance) but also language affect the actual reuse of OERs. Furthermore educational rules and restrictions in different countries, access, technical resources, intellectual property, awareness, computer literacy, teaching capacity, and teaching cultures play a role in limiting the adoption of open content. Among the reported findings, for instance, teachers “see the content development process as self‐development” (Hattaka, 2009: 7, 13) and are often reluctant to merely copy materials provided by others. Moreover, finding, assessing and modifying materials on the Internet is considered time consuming and excessively complex. Educators would find it easier to utilise materials with a finer granularity. An additional issue deals with the lack of trust towards open content not provided by recognized institutions. This implies a limit to the idea of Web 2.0 communities as accredited producers of educational open content. Issues of quality, technical expertise, notions of ownership and time considerations (even when institutional support in enabling reuse is provided) are consistent with findings reported by other researchers (see also Wilson and McAndrew, 2009). Other barriers include the tensions around contextualisation. During a Blended Learning Design workshop at Brunel University (as part of the OU's Learning Design Initiative69), we hosted a stall on OER to assist with raising awareness about OERs and finding relevant resources70. Some educators mentioned that they would be delighted to share their own resources, but were also sceptical of context‐independent resources. This suggests that if resources need to be 'granular' so they can be found easily, they also need to offer explicit learning designs, and an interactive interface to enable feedback and/or dialogue about 'reuse' in other contexts. Licensing regimes are another issue. Indeed, issues related to contextualization are key concerns. Some note that highly decontextualised OERs are reusable at larger scales and for a greater number of learning situations; yet this means that they are more expensive to produce and difficult to localise and personalise. This is because such resources (e.g. learning objects) by nature of their high level of granularity are devoid of the context that may be needed to make them comprehensible (e.g. Calverley and Shephard, 2003). Given that incorporation into instructional activities has been identified as a central feature of reuse (Recker et al., 2004), enabling the contextualisation of OER across various teaching and learning situations is vital to support this process. Conole and 69 70
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