Circumstances and Motives : About how Open Educational Resources are Produced, Used and Reused

With the purpose of finding the motives behind use, production and reuse of Open Educational Resources (OER), the writer has conducted a qualitative survey. The three main questions in this two years master‟s thesis are: • Why do people use others‟ unmodified OER? • Why do people produce OER? • Why do people alter and reuse OER? The theoretic framework is built around Manuel Castells‟ network society, with its social and efficiency seeking dimension, along with the Knowledge commons. Some pedagogy is included as well. A web survey was distributed to 796 users of the Connexions OER repository. 95 responses were received. The results reveal the users, producers and reusers to be a diverse crowd. The belief in sharing knowledge and information is put forth as a motive behind taking part in the OER circuit, as are more practical thoughts about use in teaching or learning situations. Continuing reuse of own material is popular. The quality of material and user interfaces are claimed to be barriers against use. The verdict is not un-animous however, and there are possible signs of improvement ahead. Furthermore, the community around OER is described with warmth and surprise by several respondents. Among faculty the support for OER is varied, but on the internet the communication and encouragement is glob-al