This article offers a critical reflection on the contemporary Open Educational Resource (OER) movement, its unquestioned investment in a collective "content fetish" and an educational "problem description" that focuses on issues of scarcity, access, and availability of quality materials. It also argues that OER proponents fail…

The rise of Open Educational Resources (OER) research provides data that Open Textbooks and other forms of OER may be one cost saving approach for college and university students. Yet little research has been conducted around the attitudes and perceptions of the students using these Open Textbooks. This paper examines the perceptions that students…

The growing demand for an increasingly skilled competitive workforce and the associated demand for change and responsiveness in the provision of technical vocational education and training (TVET) has led to the development of stronger links between New Zealand and the People's Republic of China. A collaborative model programme project aims to…

This study examines direct and indirect effects of family socioeconomic status (SES) and parental expectations on adolescents' mathematics and problem-solving achievement in mainland China. SES here is composed of family wealth, home educational resources, and parental education. Over 5,000 ninth-grade students in 5 geographical districts of China…

For those receiving funding from the UK HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resource Programme (2009-2012), the sustainability of project outputs was one of a number of essential goals. Our approach for the hosting and distribution of health and life science open educational resources (OER) was based on the utilisation of the WordPress.org blogging…

Digital technologies make possible new avenues for sharing and accessing literacy research and practices worldwide. Among the myriad of options available, web seminars have become popular online learning venues. The current investigation is part of Global Conversations in Literacy Research (GCLR), a longitudinal and qualitative study now in its…

This study was conducted as part of the OER for Skills Development project of COL, supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The objective of the study was to collect baseline data from Commonwealth institutions with respect to the development, use and reuse of OER; the availability of support; and challenges faced in fostering the…

This feature is designed to point "CBE-Life Sciences Education" readers to current articles of interest in life sciences education, as well as more general and noteworthy publications in education research. URLs are provided for the abstracts or full text of articles. This themed issue focuses on recent studies of concepts and…

Over the past years, a number of international initiatives that recognize the importance of sharing and reusing digital educational resources among educational communities through the use of Learning Object Repositories (LORs) have emerged. Typically, these initiatives focus on collecting digital educational resources that are offered by their…

One common way of conceptualising recent changes in university governance is by stating that the universities are being pushed towards a market-like setting where the uniqueness of each university's strategy and capacity for introducing organizational change is seen as necessary to improve the functioning of the university. We argue that the…

A 2005 sabbatical study revealed 24 unique curriculum materials centers or collections (CMCs) in Michigan colleges or universities. The focus of the study was to investigate the number, characteristics, and quality of these centers and collections supporting education faculty and students. A follow up 2014 study asked how or if the Michigan…

Performance-based funding is a resource distribution strategy used in education to reward service providers for the outcomes they achieve. Institutions that produce above-average results earn additional financing, while those that fall short may face funding reductions and may be targeted for technical assistance to address their performance…

The Digital Resource Exchange About Music (DREAM) is an online tool for exchanging information about digital learning tools for music education. DREAM was designed by our team to encourage music teachers to learn about digital resources related to learning to play a musical instrument, both in classroom and independent music studio settings. In…

This study aimed at portraying the implementation of inquiry-based chemistry learning in the city of Jambi, Indonesia during the curriculum reformation era. The study included pre-existing supports for and situational beliefs towards the use of the strategy. The results of a questionnaire (n=99) revealed that inquiry had been minimally adopted in…

Many universities offer career exploration courses designed to assist students in making effective career choices; however, it remains unclear whether pre-existing resources have a significant influence on students' ability to benefit. The purpose of this study was (a) to measure the efficacy of a career exploration course at an Appalachian…