Open educational resources in economic research
Comprehensive topic area on Open Educational Resources in the Open Economics Guide of the ZBW
Open Educational Resources (OER) have become increasingly important in recent years, partly due to the high cost of textbooks, especially in the USA. In many subject areas, there are now a large number of freely available teaching and learning materials on the internet. OER are independent of type and medium and can include individual materials as well as complete courses or books. Other examples include syllabuses, course materials and exercises, wikis, videos, multimedia applications and podcasts. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) from universities and other educational institutions are also included, provided they are offered under an open licence. OER are a building block for achieving open education.
The integration of OER into curricula also supports the use of practical and interactive teaching methods. Open licences (usually Creative Commons licences) allow teachers to adapt materials and provide content directly tailored to the needs of their students and specific course objectives. In addition, the availability of OER in repositories facilitates networking and exchange between business researchers, which encourages the collective development and improvement of teaching materials.
Here is a selection of examples that provide an insight into the diversity of open educational resources in economics:
- Textbook: Introduction to Econometrics with R is an OER project of the University of Essen with open review process and created with Bookdown and Gitbook.
- Case studies: Open Case Studies from the University of British Columbia with a thematic focus on sustainability issues. You can research further textbooks and case studies at EconBiz, for example.
- Lectures: Open Yale Courses Economics: Open Yale – Economics
- Simulations: Econ Simulations contains simulations licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public Licence.
- Tutorials & Quizzes: eCampusOntario’s Catalogue of H5P Content contains downloadable content, interactive tutorials, quizzes, timelines and simulations on business and management, among other topics.
- Interactive learning elements: The project “Starting Point: Teaching Economics” offers “Interactive Lecture Demonstrations in Economics“
Economic networks, such as CORE Econ – Economics for a changing world and The Economics Network, contribute to the creation and collection of OER.
Open Educational Resources as a key topic in the Open Economics Guide
The inclusion of OER in the ZBW’s Open Economics Guide – the knowledge database for open science practices for economic research, which now has 125 background articles on open science, marks an important step towards the integration of open educational practices in economic research. According to the 2019 Open Science Study, OER play a role in the daily work of 45 per cent of all economic researchers.
The OER section of the Open Economics Guide now offers economic researchers comprehensive support to fully utilise the potential of open educational resources. Researchers are supported in recognising, using, creating and publishing OER through four key tools.
The guide makes it easier to enter the world of OER by showing how to recognise and use them effectively. Business researchers learn how to assess the quality of open learning and teaching materials and consider legal aspects in order to make an informed choice. It also identifies training and support opportunities to help researchers upskill in this area and optimise the use of OER in their teaching and research.
As effective research into OER is crucial to finding suitable and high-quality materials, the Open Economics Guide presents search strategies and provides an overview of repositories, portals and metasearch engines specifically for OER in economics. In addition, directories of open textbooks are presented that enable quick access to relevant teaching materials.
For researchers who want to create OER themselves, the Open Economics Guide also offers practical tips and resources. From the creation of open textbooks to other OER formats, it provides strategies for creation, including the use of freely licensed images, audio and video. The guide also helps to select suitable OER tools by area of application and provides criteria for selecting these tools.
As the publication of OER is an important step in sharing your own knowledge with the community, the Open Economics Guide provides information on suitable publication locations and important considerations when publishing OER. It explains how to choose the right licence and introduces the TULLU rule to correctly label OER and thus maximise the visibility and usability of resources. The TULLU rule provides essential information for the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and is composed as follows: (T) title of the material for clear identification, (U) author, who is named, (L) licence, which specifies the exact terms of use including the version number, (L) link to the licence, which enables access to the full licence text or, alternatively, a copy of the licence text, and (U) place of origin of the material, which is usually made accessible by a link. This precise information supports the transparent and legally compliant use of teaching and learning materials.
Why are open learning and teaching materials important?
The release of educational resources as OER enables free access to education for a larger group of people. This can be beneficial for both learners and teachers. The reasons in favour of OER include
- No acquisition costs: OER contribute to equal opportunities because no costs are incurred, for example for expensive textbooks.
- Availability: Digital OER are universally available and reach learners more quickly than printed textbooks, for example. They can also be used by many learners at the same time, no matter where they are.
- Knowledge transfer: OER can accelerate the dissemination of knowledge.
- Self-organisation: OER can promote self-determined learning.
- Time saving and customisability: Teachers can save time by reusing OER. They can also revise existing OER to suit their students and their own style.
- Potentially higher quality: Thanks to their open approach, OER offer more opportunities for feedback. This also includes (scientific) quality assurance as part of a more intensive peer review process. OER can also be continuously improved and updated.
- Teaching innovations: The exchange of OER promotes the emergence of new didactic concepts and the elimination of the traditional separation of learners and teachers in favour of dialogue-based formats. Students can be more easily involved in the further development of materials and contribute their ideas, new approaches and research questions.
- Reputation through teaching performance: Thanks to OER, the content created by teachers can reach more people and thus gain more visibility. The work performed in the course of teaching can thus be recognised more externally and enhance the reputation of teachers and their university.
About the Open Economics Guide:
With the Open Economics Guide, the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics offers a comprehensive platform that supports economic researchers in applying open science practices in their work. The guide not only provides information on the general application potential of open science practices, but the Open Economics Guide also offers valuable support by presenting specific digital tools that researchers can use to implement open access, open data, open code and open educational resources in their work. In addition to a continuously updated list of currently over 130 open science tools, the platform also offers a calendar of events, a blog and a regular newsletter.
*The text was written on 22 October 2024.
This text was translated on 20 January 2025 using DeeplPro.