Report: Most educators are aware of open educational resources, don't understand their licensing
Most school districts, 77%, have made at least one full-course curriculum adoption decision in the last three years; according to a new report from the Babson Survey Research Group.
Teachers are most likely to have a role in those decisions, according to a study summary article published in THE Journal, with 93% of respondents saying they are decision-makers and another 6% saying they have a role in offering advice. District-level administrators, by contrast, came in second, with 75% of respondents naming them decision-makers and 19% saying they have a role in offering advice about full-course curriculum decisions. Principals rounded out the top three, named decision-makers by 73% of respondents and advisers by 18%.
The survey of more than 500 district decision-makers was designed to shed light on how districts make full-course curriculum adoption decisions and to what degree respondents are aware of open educational resources (OER) and have adopted them. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they are aware of OER, but when those same respondents were later asked if they also are aware of Creative Commons licensing, the number dropped to one-third.
Other key findings of the report include:
- 37% of respondents said they have considered adopting one or more OER curriculum;
- 16% of respondents have actually adopted an OER curriculum;
- larger districts, defined as those with more than 2,500 students, were most likely to have engaged in full-course curriculum decisions at a rate of 84%;
- mathematics was the most common subject of such decisions at 59%, followed by English language arts at 44%, science at 29% and history and social studies at 19%;
- selecting new material to meet changing standards was cited as the most common reason for change at 69%;
- the top three factors cited as “very important” or “critical” in an adoption decision were comprehensive content, the ability to work with existing technology and cost;
- In districts with high poverty ratios, cost was twice as likely, at 52%, to be cited as a critical consideration as in districts with low poverty rates, which cited cost only 26% of the time;
- most districts making full-course curriculum decisions are replacing materials that are 6 to 10 years old;
- 22% of districts with high child poverty rates reported having adopted OER curricula, while only 10% of districts with low child poverty rates said the same.