Investigation of open educational resources adoption in higher education using Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory

Leila Jamel Menzli; Lassaad K Smirani; Jihane A Boulahia; Myriam Hadjouni

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09885

Investigation of open educational resources adoption in higher education using Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory

Heliyon. 2022 Jul 11;8(7):e09885. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09885. eCollection 2022 Jul.

Authors

Leila Jamel Menzli¹, Lassaad K Smirani^{2

3}, Jihane A Boulahia^{4

3}, Myriam Hadjouni⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Information Systems, College of Computer and Information Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia.
² Elearning Deanship and Distance Education, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia.
³ InnoV'COM Lab, University of Carthage, Tunisia.
⁴ College of Computer and Information Systems, Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Computer Sciences, College of Computer and Information Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh, 11671, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, and research resources provided under the Creative Commons (CC) licenses and can be freely used, shared, and modified. However, OER adoption is not widespread, and various barriers remain in the way of its growing emphasis. This article is aimed to investigate OER adoption in higher institutions by using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory. 422 responses to an online survey from faculty are gathered and analyzed, where adaptive attributes of DOI are adopted. The results of the descriptive method confirmed that relative advantage has a positive impact on faculty OER adoption. Indeed, positive impacts of observability and complexity are also shown. Ultimately, the findings from the structural model used, indicated that there is a positive correlation between trialability and respectively complexity and compatibility. Whereas relative advantage of OER impacts positively complexity and negatively compatibility. This study showed that it is not enough that faculty agree on OER benefits for teaching and research, the OER adoption rate must increase. Decision-makers in higher institutions are asked to perform additional OER initiatives to overcome challenges related to OER trialability, complexity, and compatibility.

Keywords: Higher education; OER Adoption; Open educational resources; Rogers' diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory.