Research on open educational resources (OER) and the challenge of the extended lifecycle

This chapter investigates research challenges specific to OER. Reviews of existing research have concluded that there have been insufficient analyses of the use, sharing and adaptation of OER. This chapter will cover three sources of information about OER usage, sharing and adaptation patterns: 1) automatic tracking of usage in OER repositories 2) user surveys and 3) qualitative studies. The potential of each of these information sources is examined and the real benefits in practice are presented. The main purpose is to examine the research potential of each of these information sources and how they can be combined to provide more insight into the practices of OER use, sharing and adaptation.