In recent years, the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has achieved considerable success within the academic community with respect to advocacy of the concept. As a result, many organisations such as the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), UNESCO and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in partnership with academic institutions, have produced large volumes of OER. However, due to the disconnected nature and the constant expansion of volume, many repositories hosting these resources are less frequented or completely ignored by OER users. i.e. only the more popular OER repositories such as Connexions and WikiEducator are frequent stops in the search for academically useful resources. This limitation, in turn, reduces the access to high quality resources hidden away in isolated repositories hosted by lesser known sources. Furthermore, the time and labour required to trawl these repositories with a view of identifying the most suitable OER is tantamount to creating ones’ own material from scratch. As a solution to these issues, this paper discusses how the OERScout technology framework uses a “faceted search” approach to locate the most desirable OER from sources spread throughout the globe. It also highlights how focused searching can greatly improve access to OER readily useable in teaching and learning.

1. OERScout
Widening Access to OER through
Faceted Search
Ishan Abeywardena, Chee Seng Chan & V. Balaji
7th Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF7)
Abuja, Nigeria
6th December 2013

2. • The Search Dilemma
• Faceted Search
• OERScout

4. Curation
Content repositories
Portal repositories
Content and portal repositories
McGreal, R. (2010). Open Educational Resource Repositories: An Analysis. Proceedings: The 3rd Annual Forum on e-Learning
Excellence, 1-3 February 2010, Dubai, UAE.

5. So…how do I find the material I need for my teaching?

7. Google “Advanced Search” results for OER on Chemistry (24th May 2012)

8. Literature
• ...The problem is in finding the resources, and more correctly finding the
“right” resources. Using a regular search engine like Google to find content
is not always a viable option as it will generate too many answers. There
is, hence, a need to easily find relevant content...” (Hatakka, 2009)
• “searching this way (using existing search engines such as Google) might be
a long and painful process as most of the results are not usable for
educational purposes” (Pirkkalainen & Pawlowski, 2010)
• No single search engine is still able to locate resources from all the OER
repositories (West & Victor, 2011)
• One of the major barriers to the use and re-use of OER is the difficulty of
finding quality OER matching a specific context (Dichev & Dicheva, 2012)
• “…the problem with open content is not the lack of available resources on
the Internet but the inability to locate suitable resources for academic use”
(Unwin, 2005).

9. Native search mechanisms perhaps?

10. Native Search in Repositories
Identify which material to look for (e.g. integration, C++ programming)
Identify the search queries (e.g. “undergraduate mathematics”)
Locate repository (word of mouth, some link somewhere, go to the more popular
repositories)
Run multiple queries to find resources
Read each resource to identify the usefulness (openness, access, relevance)
Identify useful resources
Repeat steps 3-6 on multiple repositories (hundreds to thousands…..)

11. Frustrated??

12. The Declaration
i. Facilitate finding, retrieving
and sharing of OER.
Encourage the
development of userfriendly tools to locate and
retrieve OER that are
specific and relevant to
particular needs.
(UNESCO Paris OER Declaration, 2012)
UNESCO. (2012). Paris OER Declaration, Retrieved September18, 2012 from
http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/Paris%20OER%20Declaration_01.pdf

13. How useful is a resource really?

14. Measures of usefulness
Desirability
Relevance
Openness
Accessibility

15. What is Desirability?
Less useful resources are less desirable for teaching and learning needs….

16. Free Text Search vs. Directory Search
Free Text
Directory

17. Faceted Search
OERScout
Second Facet
“Suggested Terms”
First Facet
“Suggested Terms”
“Astrophysics”
Desirability
Resources ranked
according to the
Desirability
“Stars”

18. OERScout
 READS
 LEARNS
 RECOMMENDS

19. Advantages of OERScout
• Generates ranked lists of
relevant OER
• Incorporates the
Desirability framework
• Uses faceted search
• Repository and metadata
independent

21. Acknowledgments
This research project is funded:
•
as part of a doctoral research through the Grant (# 102791) generously made by the
International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada through an umbrella
study on Openness and Quality in Asian Distance Education.
•
by the Education Assistance Program (EAP) of Wawasan Open University, Malaysia.
Ishan Sudeera Abeywardena acknowledges the support:
•
by the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada in the form of a grant to attend the 7th
Pan-Commonwealth Forum in Abuja, Nigeria;
•
by the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of
Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he is currently pursuing his doctoral
research in Computer Science;
•
by the School of Science and Technology, Wawasan Open University, 54 Jalan Sultan
Ahmad Shah, 10050, Penang, Malaysia where he is currently employed.

22. • Ishan Sudeera Abeywardena
Deputy Dean and Senior Lecturer
School of Science and Technology, Wawasan Open University, 54
Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, Penang, 10050, Malaysia.
e-mail: ishansa@wou.edu.my
• Chee Seng Chan
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Computer Science and Information
Technology, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
e-mail: cs.chan@um.edu.my
• Venkataraman Balaji
Director, Technology & Knowledge Management
Commonwealth of Learning, 1055 West Hastings Street, Suite
1200, Vancouver, BC V6E 2E9, CANADA
e-mail: vbalaji@col.org