The OER Adoption Pyramid

This Pyramid was developed in the course of a research paper focusing on why South African academics adopt OER or not. We understood that numerous factors shaped their choices, but it became apparent that some factors were "essential" to OER activity while others were merely "influential". To clarify which factors were required for any type of OER activity, we developed the OER Adoption Pyramid, which consolidates the factors into six hierarchically related categories: access, permission, awareness, capacity, availability and volition. Under these terms we can place numerous other sub-factors which emerge in the OER literature, such as quality, relevance, localisation, licensing, self-confidence, etc. Going from bottom to top, these categories move from factors that are largely externally defined to factors that are more personally determined. This pyramid reveals that, ultimately, only academics or institutions that possess all six of these attributes at the same time (even if in some modified or attenuated fashion) can engage in OER activity. If even one of these elements is missing, they cannot participate in OER activity.