International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 102

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
more flexibility for the addition and alteration
of interactive H5P elements.
Conclusion
The University of Alberta’s OUC
project reveals that collaborative
OER development for the benefit
of multiple audiences highlights the
role of openness for re-use as a balancing
factor, ensuring that content is both
accurate and engaging for the broadest
possible range of audiences. Moreover,
a stronger OER development focus on
downstream re-use and content customization,
which has been noted as a
weakness in existing OER development
practices, seems to serve as a synergistic
means of improving both the appeal
and reach of open educational content.
There are also some important
limitations to note in drawing general
recommendations from a single case
study. This OER project is not necessarily
comparable to others, particularly
given the size of the project in terms
of budget and team members involved.
More importantly, one factor driving
the success of the project has been the
cordial and positive nature of the collaborations
among the team members.
Personal dynamics are a key aspect of
any successful collaboration, and some
degree of the project’s success is reflective
of the fact that several of the individuals
involved had previously collaborated
in various capacities. Such
internal dynamics are not easily reproducible.
As indicated by this case study,
there is a clear role for librarians as substantive
collaborators on OER projects,
particularly where those projects align
with LIS subject expertise such as copyright
in this case, or in areas including
information and digital literacy, data
management, and scholarly communications.
References
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