Teaching as Part of Open Scholarship – Scientometric Indicators for Open Educational Resources

Abstract

<p>Scientometric indicators for recording Open Educational Resources (OER) could provide a way of quantitatively representing openness in higher education teaching. They could serve science policy monitoring and lead to greater visibility of higher education teaching in the recognition and reward system which is currently not the case. In order to explore opportunities and risks as well as potential effects of such OER indicators, focus group discussions with experts from the OER and/or scientometric community were conducted in summer 2022. This paper presents the results. In the group discussions, the complexity of OER materials became clear and participants also highlighted that their representation through scientometric indicators has to take into account specificities. The participants rated usage of OER indicators on an individual level, e. g. in the context of appointment procedures for academic staff, as highly problematic and not desirable. Scientometric indicators in general represent a reduction of complexity in this respect and do not reflect quality adequately. Institutional applications and applications to identify a cultural change towards open teaching practices, on the other hand, are rated rather positively. By such applications, the implementation of OER policies could be monitored and universities could develop a teaching profile based on openness.</p&gt