Exploring Faculty Members' Views on the Use of Open Education Resources: A Case of the Namibian Open Distance Learning Institutions

Open educational resources (OER) are an innovation coined to bridge the educational divide by providing free quality learning resources. Consequently, this study explored the perception of the Namibian open and distance learning institutions' perception of the use of OER as a pedagogical approach. The study focused on faculty members from the three public ODL institutions in Namibia. Integrated theories with a qualitative case study and interpretivist paradigm underpin this study. Qualitative methodologies were used to collect and analyse data. This study showed an inconsistency between the faculty members' perceptions and OER use within the ODL institutions in Namibia. Although the faculty members displayed positive attitudes towards the use of OER, very little has been achieved in the use of OER within the institutions for the benefit of the Namibian ODL students. The study identified various challenges that impede OER adoption at the institutional level. Recommendations were formulated to address the identified challenges.


Introduction
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the field of open educational resources (OER) as a powerful tool to increase equitable access to quality educational resources and to promote technology-enabled learning. OER are freely accessible, available for use by anyone, and can be reused, re-purposed, and shared without copyright fees United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2016). OER is available in print and digital formats and can include audio, video, animated pictures, and full textbooks (Mohamedbhai, 2013). The UNESCO OER Paris Declaration of 2012 compels governments to release all publicly funded resources as OER to reduce the cost of education (UNESCO, 2016). Through the ratification of the Paris declaration, the Namibian government promotes the development and use of OER within the education system in the country. OER is primarily accessible via the internet increases flexibility in education by allowing learning to take place anywhere, anytime, and at no cost (Onaifo, 2016). Thus, OER supports the open distance learning (ODL) system, characterised by flexible learning methodologies. Moreover, in developing countries, OER can provide more comprehensive access to education to those in disadvantaged situations or who live in remote areas and cannot join educational institutions (Butcher, 2015;).
ODL in Namibia plays a crucial role in supporting Education for ALL and contributing to the realisation of vision 2030 goals by creating flexible learning opportunities (Kapenda et al., 2016). The ODL system in Namibia operates under the Namibian Open Learning Network Trust (NOLNeT) umbrella. Through NOLNeT, the publicly funded ODL institutions, namely, the Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL), the Centre for Open, Distance, and eLearning (UNAM-CODeL) at the University of Namibia, and the Centre for Open (COL) and Lifelong Learning at the University of Science and Technology (NUST-COLL) share and collaborate to maximise the utilisation of resources and to avoid duplications of services within the institutions (Ngatjizeko, 2014). One significant achievement of NOLNeT is developing the National Open and Distance Learning policy and an OER draft policy (Möwes, 2008).
Previous literature suggests that the concept of OER has gained undisputable momentum, and there is a significant progression in terms of the OER movement (Mohamedbhai, 2013). There is also no doubt that faculty members of ODL institutions are aware of the potential of OER to cut educational costs (De Hart et al., 2015). There is clear evidence in the literature of academics' skills in creating and sharing OER available in the public domain (Ferreira & Gauthier, 2013). Most studies, however, focus on how OER are created, shared, and licensed. Still, there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the use of OER by faculty members in ODL institutions.
In the context of the ODL institutions in Namibia, little has been achieved regarding the implementation and use of OER despite the effort made by COL and UNESCO to harness and promote open educational resources among member countries for broadening access to higher education and lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2016). Furthermore, the literature indicates that higher education institutions, including those offering distance learning, have not yet recognised the potential of OER in improving their programme offering (Jacobi & Van der Woert, 2012). Thus, the supply of quality learning resources to facilitate lifelong learning is restricted.
One of the authors of this paper was part of the COL OER project, which developed various OER in secondary education subjects in 2008, and since then developed a keen interest in the subject. Subsequently, the authors have recognised the potential of OER in enhancing access to quality learning resources for the Namibian ODL system. Because faculty members play a critical role in creating and using OER, this paper aims to investigate the Namibian ODL institutions' faculty members' views towards using OER in teaching and learning. The following research questions were identified: To what extent faculty members empowered to use OER is? What are the views of faculty members regarding the use of OER in facilitating learning? This paper was informed by an interpretive paradigm and adopted a qualitative case study design. Data was collected through interviews. This study provides an exciting opportunity to advance knowledge in the field of OER. The paper fills the gap in the literature regarding the views of faculty members of the ODL institutions in Namibia and beyond on the use of OER. The reader should bear in mind that the study focuses only on the publicly funded ODL institutions in Namibia and further narrowed to the views of faculty members within the teaching and learning departments.

Literature Review
This paper investigates the views of faculty members of the ODL institutions in Namibia regarding the use of OER as an alternative pedagogical approach in open distance learning. The literature review aims to ascertain what other researchers have already discovered and identified and attempt to fill the gap in the literature regarding the phenomena under study.
The term "OER" was defined by UNESCO as publicly available educational content that is free to use, adapt and share (UNESCO, 2016). It is indicated in the literature that the term "OER" was first coined during UNESCO's forum on Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries in 2002 (UNESCO, 2016). Since then, all educational resources published under the Creative Commons free license were called OER. In this study, OER refers to print and digital resources published under the license that does not restrict their use and prevent others from modifying them. This paper focuses on the link between open and distance education and the use of technology-enabled methodologies such as OER to enhance self-directed learning at ODL institutions in Namibia. The 5R activities within the Creative Commons license under which OER are published allow users to retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute the resources for free (Bliss & Smith, 2017). Researchers' view creates flexibility in the way resources can be utilised and, thus, widen access to quality education to a more significant number of those who want to pursue education on a distance mode. Scholarly texts indicate that the awareness and interest in OER have increased between 2012 and 2016 among educational institutions around the globe (Allen & Seaman, 2014;Hodgkinson-Williams & Arinto, 2017), with faculty members playing a significant role in facilitating the OER implementation process within institutions. Furthermore, literature stressed the vital role that faculty members play in deciding what objectives students should master (Wright & Reju, 2012).
Available literature reports positive attitudes towards OER by faculty members (Nkwenti & Abeywardena, 2019), and the culture of sharing content within institutions has increased (Panda & Santosh, 2017;Rolfe, 2012). However, it is reported that OER activities are more found in first-world countries than developing countries. The study conducted by Shigeta et al. (2017) shows that more faculty members in Japanese universities recognized the benefits of OER than their counterparts in African and Indian universities.
All citizens have a right to education as part of their fundamental human rights. However, restrictions and exclusive rights on educational materials have prevented many students in Namibia and other African countries from accessing education. Scholarly texts indicate that adopting OER as an alternative pedagogical approach provides cost benefits to students (Bliss, Robins, et al., 2013;Hilton, 2019;Ikahihifo et al., 2017;Wiley & Green, 2012). In addition, OER adoption can potentially increase equity in education in terms of the quality of resources made available for free to all (Willems & Bossu, 2012). Moreover, OER can minimise the educational gap and accelerate the flow of knowledge among many people (Krelja, 2016), especially in countries like Namibia, where people are scattered. The difference between rural and urban communities is evident.
Concerning the quality of OER, it should be noted that the release of OER under the open license does not negatively affect the quality of the materials. On the contrary, literature has proven that OER provides more comprehensive access to the various educational content of the same or even higher quality than restricted materials (Ozdemir & Hendricks, 2017). Furthermore, Butcher (2015) indicated that institutions that develop OER have quality assurance measures to ensure that OER is reviewed before being placed in the public domain. OER benefits faculty members by alleviating the need to create content from scratch by enabling developers to reuse content developed elsewhere. In addition, sharing OER allows teachers and learners to collaborate to develop content, thus enhancing self-directed learning (Mishra, 2017). At the same time, faculty members responsible for facilitating learning have more range to choose from, enriching the way content is transferred to students (Farrow et al., 2015).
One major benefit OER can potentially offer to institutions is increased student enrollment. Scholars indicate that with OER, institutions can attract more students, including those who could not register due to the high textbook costs in higher education (Butcher, 2012). As a result, institutional reputation increases, and their eligibility for external funding also increases.
OER is a relatively new concept in Namibia and many African countries. Hence, the OER initiatives and the benefits of OER are yet to be appreciated (UNESCO, 2019).
The dimensions of OER are not well known. A deep understanding of OER dimensions is key to its successful implementation. Scholars, therefore, indicated the OER repositories need to be appropriately organised, and there is a need for more advocacy to increase understanding among faculty (Krelja, 2016;Madiba, 2018;Torres, 2013). However, many faculty members are uncertain about the copyright ownership of materials they develop for their students while employed by public institutions. According to Kurelović et al. (2016), the time and resources invested in developing educational content belong to the institution in many cases. Hence it is right to release them as OER for others to access.
Similarly, existing OER needs to be contextualised before use. The energy and time spent in the contextualization of OER are sometimes more than developing from scratch. Faculty members, therefore, hesitate to invest their time and resources in content that is shared for free (Torres, 2013). Furthermore, institutions do not allow academics to publish work done under their supervision as OER (McGreal et al., 2013). This means if OER has to be adopted as a pedagogical approach, institutions need to revisit their publishing practices to allow others to benefit from their academic work. Phalachandra and Abeywardena (2016), in their study, however, underlined lack of access to technology, skills, and low internet connectivity as barriers that make it challenging to download OER for integration in teaching and learning.
One of the biggest challenges that hinder OER use is the absence of national and institutional policies to guide the implementation process (Kurelović et al., 2016). Although the Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL) has implemented the OER policy for all its secondary education digital content, it is unknown whether OER resources developed by NAMCOL are used to increase access and cut costs for learners.
In the developed world, OER initiatives have been receiving a lot of support in terms of funding, with Canada topping the list in terms of creating a large number of OER materials (McGreal, 2017). Other countries in Asia, such as India and China, have been recorded in the literature as beneficiaries of the OER funding from the Hewlett Foundation funding (Bliss & Smith, 2017). In addition, the Hewlett Foundation provided donor funding to developed countries amounting to 170 US million towards OER initiatives within the region (Bliss & Smith, 2017). Other institutions within Europe known to have contributed enormously to the OER movement are the Khan Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of the U.K. (Bliss & Smith, 2017).
In Africa, a report by Hoosen (2012) indicates that South Africa has most of the OER initiatives within the region. The White Paper confirmed that the South African government supports quality OER development financially (DHET, 2014). Moreover, the government of South Africa provided support for the establishment of the OER initiative at UNISA (De Hart et al., 2015).
In Namibia, the first OER initiative by COL in 2008 took off with financial support from the Hewlett Foundation (Ferreira & Gauthier, 2013). There is, however, a concern regarding the sustainability of the initiative after the support has been withdrawn. This paper aims to find out what the faculty members of the ODL institutions say about OER developed in Namibia and beyond.

Research Design
This exploratory multiple case study employs the qualitative approach to explore the views of the faculty members regarding the use of OER in Namibian ODL institutions. Therefore, this study's interpretivist paradigm was more applicable than a positivist. The interpretivist paradigm constructs reality through social interaction (Creswell, 2012). The truth is constructed through the views of the faculty members regarding the use of OER.

Sample and Data Collection
The study focused on three case studies: the public ODL institutions in Namibia, namely, NAMCOL, CODeL, and COLL. Only faculty members responsible for teaching and learning within those institutions were included in the sample. The multiple case study design allows the researchers to narrow the scope and limit the number of participants to give enough attention to the phenomena (Yin, 1981).
A total of twenty-four (n=24) participants were purposively selected to form part of this exploratory case study. That includes five (n=5) full-time and three (n=3) part-time faculty members from each institution. Only part-time faculty members who have been with the institution for not less than one year were included in the study. The institutions have different names for different positions for teaching and learning. Hence this multiple case study includes programme developers, instructional designers, academic support officers, distance education coordinators, and part-time lecturers and tutors.
After the researchers obtained the ethical clearance certificate from UNISA (certificate number, 2018/05/16/44944748/16/MC), the permission to collect data was sourced from the institutions. Data was collected through interviews. The researcher visited each participant to arrange a convenient time slot for an interview and explain the ethical issues about the study. Participants signed the consent forms. The semi-structured interviews were recorded with a cell phone and saved on a laptop for transcription. All transcribed data was sent back to the participants via e-mails for verification and validation.

Work experience
Less than 5 years' experience 9 37.5 More than 5 years' experience 15 62.5

Analyzing of Data
An inductive approach was adopted for data analysis. Data analysis was done concurrently with data collection. While the researcher was still collecting data, themes and subthemes emerged from the identified data, as Creswell (2013) stipulated. Themes were carefully studied by comparing them to the reviewed literature to validate or refute the findings (Thorne, 2000). Participants were also allowed to validate their acquired opinions to ensure the data analysis's accuracy. Data sets were then compiled manually, using a thematic analysis process (Creswell & Poth, 2018;Nowell et al., 2017). Furthermore, researchers read and re-read the transcribed data and highlighted the emerging concept patterns. Data were organised in a systematic manner using codes and themes.

Findings
Participants of this study were referred to as P1 to P24 to conceal their real identity. The participants comprise distance education coordinators, programme developers, academic support officers, instructional designers, and part-time tutors and lecturers from Namibia's three public ODL institutions. The demographic data was collected based on gender, age, highest qualifications, and the participants' experience in teaching and learning.
The following research questions were posed: To what extent faculty members empowered to use OER is? What are the views of faculty members regarding the use of OER in facilitating learning? Three themes were identified from the research questions, namely, 1) OER competency, 2) use of OER by faculty members, and 3) views of faculty members on the use of OER in teaching and learning. It is clear from the responses that faculty members are willing to embrace the use of OER in teaching and learning despite various challenges.

Faculty members' use of OER in teaching and learning
Whether they use OER or not, faculty members of the Namibian ODL institutions were optimistic about using OER for teaching and learning. Most of them referred to the benefits of OER, such as providing broad access to education, costcutting, the fact that it is free to share, and the undoubtful quality of OER.
"OER is nice because are accessible everywhere. Provide flexibility to students, and they are bridging the distance gap. Student can link to others globally through OER." (P9).
"OER can change the stereotype, traditional way of having a huge budget for learning resources. (P10)." "OER is of good quality, as they have been peer-reviewed by many people." (P20).
This study recognises that the OER licenses have different restrictions for their use. Many faculty members in this study displayed their concern concerning the awareness of copyright laws among the institutions and the implications of the Creative Commons licenses on OER usage. Some found it unnecessary for academics to attach ownership of their work as content is available for free on the internet.
"Everything today is on the internet; we cannot claim that is ours. It isn't easy to make claims on knowledge because almost 99 percent of content is found on the internet. What claims can you make about the content that you might have put it differently, but the idea is the same." (P2).
"OER has a lot of advantages for students. You can view the resources. The risk is that copyright issues should be sorted out." (P5).
Various challenges restrict the use of OER within the institutions, namely, lack of awareness by part-time tutors/lectures, unresponsive institutional policies or a lack thereof, as well as the attitudes of the academics towards OER publications. Participants of this study put it this way:

Discussion
This study explores the views of the faculty member of the Namibian ODL institutions regarding the use of OER in teaching and learning. This study further regards pedagogical competency as crucial for the successful adoption of OER within the institutions. The importance of well-equipped faculty members in the use of modern technologies was also emphasised in the literature (Dr. Kofi Annan, as cited in Kisirkoi & Kamanga, 2018). The current study, however, revealed the opposite. Many faculty members who formed part of this study did not benefit from formal capacity-building interventions as far as open educational resources are concerned. However, the results of this study confirm what the literature indicated about the involvement of COL in the OER activities in Namibia (Ferreira & Gauthier, 2013). Few faculty members received training through COL OER for the open schooling project in 2008.
The study concludes that Namibian ODL institutions lack professional competency in the OER as a pedagogical approach.
Remarkably few faculty members displayed competency in using OER for teaching and learning. It is also evident from the findings that faculty members received training from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) or took part in COL OER interventions either in the country or outside. The Covid-19 issue has led to a paradigm change in how learners of all ages worldwide can access learning (UNESCO, 2020). As a result, a lack of competency in using open educational resources (OER) in the twenty-first century is likely to become disastrous, particularly when the globe is confronted with a pandemic like COVID-19. The competency of faculty members in using the OERs allows students to access good educational content and stand a chance to achieve (Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2019).
Secondly, OER should be adopted and used to reduce educational costs and increase access for learners. The reviewed literature also indicated that the use of OER in teaching and learning has a direct cost benefit to learners (Bliss et al., 2013;Hilton, 2019;Ikahihifo et al., 2017;Wiley & Green, 2012). This study showed evidence of OER usage by faculty members and OER adoption by one institution, NAMCOL. However, there was no clear evidence of whether learners benefit from a reduced cost of learning materials and whether more learners could access education due to OER adoption. The use of OER in ODL institutions allows students to engage in active learning. Therefore, it is essential to train the faculty members to develop and use them to benefit their education since they are free (Conole, 2012).
OER are primarily digital and therefore demand institutions to ensure open practices to facilitate their use. Furthermore, the current study is similar to Madiba (2018), who posits that many faculty members lack a proper understanding of the OER dimensions, which prevents them from embracing them. In addition, this study found out that institutional policies are not flexible enough to accommodate OER publications within the institutions. The same finding was revealed by McGreal et al. (2013). In this study, faculty members indicated that lack of ICT skills and infrastructure remains a challenge in their institutions. In the same way, the study by Phalachandra and Abeywardena (2016) revealed similar findings regarding the effect of lack of time, skills, and ICT infrastructure in the effective adoption of OER by institutions.
Finally, this study considers the views of the faculty members, irrespective of whether they use OER or not, as critical in the success of OER adoption. This study provides empirical evidence that faculty members from Namibian ODL institutions are willing to adopt OER as an alternative pedagogical approach in teaching and learning. When asked about their thoughts on the usage of OER in teaching and learning, faculty members were quick to bring out the advantages of OER for both students and teachers. This study revealed that OER is a solution to the current access to quality learning content and reduces the educational gap between the poor and the rich. Researchers view OER as an essential ODL tool that can increase equity in education and accelerate the flow of knowledge.

Conclusion
The current study explored the views of the Namibian ODL institutions on the use of OER in teaching and learning. The study selected faculty members with day-to-day experience in teaching and learning, including those who develop distance learning instructional materials. The investigation believes that institutions should first adopt OER as an alternative pedagogical approach for the faculty members.
The findings of this study suggest that faculty members' voices matter and are significant when it comes to how they feel about the adoption of OER. This study discovered that there are OER activities available in Namibia and that many faculty members have a general knowledge about OER. Although the faculty members lack formal training in the field of OER, many have tried to integrate them in one way or another. This study, however, could not have sufficient evidence related to cost-cutting measures and broader access to education as a result of OER usage by the faculty members in Namibia.

Recommendations
Based on the findings of the study, several implications emerged. First, it is recommended to internal review and revise the current institutional tuition policy related to OER adoption. Second, developing a training manual on using and adopting OER through continuous professional development (CPD) sessions. Furthermore, ODL institutions in Namibia should strengthen their collaborative efforts through NOLNeT to ensure the integration of OER in the development of content and facilitate sharing of OER between them. Forth, in the planning of CPD sessions that focus on the development and application of OER for lecturers. Fifth, it is suggested that faculty members who are advanced in OER should showcase their work for others to reuse and re-purpose for free. Finally, ODL institutions such as Namibia, Commonwealth of Learning, University of South Africa, UNISA, Botswana Open Distance Learning University, BOU could form multi-collaborative partnerships through which NOLNeT could benefit from OER partnerships.
Further research can be done regarding students' views in ODL institutions concerning the benefits of using OER. Other studies can be carried out to assess the skills of part-time faculty members on the use of technology to promote OER. Lastly, further research can be conducted concerning the views of institutional managers on the adoption of OER to enhance teaching and learning in ODL institutions.

Limitations
This study makes a considerable contribution to the existing literature by providing the views of the faculty members regarding the use of OER in the Namibian context. This study, however, covered only the three public ODL institutions and focused on a small number of faculty members. Hence the findings cannot be generalised. Further research can be conducted in the same field to include other institutions in the country and beyond.