Perception of Academic Staff Toward Barriers, Incentives, and Benefits of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Network (SHMS) at Saudi Universities

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement urges academic staff to share educational materials freely online for everyone to use, whether you are a professor, student, or self-learner. Since the OER movement is still in its infancy in Saudi Arabia, there is an essential need to provide a deep understanding of the perception of academic staff toward OER. This study has focused on the exploration of barriers, incentives, as well as benefits of OER from the point of view of academic staff Data were collected from an online survey carried out during the 2018-2019 academic year at the University of Bisha in Saudi Arabia. Results showed that the majority of academic staff has a positive attitude toward publishing their material on OER; however, they have also raised the issue of some challenges existing. One of the main barriers that hinder academic staff from using OER is a lack of technical equipment and technical support. The study recommended that there is a need to raise the adoption of OER and eliminate all barriers that hinder its use. Gender was not associated with academic staff perception about usage OER, but Academic Position was associated with academic staff perception about usage OER.