Toward Governance Best Practices for Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources (OER) constitute a form of digital media that have received growing interest and adoption. Infrastructures are becoming more widely available to support OER authorship and adaptation. However, this article argues that infrastructures for the ongoing governance of OER have been lacking, despite the medium’s possibilities as “evolutionary media.” The article provides a review of existing literature on OER and their governance, in conversation with the governance of other kinds of software commons. It then offers an auto-ethnographic reflection on the authors’ experience with the challenges of OER maintenance in the context of a specific textbook on social media, and the resulting need for taking governance seriously. Finally, the article proposes strategies for improving support for OER governance through collaborative processes among their stakeholders.