Data literacy in healthcare: A systematic collection and evaluation of OERs on data acquisition

Abstract Background Data literacy is crucial in healthcare, as it allows healthcare professionals to recognize, collect, and use data for research efficiently. Teachers can use open educational resources (OERs) to increase data literacy among healthcare staff, covering the entire research process. This study focuses on examining existing OERs with a focus on data acquisition to identify the limitations of existing OERs and to develop new OERs for data collection based on these limitations. Methods The platforms ‘Twillo.de’, ‘Orca.nrw’, ‘Merlot.org’, ‘OER Commons’, ‘Serlo’, ‘VIMEO’, ‘Dailymotion’, ‘SlideShare’ and ‘YouTube’ were systematically searched for OERs focusing on quantitative and qualitative data acquisition. Only OERs published under a Creative Commons license were considered. A team of researchers then analyzed existing OERs with respect to production and content quality and sorted them into four competence levels of a learning objective matrix developed by Schüller (2020). Results Out of 4,383 search results, we identified 111 suitable OERs for qualitative data acquisition. Only 9 of these were related to health. For quantitative data acquisition, out of 4,415 search results, 145 suitable OERs were identified, 36 of which were health-related. Conclusions This study highlights the scarcity of suitable OERs for healthcare professionals to improve their health data literacy. This is for various reasons. Only a few OERs are specifically designed for healthcare professionals and, therefore, do not correspond to the lifeworld of learners in the explanatory examples. Additionally, the existing OERs are not sufficiently detailed in essential areas for learners and are customized to the competence level of the target group of healthcare professionals. Therefore, existing OERs must be adapted for healthcare professionals’ data literacy training. Key messages • The search for OERs on qualitative and quantitative data acquisition yields many results, but less than three percent of the results are suitable for training healthcare personnel. • Few Open Educational Resources (OERs) for healthcare professionals provide sufficient detail and alignment with their competency levels, which necessitates adaptations for data literacy training.