FACULTY VOICES EXPLORED: A MIXED-METHOD RESEARCH ON ATTITUDE TOWARDS OER ADOPTION IN CENTRAL UNIVERSITIES OF NORTH EAST INDIA

The advent of OERs signifies a major overhaul in education, driven by the opportunities offered by ICT and an ongoing commitment to openness and collaboration. The present innovative approach for educational resources not only tackles the issues concerning copyright, but also adheres to the values of inclusion, accessibility, and the dissemination of global knowledge. With their increasing popularity, OERs have the potential to change education into a more open collaborative, democratic, and equitable process. Prior studies have predominantly concentrated on faculty members from fields such as engineering, arts, and science, resulting in a scarcity of studies on faculty members in the discipline of Humanities and Social Sciences. Consequently, there is a dearth of holistic perspectives that encompass the perspectives of both users and creators of OER. Putting a focus on faculty members’ attitudes and the perspectives of OER users and creators, this study investigates the adoption of OER in the higher educational institutes of North East India. To address this gap, a mixed-method research design with a convergent parallel approach was employed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. A descriptive survey method was used to collect data from faculty members in the Humanities and Social Science disciplines across eight central universities of North-East India. The sample size consisted of 221 faculty members from the departments of Humanities and Social Sciences – Education, Sociology, Political Science, Mass Communication, History, English, and Hindi. The findings revealed that faculty members exhibited a moderate level of attitude towards OER adoption. The qualitative analysis further supported this, indicating that faculty (OER users and OER creators) generally hold a moderately positive perception towards OER adoption.