A Road Map for Sustainable Open Educational Resource Initiatives in Higher Education

Open Educational Resources (OER) present significant advantages, such as cost savings, addressing economic inequality, enhancing access to quality education, and supporting lifelong learning. These advantages became even more apparent during the emergency remote teaching period, emphasizing their importance and anticipating their increased relevance in the era of general artificial intelligence. Despite these benefits and recognized needs, OER initiatives face a sustainability problem. While studies have examined factors affecting OER sustainability, there is a lack of research on practical strategies that emerge from actual implementation, as well as on evaluating the effectiveness of these strategies. This study aims to identify strategies within the 3M (macro, meso, and micro) framework to support sustainable OER initiatives in higher education. Adopting a design-based research method, this study primarily collected qualitative data from relevant stakeholders through focus groups and interviews. The study identified 20 main and 21 sub-strategies for sustaining OER initiatives in higher education. The micro level includes strategies in the context of the course or platform and the meso level in the context of the institution. The macro level, which represents strategies that are more difficult and time-consuming to implement, includes strategies that interact with the institution and outside the institution. This study offers novel insights and recommendations for policymakers, administrators, practitioners, and researchers.