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We are researchers at Athabasca University and invite you to participate in a research study
entitled “Barriers, Incentives, and Benefits of the OER Movement: An Exploration into
Instructor Perspectives.” The purpose of this research is to explore the perspectives of instructors in various geographical areas on barriers, incentives, and benefits to using and creating OER materials.

In a survey conducted by Cengage Learning (2016), the White Paper identifies that Open
Educational Resources (OER) will potentially triple in size over the next five years; however,
it also exposes that there continues to be barriers to adoption, use, and creation which exist
that are inhibiting the full adoption of OER. This research will explore the perspectives of K-12 and higher education instructors in various geographical areas on the barriers, incentives, and benefits to OER use to provide various views into this topic for potential policy and sociocultural modifications.

Your participation will involve completing one online survey that will be about 15 minutes
in duration. The survey data will be initially collected and stored on a server in the U.S. and
is subject to access under the US Patriot Act until it is transferred from that server to the
researcher's computer.

All information collected in this study will remain anonymous. No individually-identifiable
information about you, or provided by you during the research, will be collected. All research
data will be kept on a secure drive for which only the principle researchers and their assistants will have access. Data will not be destroyed as we intend to rerun the study at some time inthe future and will pull various reports based on specific demographic information such as geographical area and employment. The study may be replicated in 5 to 10 years.

We hope that you will consider participating in the survey, and you can find the link to the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/oermovement

Please feel free to forward the survey link and information to other interested people.

Regards,
Serena Henderson, Athabasca University
Dr. Nathaniel Ostashewski, Athabasca University