Approaches to Monitor and Evaluate OER Policies in Higher Education - Tracing Developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran

The 2019 UNESCO recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) urges member states to monitor OER-related policies and mechanisms worldwide. In higher education, numerous initiatives exist, but policy documentation differs by country and institutional context. This contribution analyzes national and institutional OER policy documents for public higher education in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, using country-specific identification methods and making results available through the OER World Map.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

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OER Policy

Approaches to Monitor and Evaluate OER Policies in Higher EducationTracing Developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland Jan Neumann, Sandra Schön, Svenja Bedenlier, Martin Ebner, Sarah Edelsbrunner, Nicole Krüger, Gabriela Lüthi-Esposito, Victoria I. Marín, Dominic Orr, Laura N. Peters, Ricarda T. D. Reimer, Olaf Zawacki-Richter Abstract: The 2019 UNESCO recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) encourages member states to monitor policies and mechanisms in OER across the world. In higher education, there are many initiatives and policies around OER. This contribution gives insights into the current situation concerning OER policy documents that are of national or institutional relevance for public higher education institutions in Germany, Switzerland , and Austria. For each country, a different approach for identifying OER policy documents was chosen, dependent on the availability of documents and different dominant forms of documentation. Whereas digital documents available on the web were found as helpful sources for Germany, and performance agreements between the national ministry and individual universities were used for analysis in Austria, a survey amongst all universities was the chosen research approach in Switzerland to give an overview about potentially OER related policy documents. All these documents are now made available via the OER World Map. With this contribution , the authors also highlight the possibility of using the OER World Map as a powerful tool to collect and evaluate OER policy documents. Keywords: open education, open educational resources, OER policies, OER World Map, digitization strategies Highlights What is already known about this topic: • The UNESCO (2019) recommendation encourages the development of supportive OER policies in higher education institutions. • OER World Map ([https://www.oerworldmap.org](https://www.oerworldmap.org)) is a platform, which aims to collect data and information about actors and activities related to OER. • OE Policy Hub ([https://www.oepolicyhub.org](https://www.oepolicyhub.org)) provides a collection of >300 policy documents, which refer to open education or OER. What this paper contributes: • An overview of the OER higher education landscape in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. • The current state of OER policy implementation in the three countries. Implications for theory, practice and/or policy: • The article reveals the nature of policy documents in which aspects of OER and Open Education are considered. • Higher Education Institutions can use this overview as a starting point for developing their own OER strategies and policies • The results can also be used for further national comparisons or benchmark systems Introduction One of the many advantages of Open Educational Resources (OER) is that they can be used free of charge but can also be adapted and reused (e.g. , Ebner & Schön 2011) . Higher education institutions (HEIs) use OER in different ways (Schaffert , 2010); for about 15 years, countries (Hoosen & Butcher, 2012) as well as the first HEIs have been positioning themselves favourably towards OER for strategic and publicity reasons and developing and publishing dedicated OER strategies (dos Santos et al. 2017 ; e.g. , University of Edinburgh , 2016) . National policy documents on OER are developed and published to promote OER. In this paper, we examine the extent to which OER has become visible in policy documents to date in three middle European countries (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) in the field of HEI. Our contribution has a twofold objective. Firstly , we aim to describe the current state of OER policy making in higher education in Austria, Germany and Switzerland using an approach, which combines quantitative and qualitative elements. By doing so, we hope to provide deeper insights into the functioning of OER policy making and possibilities to monitor OER policies and its effects in these cent

FAQs

Why does the paper focus on monitoring and evaluating OER policies in higher education?

The 2019 UNESCO recommendation encourages member states to monitor OER policies and mechanisms. The paper addresses how OER becomes visible in higher education policy documents.

How were OER policy documents identified in each of the three countries?

Germany used digital documents found on the web, Austria used performance agreements between the ministry and universities, and Switzerland used a survey among all universities.

What role does the OER World Map play according to the authors?

The authors present the OER World Map as a tool to collect and evaluate OER policy documents, with results made available through the platform.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Aran