EQUITABLE EDUCATIONAL PLANNING: EMBRACING OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA - Article

Oct 15, 2026

Educational leadership in PK-12 and higher education requires curriculum and instructional-material planning grounded in equity. The COVID-19 pandemic beginning in early 2020 forced leaders to reassess delivery as school travel and in-person interaction restrictions shut many physical campuses. Digital access to open materials enabled some educators and students to continue, while others were limited. The article examines post-pandemic paths to advance equity by scaling OER and OA, reducing access barriers, and using self-determination theory to frame impacts on development, motivation, and well-being.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Equity and digital access during COVID-19

Open educational resources and open access initiatives

Challenges from limited physical and online resources

EQUITABLE EDUCATIONAL PLANNING: EMBRACING OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA ANGELA FORD Old Dominion University, U.S.A DANIEL ALEMNEH University ofNorth Texas, U.S.A ABSTRACT Educational leadership, whether in PK-12 or higher education, often examine the planning of curricula and materials for equity. Due to the global pandemic that began in early 2020, the planning of instructional materials had to be reexamined due to the travel and interaction restrictions that closed most brick-and-mortar schools, colleges, and universities. Educational leaders around the globe scrambled to assist educators in what was for many uncharted methods of delivering instruction. Educators and students with access to the Internet, an online academic library, Open Educational Resources (OER) or Open Access (OA) resources had the option to continue to move forward with educational endeavors. With an increased reliance on digital materials to meet online instruction demands, those without access to these same resources were limited, if not stopped entirely, from being able to continue their studies and/or research activities. Work was already being done to promote OER and OA prior to COVID-19, however the restrictions put in place highlighted the need for equitable, online access to resources and scholarship for educators to autonomously choose from. The purpose of this article is to go further into the post-pandemic landscape and explore how increasing OER and OA and removing access barriers could increase equity by establishing the ability for teaching/learning to continuefor all, regardless ofthe ability to attend a brick-and-mortar building and regardless ofsocio-economic status. The lens being used to examine the consequences of the current iniquities, as well as the benefits of decreasing these inequities, is that of self-determination theory (SDT), a macro theory ofdevelopment, motivation, and well-being. SDT also provides one possible framework to promotefuture research around the increased production and use ofOER and OA.. INTRODUCTION Digital technologies are changing the landscape and methods of conducting business in many organizations, including in academic institutions. Nevertheless, even though there is forward movement, the education sector is largely lagging behind businesses and other industries in adopting new technologies and innovations. In fact, COVID-19 spotlighted disparities across academic operations, especially in equitable access to online resources. Certain digital innovations such as Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Access (OA) could have a positive impact and alter the future of educational planning by increasing equitable options and closing certain gaps. In higher education, faculty awareness of open educational resources,(course materials that are freely available for use, reuse, adaptation and sharing), has grown consistently, according toa study by Bay View Analytics (2020) . UNESCO supports both OER and OA through initiatives such as “Recommendations on Open Education Resources (OER)”(UNESCO, 2019) and the Global Open Access Portal (UNESCO, n.d.) . Educational Planning Summer 2021 21 Vol. 28, No. 3 Despite these globally supported initiatives, prior to COVID-19, much curriculum planning remained focused on hard-copy sources with many courses throughout the world taught using books and other materials that were primarily made available to students in classrooms or in library resource rooms. When this method was no longer available because teachers and students had to work at home and many no longer had access to physical resources, the need was amplified for open digital options that could provide the foundation for lessons. For educators and students who were physically going to academic libraries prior to COVID-19, the inconvenience transformed to an insurmountable obstacle when campuses had to shut down. If primary instructional resources had been OER or OA, learning

FAQs

Why did educational leaders need to reexamine instructional-material planning during COVID-19?

Travel and interaction restrictions closed many brick-and-mortar schools, colleges, and universities, disrupting the usual access to curriculum and learning resources.

How can Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Access (OA) improve equity?

By increasing availability and removing access barriers, they help teaching and learning continue for all regardless of ability to attend in-person institutions or socio-economic status.

What framework does the article use to examine the consequences of educational inequities?

It uses self-determination theory (SDT), focused on development, motivation, and well-being, to analyze both harms from inequities and benefits from reducing them.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by MrHarris58