Abstract
Free-to-use learning material, open content (OC), is ascribed the potential to change the playing field in regards to every individual’s right to education. OC is, however, not much used in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to study how actors involved in content development affect reuse of OC. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) concepts are used to describe content development processes in two cases (in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). Findings show that there are content properties that need to be flexible and adaptable for it to be used. The properties must not only fit with students and content developers, it must also be adaptable to fit with the educational organization and the technologies used for dissemination. Since there are many actors and properties that must be aligned it is unlikely that fully context independent OC can be developed. For OC to play a role for development the focus has to be on developing flexible content that easily can be adapted to different contexts.
Recommended Citation
Hatakka, Mathias; Avdic, Anders; and Grönlund, Åke, "Open Content Use in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka – Context Flexibility as an Enabler for Reuse" (2009). GlobDev 2009. 11.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/globdev2009/11