Sharing teaching and learning resources: perceptions of a university's faculty members

Improving efficiencies in the education sector via the sharing of resources is currently the source of much interest and investment within Australia and throughout the world. Despite the development of multiple educational resource repositories worldwide, educators seldom use repositories to share materials. Interprofessional sharing is similarly scarce. This research was designed to identify staff perceptions about inter-departmental sharing of teaching and learning resources within a university faculty.

Representatives were recruited over a 2-week period from four campuses of a university, spanning six departments. Participants took part in two focus groups and six semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was undertaken by two independent researchers.

Five key themes emerged: the benefits of electronic resources for improving student education; perceptions of sharing; perceptions of ownership; the ethical use of resources and digital repositories; the requirements for adoption.

Our research confirms that educators believe interprofessional resource sharing to be beneficial and appropriate. However, concerns that resources are of insufficient quality or will be incorrectly attributed surfaced as barriers to sharing. Poor understanding and ambiguity surrounding intellectual property rights highlighted the need for repository communities to be sufficiently educated. Developing a commonly agreed metadata and labelling system, and linking with existing infrastructure, will enhance the impact of a learning object repository. Providing avenues for sharing, such as resource repositories, may assist in aligning education with the well-established process of peer review utilised by the research community, improving resource quality through exposure to others' perspectives and feedback. Furthermore, the increased accountability, restriction and familiarity of repositories may prove beneficial in encouraging sharing.