An Overview of Arabic Language Open Educational Resources (OER) for Primary and Secondary Education and Their Use in Offline Environments

Open educational resource (OER) initiatives have opened new avenues for educational opportunities, yet OER adoption levels globally remain low. Two significant obstacles to more widespread adoption of OER are the challenge of internet connectivity that nearly half the world’s population still faces,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electronic journal of e-Learning 2024-09, Vol.22 (9), p.1-14
Main Authors: Hosman, Laura, Nova, Rachel, Naji, Osamah Abdullah Ahmed Mohammed, Alsaka, Lubna
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arabic language
Case studies
Digital systems
Distance learning
Educational Resources
Online instruction
Open educational resources
Qualitative analysis
R&D
Research & development
Secondary education
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Open educational resource (OER) initiatives have opened new avenues for educational opportunities, yet OER adoption levels globally remain low. Two significant obstacles to more widespread adoption of OER are the challenge of internet connectivity that nearly half the world’s population still faces, and the lack of locally-relevant (e.g. in terms of language and curricula) OER resources. This article’s contribution is twofold.  First, it presents a qualitative landscape analysis of existing primary- and secondary-level Arabic-language digital OERs and of the initiatives that provide these resources. Second, it details applied research via a case study, wherein appropriate resources identified in the analysis were subsequently curated for inclusion in an offline digital library currently being used in schools in Northeast Syria that offers all Open resources. Results from the landscape analysis indicate a limited quantity of Arabic-language OER content available for primary and secondary education. Furthermore, multiple challenges hinder the adoption of OER in resource-constrained settings. Accordingly, recommendations are made that could help to improve these resources' ability to be used, particularly drawing from the article’s applied case study for examples. Given the case study’s application of providing locally-relevant OER resources in an offline setting, this article provides a real-world example of furthering open e-learning, despite infrastructural, linguistic, and socio-political challenges. As such, it advances research supporting innovative e-learning practice, and should be of interest for scholars and practitioners interested in furthering the adoption of open e-learning in low-resource settings globally.
ISSN:1479-4403
1479-4403
DOI:10.34190/ejel.22.9.3616