EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND ITS UTILIZATION IN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY AR-RANIRY

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STUDENTS‘ PERCEPTION TOWARDS OPEN

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND ITS UTILIZATION IN STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY AR-RANIRY

BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA

BY

JALALUDDIN RAHMAT

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master in Education

Kulliyyah of Education

International Islamic University Malaysia

OCTOBER 2016

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ABSTRACT

This study sought to identify students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and its utilization in State Islamic University Ar-raniry, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. This quantitative study employed a cross-sectional survey method for data collection. A total of 300 students from The English Department of the State Islamic University [Ar-Raniry] were selected through systematic random sampling to be the respondents of this study. The questionnaire was adopted from two previous studies, Venkaiah (2007) and Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (2011), and partly self-developed. The results of the study found that students had a high level of utilization and a consistent positive perception towards Open Educational Resources.

In addition, the study also found that there were positive correlations between students‘

perception and students‘ level of Information Communication and Technology (ICT)]

competency as well as students‘ perception and level of utilization towards Open Educational Resources.

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ثحبلا صخلم

ABSTRACT IN ARABIC

ةدافتسلااو ةحوتفلما ةيميلعتلا دراولما ونح بلاطلا كاردإ ىلع فرعتلا لىإ ةساردلا هذى تعس مدختسا ةيمك ةسارد ةساردلا هذى .ايسينودنإ ويشتأ ادناب ىرناّرأ ةيملاسلإا ةعمالجا في اهنم نم ةنوكم ةنيع رايتخا تم دقو .تانايبلا عملج يعطقلما جهنلما اهيف ٠٣٣

نم ةبلاطو بلاط

بلطو .ةمظتنلما ةيئاوشعلا تانيعلا ذخأ قيرط نع ةيملاسلإا ةعمالجا في ةيزيلكنلإا ةغللا مسق لبق نم اهليدعت تمو ةقباس تاسارد ةثلاث نم ةنابتسلاا نيبت تمو .ةنابتسلاا نع ةباجلإا مهنم مادختسلاا نم ةيلاع تايوتسم مهيدل بلاطلا نأ جئاتنلا ترهظأو .يئزج لكشب ثحابلا اضيأ ةساردلا تفشك كلذ لىإ ةفاضلإاب .ةحوتفلما ةيميلعتلا دراولما ونح قستم بيايجإ كاردإو انى نأ ايجولونكت ةءافك نم بلاطلا ىوتسمو بلاطلا كاردإ ينب ةيبايجإ طابترا ةقلاع ك ةيميلعتلا دراولما هاتج مادختسلاا ىوتسمو بلاطلا كاردإ ينب كلذكو تلااصتلااو تامولعلما

ةحوتفلما

.

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APPROVAL PAGE

I certify that I have supervised and read this study and that in my opinion, it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Education.

………..

Sulaiman Hashim Supervisor

I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Master of Education.

………..

Rosemaliza Kamalludeen Examiner

This dissertation was submitted to the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and is accepted as a fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Education.

………..

Tahraoui Ramdane

Head, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

This dissertation was submitted to the Kulliyyah of Education and is accepted as a fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Education.

………..

Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail Dean, Kulliyyah of Education

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DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this dissertation is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. I also declare that it has not been previously or concurrently submitted as a whole for any other degrees at IIUM or other institutions.

Jalaluddin Rahmat

Signature ... Date ...

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E

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA DECLARATION OF COPYRIGHT AND AFFIRMATION OF

FAIR USE OF UNPUBLISHED RESEARCH

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES AND ITS UTILIZATION IN STATE ISLAMIC

UNIVERSITY AR-RANIRY– BANDA ACEH, INDONESIA

I declare that the copyright holders of this dissertation are jointly owned by the student and IIUM.

No part of this unpublished research may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder except as provided below

1. Any material contained in or derived from this unpublished research may be used by others in their writing with due acknowledgement.

2. IIUM or its library will have the right to make and transmit copies (print or electronic) for institutional and academic purposes.

3. The IIUM library will have the right to make, store in a retrieved system and supply copies of this unpublished research if requested by other universities and research libraries.

By signing this form, I acknowledged that I have read and understood the IIUM Intellectual Property Right and Commercialization policy.

Affirmed by Jalaluddin Rahmat

……..……….. ………..

Signature Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In the name of Allah, the most benevolent and the most Merciful. Peace and salutations to our prophet Muhammad SAW. Firstly, it is my utmost pleasure to dedicate this work to my beloved family, particularly my father, Muhammad Ali and my mother, Syarifah, who granted me the gift of their unwavering belief in my ability to accomplish this goal: thank you for your support, love, prayer and patience.

I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor, Asst. Prof. Dr. Sulaiman Hashim, who provided me his time, effort, guidance and support for this project. My sincere appreciation goes to the members of my dissertation committee too, for their valuable constructive feedback and guidance without which this thesis could not have been completed. My highest gratitude to all students and administrators of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) for their assistances and helps during my study.

Finally, a special thanks to my wife, Khariesa, for her continuous support, love and trust, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

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LIST OF TABLES

Table No. Page No.

3.1 Population Size According to Year of Study and Gender 29

3.2 Summary of Sample Size 31

3.3 Self-Developed Questionnaire 33

3.4 Content Validation 34

3.5 Final Content Validation 37

3.6 Summary of Internal Reliability Indexes for each Item 40 4.1 Summary of Descriptive Data for Overall Perception 48 4.2 Summary of Descriptive Data for Content Accessibility 49 4.3 Summary of Descriptive Data for Quality of Content 51 4.4 Summary of Descriptive Data for User Satisfaction 52 4.5 Descriptive Data for Advantages of Open Educational

Resources 53

4.6 Summary of Correlation between Students‘ Perception Towards Open Educational Resources and Students‘ ICT

Competency Level 55

4.7 The Correlation between Students‘ Perception Towards Open Educational Resources and Students‘ Level of Utilization 56

4.8 Summary of Results 58

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure No. Page No.

1.1 Conceptual Framework in this Study 7

4.1 Gender Distribution 44

4.2 Year of Intake 44

4.3 Level of ICT Competency 45

4.4 Level of ICT Competency among Males and Females Students 46

4.5 Frequency of Accessing Open Educational Resources 47

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CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The term Open Educational Resources (OER) was first used by UNESCO‘s forum in the spring meeting in 2002 and it is defined as technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consulting, using and adapting by a community (Johnstone, 2005). Atkins, Brown and Hammond (2007) stated in their report that Open Educational Resources are resources for teaching, learning, and research as falling under public domain that can be accessed freely. This includes full courses, materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support the delivery of knowledge.

The aim of Open Educational Resources is to promote open access to digital educational resources that are available online for everyone at a global level (Van Acker, van Buuren, Kreijns, & Vermeulen, 2013). According to Masterman and Wild (2011), Open Educational Resources enhance students‘ learning as it can be used to support learning even outside the normal classroom. Thus, having many resources that can be accessed freely will help lecturers and students to support the teaching and learning process.

The Open Educational Resources has become important in the education systems of countries around the world. Its major function is to help equalize access to knowledge and educational opportunities for college students and individuals, thus providing equal opportunities and rights for all to access quality education. This technology is in line with article 26 of the universal declaration of the Human Rights, that everyone has the right to education (United States, 1995). This will give

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opportunities to everyone to get knowledge freely, and by gaining current information on education they can develop their ideas and understanding better.

Some of the examples of Open Educational Resources are digital content, which is used by students to improve their understanding about the subject. Digital content is the type of content that exists in the form of digital data, which are text, audio, videos files, animations, and images. Digital Open Educational Resources, therefore, are digital educational resources that can be accessed freely online.

Feldstein et al. (2012) conducted a study in Virginia State University with 991 participants and found that students who used Open Educational Resources frequently, achieved better grades. The students also strongly agreed that Open Educational Resources were more helpful and that they also preferred to use digital content to traditional textbooks. Therefore, Open Educational Resources have a lot of benefits for students in terms of improving their academic performance and getting more resources.

Utilizing Open Educational Resources are also useful for the educational institutions as it provides resources such as audio, video, electronic books, website and other resources which can be integrated into the curriculum (Butcher, 2010). By providing educational resources accessible for everyone, it not only gives learners the opportunity to get more resources, but it also increases the reputation of the author and the institution itself (Caswell, Henson, Jensen, & Wiley, 2008). In short, Open Educational Resources may benefit the institution in developing methods in the teaching and learning process.

The capability of delivering knowledge in a formal and informal atmosphere, it has dramatically changed the quality and quantity of education in learning (Misko, 2008). Many universities and institutions around the world have created new

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platforms for learning that can improve its effectiveness and communication between teachers and students (Alavi & Leidner, 2001). William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (2006) stated that Open Educational Resources are simple yet powerful, where knowledge and technology belong to all, and the worldwide web has provided an unexpected opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse it (Smith & Casserly, 2006). It helps college students, individuals, researchers to access knowledge without any limitations.

State Islamic University (UIN) Ar-Raniry is one of the Islamic universities in Indonesia and is located in Banda Aceh. As the capital city of Aceh, Banda Aceh has several universities and is the central government of Aceh province. In line with the development of information and communication technology, the government of Aceh has launched Municipalities Information Management System (MIMS) that transforms Banda Aceh into a Cyber City where Internet can be accessed anywhere and at any time (Aceh State Government Report, 2010).

State Islamic University Ar-raniry changed its status from State Islamic Institute (IAIN) to State Islamic University Ar-raniry in October 2014. Many changes were introduced with the new status; some of them were the launching of a new website. Others included the building of a new infrastructure to support connectivity, the upgrading of the Internet access, publishing of more journals as well as the establishment of a new e-learning platform that was not there previously.

Furthermore, in order to upgrade its quality of education, the University is also cooperating with other universities and research institutions to produce journals and a system for information sharing. Therefore, with the new status, many changes have been introduced, including Open Educational Resources which will significantly improve students‘ access to quality education.

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4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Since 2014, State Islamic University Ar-raniry decided to adopt Open Educational Resources such as the digital book, journals, videos and other resources to expand students‘ knowledge and understanding in order to enhance the quality of education.

Many researchers (e.g., Bowen & Chingos, 2014; Robinson, Fischer, Wiley, & Hilton, 2014; Wiley, Hilton, Ellington, & Hall, 2012) have shown the benefits of using Open Educational Resources, such as cost reduction and improvement of academic achievement. Furthermore, Open Educational Resources also enhanced students‘

learning and teaching practices by providing free access to the best available resources (Masterman & Wild, 2011).

Despite the effort by the University‘s leadership for lecturers and students to adopt Open Educational Resources, its utilization is below the expected level. From the researcher‘s own personal observation, only a few lecturers adopted the use of Open Educational Resources in their teaching and learning methods. Most lecturers are still using traditional printed materials in their teaching. If nothing is done to address this issue, the investment that the university has put in on Information and Communication Technology, and the existing Infrastructure will be in vain. The hope of the university‘s leadership is to see this investment being fully utilized through Open Educational Resources, which if it not adopted will remain just that a hope.

This study, therefore, is proposed in order to investigate the utilization and perception of students towards Open Educational Resources. It will provide empirical data on the level of utilization of the Open Educational Recourses as well as on the students‘ perception towards it. While there is already a few studies being done to investigate students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources in Indonesia, such as Dwiyani (2014), Harsasi and Minrohayati (2014), and Harsasi (2015), these

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studies did not involve the State Islamic University Ar-raniry, as this university implemented Open Educational Resources only in 2014.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to investigate students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and their level of utilization of such resources. Furthermore, this study will also seek to investigate if there exists any relationship between these two variables as well as factors that might influence this relationship. Specifically, the objectives of this study are as follows:

1. To investigate the level of utilization of Open Educational Resources among students of the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry.

2. To investigate students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources.

3. To find out the relationship between students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and students‘ level of Information Communication and Technology competency.

4. To find out the relationship between students‘ perception toward Open Educational Resources and their level of utilization of the resources.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In this study, four research questions that would be investigated are:

1. To what extent are Open Educational Resources being utilized by students of the English Department of the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry?

2. What are the perceptions of Islamic State University Ar-Raniry students towards Open Educational Resources?

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3. Is there any relationship between students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and their level of ICT competency?

4. Is there any relationship between students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and their level of utilization?

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual framework used in this study was based on Feldstein‘s et al. (2012) and Bliss‘ et al. (2013) studies about the perceptions towards Open Educational Resources. Feldstein et al. (2012) conducted a year-long pilot study examining content accessibility towards Open Educational Resources. They found that there is an increased access among students towards Open Educational Resources, which means that they had no problem to access the resources. Another study conducted by Bliss, Robinson, Hilton, and Wiley (2013) focused on teachers‘ and students‘ perception of cost, outcomes, uses and quality of Open Educational Resources. The result of the study showed that there is a significant cost saving in using Open Educational Resources, while students and teachers perceived that it is equal in quality to traditional textbooks.

In line with the above studies, Harsasi (2015) found that students in Indonesia were very satisfied utilizing Open Educational Resources in their learning. According to Robinson et al. (2014), Open Educational Resources had a lot of benefit for students such as fees reduction and academic achievement. Furthermore, Wright and Reju 2012) revealed that using Open Educational Resources promote the development of skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving.

Therefore, based on the above-mentioned studies, the researcher decided to study four constructs of the students‘ perception towards Open Educational

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Resources. These are content accessibility, content quality, user satisfaction and advantage of Open Educational Resources. The independent variables of this study are students‘ utilization, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competency. According to Altinay et al. (2016), ICT competency is very important for students to enhance the quality access and their participation to the resources. Student who have a high level of ICT competency would select resources properly for their learning. The use of Open Educational Resources however, is influenced by the level of utilization (Harsasi, 2015). This means that the higher the frequency of accessing Open Educational Recourses the more positive perceptions students will have towards Open Educational Resources. Therefore, the relationship between students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and level of ICT competency will be investigated as well as between students‘ perception of the Open Educational Resources and the level of their utilization.

Figure 1.1 Conceptual Framework in this Study ICT Competency

Utilization Perception of OER

 Content Accessibility

 Content Quality

 User Satisfaction

 Advantages of OER

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8 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study will be beneficial to the university administration and its English Department as it will provide information regarding actual utilization of Open Educational Resources among students. Information regarding students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources will provide a true picture of students‘ readiness to adopt them, hence will enable the university to take the necessary measures to ensure that students and teachers will benefit from them.

DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study only focuses on the information about the perception of Open Educational Resources, which is obtained from the students who are studying in the English Department of State Islamic University Ar-Raniry, Banda Aceh. The data will be collected only from English Department students and they are selected because they are familiar with the resources that are written in English. Therefore, the findings of this study will not be generalized to students in other departments in the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

There are several terms used in this study and their operational definitions are as follows student, perception, Open Educational Resources, level of utilization, content accessibility, quality of content, user satisfaction and advantage of Open Educational Resources:

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Students in this study refer to all English Department students who are currently undertaking first-degree programs in the Education Faculty at the State Islamic University Ar-raniry, Banda Aceh in the last four years.

Perception

Perception defines as an experience of the information content in the representation which is experienced directly or indirectly (Lehar, 2008). In this study, perception refers to English Department students‘ perspectives or opinions about Open Educational Resources in terms of four dimensions, which are content accessibility, quality of content, user satisfaction and advantages of Open Educational Resources.

Open Educational Resources

Atkins et al. (2007) defines the term Open Educational Resources is digitized materials which can be used by educators, students and self-learners in teaching, learning and research as public domain under the intellectual properties licence such as course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming video, tests and any other materials that have been designed for the use of teaching and learning. The resources were under Creative Commons license which allows users to publish, distribute and re-use the content for teaching, learning and research purposes. In this study, Open Educational Resources refers to any digitized materials from any sources (produced by university and available online) that are used by students to support their learning for example journals, articles, electronic books, streaming videos, and multimedia applications.

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Level of utilization in this study refers to the frequency of the English Department students of the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry in using Open Educational Resources and other digital materials to improve their learning.

Content accessibility

Accessibility means access to records as published, in XML/HTML formats as well as PDF files, with full functionality and semantic mark-ups provided by the publisher;

and the ability to use and re-use the information with as few restrictions as possible (Finch, 2013). Content accessibility in this study refers to the English Department students‘ perception on how much Open Educational Resources‘ content can be accessed or reached in every place with unlimited access and with different devices.

Quality of Content

Quality is not an intrinsic component of the content of a work but rather a feature of how that work is valuable to a specific community of users: its context of use (Kelty, Burrus, and Baraniuk 2008). In this study, Quality of content refers to the English Department students‘ perception of Open Educational Resources‘ excellence in fostering learning that can fulfil the needs of students and teachers.

User Satisfaction

Satisfaction can be described as a feeling of happiness or disappointment one perceives after comparing the perception and expectation toward a service with the products he/she receives (Kotler, 2002).Satisfaction in this study refers to the English

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Department students‘ perception of Open Educational Resources which were favourable and relevant for their learning.

Advantages of Open Educational Recourses

Advantages refer to something which depicts how far the information system adds value to its users (Cailassame & Nambirajan, 2014). In this study, it refers to the English Department students‘ perception of Open Educational Resources‘ benefit in their teaching and learning.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has discussed the phenomenon of utilizing Open Educational Resources in certain countries, particularly in Indonesia, that is a good program of enhancing better learning outcomes and improving students‘ understanding and academic performance. This program has been utilized by most universities in Indonesia and the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry just utilized Open Educational Resources in 2014, therefore, the use of this program is still in progress. This study attempted to look at English Department students‘ perception towards Open Educational Resources and its utilization in the State Islamic University Ar-Raniry. This chapter has outlined the study‘s objectives, research questions to be addressed, conceptual frameworks, and significance and delimitations of the study as well as operational definition.

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CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION

This chapter reviews the literature on Open Educational Resources starting with the theoretical review of Open Educational Resources concept followed by their advantages. A discussion of many studies that had been conducted in the past on Open Educational Resources would be discussed in the empirical review. Finally, this chapter will then be concluded with a review of the two constructs in as the conceptual framework, which are the students‘ perception and the use of Open Educational Resources, and the constructs are then measured accordingly.

THEORETICAL REVIEW Open Educational Resources

The term Open Educational Resources was firstly introduced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the Education Conference 2002, where it promotes free access in the context of providing educational resources on a global scale (Yuan, MacNeill, & Kraan, 2008). This term defines digitized materials as public domain under the intellectual properties license which permits their free use or re-use by educators, students and self-learners in teaching, learning, and research. The resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, or any other tools or materials that can be used for accessing the knowledge (Atkins et al., 2007).

Another definition on Open Educational Resources was proposed by D‘Antoni (2009) cited in William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which states that Open

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Educational Resources are resources that have been released under an intellectual property license as public domain or that which permits their free use or re-use by other people. The term Open Educational Resources is synonymous with the term Open Course Ware (OCW) and it is defined as a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level educational materials (Butcher, 2011). The OCW is organized as courses, and include course planning materials, evaluation tools, and thematic content, under a Creative Commons license (Vlǎdoiu, 2011). Therefore, both Open Educational Resources and OCW are under the Creative Commons license that allow users to download, redistribute, remix, tweak, produce new materials (which are used non-commercially), and the originators of the material are credited.

However, the Open Educational Recourses is not the same as e-learning, open learning or open education. The term ―e-learning‖ or ―electronic learning‖, which is also known as distance learning refers to a system of imparting knowledge through teaching from a distance where technology is used (Alenezi, 2012). Open learning is an approach to education that requires a systematic analysis of assessment and accreditation procedures , student support, curriculum frameworks, and mechanisms to recognize prior learning in order to determine the extent to which they enhance or impede openness (Butcher, 2011). In addition, the open learning or open education has significantly bigger implications than being only committed to releasing resources as open or using Open Educational Resources in educational programs. Importantly, the difference between Open Educational Resources and other educational resources is the license. Therefore, Open Educational Resources is simply an educational resource that incorporates a license that facilitates reuse, and potentially adaptation, without first requesting permission from the copyright holder.