Abstract
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Open Educational Resources (OER) are considered a success factor for the realisation of high-quality, inclusive and equal opportunity education. OER are all kinds of teaching and learning materials that are made available under a free licence. The essence of these materials is that anyone can legally reproduce, use, modify and distribute them free of charge. However, despite extensive scholarly discussion and financial support, their embedding in educational systems has been far less successful than originally hoped (Karapanos et al., 2019; Jung et al., 2016).
In the search for the reasons for this development, there are numerous research projects on barriers to the use of OER at universities from the perspective of teachers or students. However, there are hardly any studies on those factors that can promote or inhibit the development of OER. Since the creation of these learning materials is a form of knowledge transfer by teachers, the question arises as to which factors positively and negatively influence the intention to share knowledge or develop OER. Among the factors discussed in the literature are the attitude towards knowledge transfer, the subjective norm, the perceived behavioural control or the personal value characteristics (Schneider et al. 2018).
Psychological ownership can play a significant role as a further factor influencing the intention to develop OER. Pierce, Kostova and Dirks (2001, p. 299) define psychological ownership as a state in which "[...] individuals feel as though the target of ownership (material or immaterial in nature) or a piece of it is "theirs" (i.e., "It is MINE"!)". However, OER does not necessarily enable teachers to build or maintain psychological ownership, but rather encourages its loss (Hamari et al. 2016). Such losses are often perceived as a threat or diminishment of the self.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the consequences that can be expected from the perspective of the phenomenon of psychological ownership on the successful development of OER. In addition, the first results of an ongoing qualitative study are presented, where teachers are asked about the influence of psychological property on the development of free content for use in higher education teaching.