The role of knowledge sharing self-efficacy in sharing Open Educational Resources Frederik Van Acker a,⇑ , Marjan Vermeulen b , Karel Kreijns b , Jan Lutgerink c , Hans van Buuren d a Departement of Health and Social Care, Artesis Plantijn (AP) University College, Lange Nieuwstraat 101, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium b Welten Institute: Research Center for Learning, Teaching and Technology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Open University of the Netherlands, Postbus 2950, 6419 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands c Departement of Science, Faculty of Management, Science, and Technology, Open University of the Netherlands, Postbus 2950, 6419 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands d Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Open University of the Netherlands, Postbus 2950, 6419 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands article info Article history: Keywords: OER Evaluation apprehension Knowledge sharing Teachers Self-efficacy abstract In the current paper we report on a study regarding teachers’ sharing behavior regarding their Open Edu- cational Resources (OER) in the Netherlands. Little is known about how many teachers actually share their learning materials and, therefore, an attempt was made to estimate the number of Dutch teachers and the types of OER they share. Second, we tried to find out whether knowledge sharing self-efficacy facilitated, and evaluation apprehension and trust inhibited teachers to share OER in two different con- texts of sharing behavior; sharing with colleagues at their school (interpersonal sharing) and sharing with the public through Internet (Internet sharing). A survey among 1568 teachers from primary to higher education was undertaken to test the relative importance of knowledge sharing self-efficacy, evaluation apprehension and trust in determining Dutch teachers’ intention to share. The results showed that a large proportion of the Dutch teachers shared their OER, but that this sharing was limited to learning materials with low complexity (e.g., texts or images). Moreover, sharing occurred twice as much interpersonally than via websites. Our hypothesis that evaluation apprehension is significantly related to sharing behav- ior as well as the intention to share was not confirmed. Self-efficacy to share knowledge did, however, explain some of the differences in sharing behavior and in the intention to share of Dutch teachers, although the variables under study accounted only for a small amount of variance. Our findings should thus be replicated in further studies and other variables should be considered that could effectively pre- dict OER sharing behavior of teachers. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The advent of the Internet has greatly influenced the way peo- ple communicate and share knowledge and information. Knowl- edge sharing amongst professionals used to be limited to individual exchanges or sharing through formal meetings such as conferences or during training sessions. Nowadays, the Internet hosts a plethora of community websites enabling online knowl- edge sharing among professionals, such as teachers and academics. Teachers may obviously make use of Internet-based knowledge repositories available to the general public (e.g., Wikiwpedia, Dictionary.com) as a source for a variety of topics to develop their learning materials. However, for the specific purpose of teaching, teachers might often be especially interested in materials that already incorporate content with a specific didactical or pedagogi- cal approach. We refer to these materials as digital learning mate- rials (DLMs). Generally, DLMs cannot be found on these before mentioned knowledge repositories, but rather on dedicated educa- tional repositories provided by educational institutions (e.g., MIT in the USA, Delft University in the Netherlands, and the UK Open Uni- versity) as well as by initiatives such as the Wikiwijs program. The Wikiwijs program was launched early 2009 by the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science to encourage respectively using, creating, and sharing DLMs by teachers in every sector of education (Plasterk, 2009). In so far that these DLMs are made available through educa- tional repositories their use may be constrained. The degree to which DLMs use is constrained defines their openness (Peter & Deimann, 2013), that is, the degree to which they may be reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed (Wiley, 2009). DLMs that have some degree of openness are commonly referred to as Open http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.07.006 0747-5632/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: frederik.vanacker@ap.be (F. Van Acker), marjan.vermeulen@ ou.nl (M. Vermeulen), karel.kreijns@ou.nl (K. Kreijns), jan.lutgerink@ou.nl (J. Lutgerink), hans.vanbuuren@ou.nl (H. van Buuren). Computers in Human Behavior 39 (2014) 136–144 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh