Name: Data in Your Neighborhood: Exploring the Potential of Secondary Data Analysis in Open Education Research
Start: 2026-10-07T15:35:00-0400
End: 2026-10-07T16:05:00-0400

All sessions are available online except round tables, special activities, and workshops.

Data in Your Neighborhood: Exploring the Potential of Secondary Data Analysis in Open Education Research

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT

4 Room T

ID: 31579

Secondary data analysis is the process of using existing data, collected by others for different purposes, to answer new research questions or examine trends. This method enables researchers to leverage an existing, rigorously collected dataset without requiring new data collection. It provides a cost-effective, time-saving way to analyze large datasets (e.g., surveys), provide deeper insights, and explore trends in data over years or decades. In this roundtable session, we discuss the purpose and value of using secondary data analysis in open education research. We ground the discussion in our experience of analyzing secondary data from a freely available dataset derived from the Ithaka S+R Instructor Survey (2024). The secondary analysis produced a more nuanced picture of faculty engagement with Open Educational Resources (OER) by correlating instructor characteristics with OER activity. The use of secondary data from a well-established national survey provides a robust foundation for exploring the OER landscape. While the field has accumulated substantial data on faculty adoption, use, satisfaction, and creation of OER, findings are often reported in aggregate, treating the faculty population as a single undifferentiated group. The breadth of the dataset, combined with the ability to examine subgroup variations, makes it possible to identify structural patterns that shape how OER is understood and adopted across higher education. This methodological approach aligns with the broader goal of advancing insight into faculty engagement with OER. Secondary data analysis expanded the potential of the Ithaka S+R Instructor survey by addressing questions that were not highlighted in their original analysis, but are of use to OER advocates. Using secondary data also allows for efficient use of resources, as the sampling, recruitment, and data cleaning processes have already been completed by the original research team. The publicly available codebooks and documentation provided by Ithaka S+R support transparency and replicability, ensuring that variable definitions and coding schemes are clearly understood. The data set we used was published and made freely available by Ithaka S+R in the database of social science datasets from Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Their data focused on instructor responses on a number of issues facing higher education; however, our interest was particular to OER. The depositing of data makes a more granular analysis possible. Participants will brainstorm potential sources of datasets for data analysis, such as government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and previous academic studies, and generate ideas for utilizing the data in study design.

Speakers

Stacy Katz

Associate Professor, Open Resources Librarian, Lehman College, CUNY

Stacy Katz is an Associate Professor and Open Resources Librarian-STEM Liaison at Lehman College, CUNY. She initiated, developed, and continues to manage the Open Educational Resources (OER) initiative for the college. Stacy’s research to date has focused on OER, particularly how... Read More →

Jennifer Van Allen

Associate Professor of Literacy Education, Lehman College, City University of New York

Jennifer Van Allen, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at Lehman College in the City University of New York. Her research focuses on effective and equitable practices for integrating technology into literacy teaching and learning, with a special interest in online... Read More →

Wednesday October 7, 2026 3:35pm - 4:05pm EDT
4 Room T MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Round Table

Speaker Modality In-person
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

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OEGlobal 2026

Stacy Katz

Jennifer Van Allen

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OEGlobal 2026

Stacy Katz

Jennifer Van Allen

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