The Open Educational Quality Initiative "Beyond OER" study report is now published. Among its conclusions it finds that OER are more widely used where programmes or inititatives for open resources exist at the institutional level. The lesser the fear, insecurity or discomfort towards Open Educational Resources (OER), the higher the frequency of OER use. The report thus advocates building trust in OER in order to increase their actual usage, and building open learning architectures to transform learning.

Institutional policies for OER are still a long way from impacting on educational institutions according to findings from the Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) quantative survey. The perception by respondents that OER lead to institutional innovation still does not translate into implementation at the organization level. This is further compounded on the one hand by the very modest levels of support to factors that induce or enable the implementation of Open Educational Practices (OEP) in educational institutions, and on the other hand by the level of importance attached by respondents to institutional policy barriers to the use of OER.

Although open educational resources (OER) are high on the agenda of social and inclusion policies and supported by many stakeholders of the educational sphere, their use in HE and adult education (AE) has not yet reached the critical threshold which is posing an obstacle to a seamless provision of high quality learning resources and practices for citizens’ lifelong learning efforts. This has to do with the fact that the current focus in OER is mainly put on building more access to digital content. There is little consideration of whether this will support educational practices, promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. The project OPAL therefore extends the focus beyond 'access' to 'innovative open educational practices' (OEP).