Teaching counts! Open Educational Resources as an object of measurement for scientometric analysis

At present, performance assessment in science focuses mainly on scientific publications. Teaching is not given the same attention in the reward and recognition system, even though it is an integral part of science. Open Educational Resources (OER) are open teaching and learning materials, the creation and publication of which can, under certain conditions, be considered equivalent to other scientific output. A scientometric analysis of OER is in principle possible. However, as an object of measurement, OER show a number of peculiarities. These include often missing comprehensible quality assessments procedures, the treatment of OER versions regarding a sufficient level of creation and the consideration of different granularities. This work discusses the special OER features in detail and suggests an applicable definition for OER in scientometric contexts. OER can have many different forms. To simplify measurability, the categories Dedicated Learning Content and Learning Design Content are proposed for use in scientometric analysis of OER. A third category, OER ecosystem, is suggested for capturing services such as consulting, providing funding or operating OER infrastructures that create an OER-conducive environment. In addition, practical challenges are considered, such as the separate collection of attribution and citation data for OER.