Many promises have been made about the potential benefits of the adoption of open educational resources (OER) in developing countries in particular. While there are a few empirical studies of OER adoption and impact in countries in the so-called Global South, most of these studies to date have been carried out in the Global North. The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project was established in 2013 to contribute to a better understanding of OER adoption and impact in countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This paper will reflect on the ROER4D project’s commitment to ‘open research’ processes, as well as the benefits experienced and challenges faced whilst investigating OER ‘openly’. Four dimensions of open research are explored, including: ideological openness, which provides the cultural framework enabling open research; legal openness, which provides the legal mechanisms to ensure that research is openly licensed to facilitate reuse; technical openness, which ensures that these ‘open’ beliefs are manifested in the platforms used and the materials produced; and practical openness, which enables collaboration amongst OER researchers. Working on a multicultural and multi-linguistic project has illustrated for the ROER4D Network Hub team some of the affordances, difficulties and unexpected consequences of conducting open research, which has led to our engagement in ‘critical openness’ – determining which elements of open research practice are valuable and practical given the intricacies of our context, and how best to align open research principles with our practice. This paper will also explore the reasons for the project’s seemingly more modest aspirations towards open research and the necessity to be more deliberate or critical about what and when research should be open.
