The goal of this paper is to define relevant barriers to the exchange of Open Educational Resources in local public administrations. Building upon a cultural model, eleven experts were interviewed and asked to evaluate several factors, such as openness in discourse, learning at the workplace, and superior support, among others. The result is a set of socio-cultural factors that shape the use of Open Educational Resources in public administrations. Significant factors are, in this respect, the independent choice of learning resources, the spirit of the platform, the range of available formats and access to technologies. Practitioners use these factors to elaborate on the readiness of public administrations towards the use of open e-Learning systems. To academic debates on culture in e-Learning, the results provide an alternative model that is contextualized to meet the demands of public sector contexts. Overall, the paper contributes to the lack of research about open e-Learning systems in the public sector, as well as regarding culture in the management of learning and knowledge exchange.

Why do barriers to the exchange of open knowledge resources change in public administrations? Experts in the public sector have been interviewed and outlined antecedents of change to certain barriers. The results are an initial step towards theorizing on barrier change and stepping beyond the current trend of categorizing difficulties to e-Learning and use of open knowledge resources. Categorizing only shows the range of potential challenges. Whether and how the barriers change, however, is seldom addressed in previous literature. The results presented in this study thus provide a new perspective on the phenomenon. Results are part of a longitudinal study about open e-Learning in the public sector across four European countries. They will provide fresh empirical input for discussions at the World Conference on E-Learning how to advance future research and practices in the domain