SWOT Analysis

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis serves as a fundamental tool in strategic planning. After an initial assessment of your current program and an understanding of interested parties, you should have a much easier time completing a SWOT Analysis as you begin looking forward.

While SWOT was first developed in the context of business, it is now utilized for planning in all types of environments, including higher education. It will be to your advantage to consider your current OER program's particular strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to help as you move forward.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Describe what you already excel in. These are internal influences like:

  • Campus OER awareness

  • Faculty buy-in

  • Funding support

  • OER efforts fit within the institution's vision and mission

Weakness

What might prevent your new program from functioning at an optimum level? These are areas where you need to improve to continue building a sustainable program. These are also internal influences such as:

  • Lack of team expertise in OER creation and/or open publishing platforms

  • Minimal funding

  • Faculty time constraints

  • Instructor turnover

  • Campus policy limitations

Opportunities

This refers to favorable outside factors (external influences) that can be utilized to give your program an advantage. For example:

  • Professional development to build skills as they relate to open education

  • Cross-departmental collaboration

  • Engagement with enthusiastic student government association members/student groups

  • Student engagement in the classroom is at an all-time low. Open pedagogy projects may be a way to re-energize students. Fewer throw-away assignments.

  • Retention & Reducing Barriers

Threats

Threats refer to factors that have the potential to harm your program's progress. Common threats include things like:

  • Faculty burnout

  • Competing campus-wide issues

  • Pushback due to lack of understanding

  • Budget cuts

  • Competing initiatives like "inclusive access"

Here are some additional considerations for your own analysis. Where these fall in your analysis will depend on circumstances on your campus.

  • How does OER fit within your institution's vision and mission?

  • Do you have administrative support?

  • Will openly licensed materials and OER help improve institutional reputation?

  • What level of expertise do you have in terms of open licensing, creation support, and technical skills?

  • Does your campus have an established awareness of OER and open access publishing? What are the perceptions?

Here is a simple SWOT Analysis Template to get you started. Please feel free to make a copy for yourself:

Open Program - SWOT Analysis