From Metrics to Themes on Open Educational Resources: A Bibliometric Overview and Thematic Dive

Throughout the world, openness has undergone a substantial shift in the education scenario. In the context of an ever-increasing number of learners across diverse disciplines, open educational resources (OER) have proven to be an essential lifeline. These resources offer free and open assistance to educators in their academic careers. The open-access character of OER attracts learners who are interested in discovering and participating in discipline-specific knowledge, without cost. OERs make an instrumental contribution to the success of the open education movement. This paper provides a bibliometric overview of OER development from 2002 to 2025 and identifies key trends, influential publications and developing areas of study in the field. In addition, we performed thematic analysis of the top 100 most cited gold open-access articles published on the topic of OER to determine underlying themes and knowledge that have contributed to the development of the field. Collectively, these analyses provide a panoramic vision of the conceptual and practical development of OER.