This blog post was originally written for the ETEC 523 Mobile Intelligence course. In this post, I will cover:

• An overview of H5P and OER (Open Educational Resources) and how they are used
• An analysis of using H5P in OER from a mobile learning perspective
• H5P in OER in practice, including real-life examples and best practices

Overview on H5P and OER (Open Educational Resources)

Before diving into analysis, I have created a short H5P course presentation below to provide an overview on H5P and OER, and how the tools are used in BC. I have created the H5P object below using UBC’s Open H5P Hub (which is currently available to UBC Faculty, Staff, Students) 

H5P in OER: A Mobile Learning Perspective

UI/UX 

By default, H5P is mobile-friendly and uses responsive design. For example, when I tested the embedded H5P above, the content worked well on mobile, tablet, and PC. In the context of OER, students around the world access content in diverse ways and environments, so ensuring mobile-friendliness is especially important.

Context driven

H5P is not designed with context-awareness in mind. Most H5P content does not adapt based on a user’s location, past interactions, or data. Since personal data cannot be tracked without requiring a login, creating truly context-aware content is challenging. As a result, the H5P experience is identical for all users. This limitation is particularly evident in OER environments such as Pressbooks, where learners typically access H5P activities without logging in.

One H5P object that can potentially be used to imitate context-aware content is the H5P Branching Scenario. This content type allows you to present learners with choices, and the path or result of the activity changes depending on what they select.

For example in the above branching scenario of “Staying motivated online” by Trevor Winchester (CC by 4.0 SA) , depending on the advice that learners give to Tylene, the result of what learners get will change. However, even in the branching scenario, the context that H5P is able to get is surface level, and relies on what users selected.

Social Narrative 

From an educational pedagogy perspective, activities that require learners to “do” or take action enhance learning outcomes overall. This is known as the “Doer Effect,” which promotes retrieval practice by requiring learners to actively recall and apply knowledge during the learning process (Koedinger et al., 2016).

However, one limitation of H5P is that it lacks built-in features for communication among learners. One of the key values of OER is social learning, where learners are able to exchange ideas and learn from one another. Cronin (2017) identifies valuing social learning as one of the four key dimensions shared by educators who adopt open educational practices, alongside balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, and challenging traditional teaching roles. 

The interaction in H5P is solely between the learner and the content, and it does not facilitate interaction among learners. Therefore, educators may want to use other tools to complement if they want to incorporate social learning aspects to their OER.

H5P in OER: In Practice 

H5P is a mobile friendly tool to add interactivity to OER. The tool itself does not require expertise in HTML or JavaScript, which makes it easier for educators from different backgrounds to create interactive objects. 

Although H5P does not have the ability to collect user data for personalized learning or facilitate interaction among learners for social learning, it is possible to achieve these goals by combining H5P with other tools. For example, we have incorporated H5P in an OER and a course called POSE (Program of Open Scholarship and Education) at University of British Columbia.  The platform of the POSE uses WordPress.  In the content page, we have incorporated H5P Question set at the end of page in order to add interactive to the page. Since POSE was both designed OER and a course, we have decided to incorporate social learning elements by using the comment feature of WordPress and Padlet. . 

For the personalized learning aspect, although we have not currently implemented it, we were exploring the possibility of using an AI chatbot in the future. 

Limitations and Considerations 

However, it is also important to recognize the limitations of incorporating social learning or personalized learning. In the context of OER, there are often far more learners participating compared to a traditional course. Therefore, if educators do not have the capacity to moderate online discussions, removing the social learning component may be a more suitable option.

In addition, incorporating personalized learning may require the collection of learners’ personal data, which some may find uncomfortable. One workaround is to make the personalized component optional and allow users to opt out. For example, the OER could offer an AI chatbot as a way for learners to engage with the material, while ensuring that those who choose not to participate do not miss out on the overall learning experience.

Acknowledge and Disclaimer 

I have also referred to CTLT’s Design Principles for Multimedia when designing this resource. The page includes a literature review of multimedia design principles. One principle I applied in particular is the segmenting principle, which suggests that users learn better when content is broken into smaller chunks.

In addition, although the ideas are my own, I used ChatGPT-5 to improve the grammar, clarity, and sentence structure of my analysis. Example prompts I used include: “Fix grammar. Is this clear?” and “Does this make sense?” I also proofread and revised the output after incorporating the suggested improvements into my paragraph.

References

Branching Scenario. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2025, from https://h5p.org/branching-scenario

Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096

Documentation:Design Principles for Multimedia—UBC Wiki. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2025, from https://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:Design_Principles_for_Multimedia

Examples & downloads. (n.d.). Retrieved September 26, 2025, from https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications

Getting started. (n.d.). H5P. Retrieved September 13, 2025, from https://h5p.org/getting-started

H5P. (n.d.). Simon Fraser University Centre for Educational Excellence. Retrieved September 13, 2025, from https://www.sfu.ca/cee/services/learning-technology-and-media-support/h5p-new.html

Koedinger, K. R., McLaughlin, E. A., Jia, J. Z., & Bier, N. L. (2016). Is the doer effect a causal relationship? How can we tell and why it’s important. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge, 388–397. https://doi.org/10.1145/2883851.2883957

MIT Licensed. (n.d.). H5P. Retrieved September 13, 2025, from https://h5p.org/MIT-licensed

Wiley, D. (2014, March 5). The Access Compromise and the 5th R. Improving Learning. https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221