3 H5P Key Benefits

H5P is OER

H5P (HTML5 Package) is a free and open-source content tool designed to create, share, and reuse interactive learning-focused content, especially learning management systems^[1]. Content types include:

• Interactive videos
• Presentations
• Quizzes
• Timelines
• Flash cards
• Hotspot maps

And much more! Since its release in 2014, H5P has grown significantly and is now used by thousands of educational institutions as well as other organizations worldwide to enhance e-learning and interactive content delivery. Like most open-source projects, H5P is community-driven and is constantly updated with contributions from a global network of developers and users. That means it is designed from the ground up to be easy to use and reuse. See Finding and Reusing Existing H5P for more information.

Since it was designed with learning management systems in mind, the content inherently aligns with key e-learning principles.

User-Centered Learning

Participatory learning experiences are at the core of H5P’s design, fostering active participation and active learning through its inherently interactive content types. By incorporating audio, video, text, and graphics, H5P provides diverse content experiences that support many different learning styles. This flexibility supports self-paced learning and self-testing opportunities, allowing learners to engage with the material at their own pace. From the perspective of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), H5P provides opportunities for autonomy, enhancing motivation and engagement.

Student success and engagement are enhanced through the use of H5P. These elements contribute to improved knowledge retention and deeper comprehension by combining different content types into a cohesive learning experience. Additionally, H5P includes accessibility features that cater to diverse learner needs, ensuring that all students can benefit from the interactive content regardless of their abilities.

H5P also has potential for pedagogical research, particularly in the realm of course design and technology integration. For example, the technology acceptance model provides a framework to evaluate how students interact with the content and their overall acceptance of the technology (see case study below). H5P also allows for tracking user interactions and performance metrics, providing data for evaluation and iterative improvement. Incorporating this information with data from Pressbooks can give creators a wealth of information about their content and the users in their community.

ENCLOTHE: A Case Study

ENCLOTHE is the annual fashion show for Apparel Merchandising and Product Development students. Students not only submit the designs for the show, but they also produce the show through the course Fashion Show Theory and Production. This course previously required an expensive textbook on industry fashion shows, with difficult to access quizzes that were irrelevant to academic fashion shows. For example, AMPD students do not typically have brand sponsorships and the designs are from as many different designers as there are garments. The unique challenges required a more contextual, customized book. ENCLOTHE the OER textbook was the answer. Through UARK Libraries’ OER Course Materials Conversion program, ENCLOTHE was implemented in Spring 2024.

Using the technology acceptance model ease-of-use scale, students provided feedback at 5 different points across the semester. As shown below, the students can be expected to steadily increase their competency over time. Most importantly, the ease-of-use score starts high, with an expected first-use score of 4.6 on a scale of 1-5.

Additionally, some quotes from the open-ended prompt provide insight into how the interactivity (i.e., H5P) was received by student users:

• “I really like the interactive sections!”
• “I love how visual it is!”
• “I love how interactive it is!”
• “Love the interactiveness”
• “I think it is accessible and interactive.”
• “I think it has a lot of cool features that makes it fun to learn and look through.”
• “I love the different interactions you are able to use!”
• “Super fun and interactive and helped me understand the assignments better.”
• “It has a lot of cool features that make it easy and fun to use.”
• “So fun and interactive.”
• “I really like how interactive it is.”
• “It is user friendly and interactive.”

Interested in doing a similar study? Feel free to review and remix the consent form in the Appendix! (You’ll still need your own exemption, though!)