This Pyramid was developed in the course of a research paper focusing on why South African academics adopt OER or not. We understood that numerous factors shaped their choices, but it became apparent that some factors were "essential" to OER activity while others were merely "influential". To clarify which factors were required for any type of OER activity, we developed the OER Adoption Pyramid, which consolidates the factors into six hierarchically related categories: access, permission, awareness, capacity, availability and volition. In Proceedings of Open Education Global 2016, 12?14 April 2016. Krakow, Poland.