scholarly journals Participation in OER Creation: A Trajectory of Values

Author(s):  
Erin Meger ◽  
Michelle Schwartz ◽  
Wendy Freeman

This paper provides an analysis of interviews with seven faculty members who engaged in creating Open textbooks funded by government grants at a university in Canada in 2018. Using four values—access and equity, community and connection, agency and ownership, and risk and responsibility—identified by Sinkinson (2018), McAndrew (2018), and Keyek-Fransen (2018), we traced the ways in which university faculty members’ understanding of Open changed through the process of Open Educational Resource creation. As a teaching support-focused unit, we explore ways to provide our faculty and instructors with meaningful opportunities to develop their Open pedagogy. These findings reconceive the way that Open Educational Practice can be promoted at our University and others. Instead of focusing solely on OER creation, our faculty started engaging in thinking through the different conceptions of Open educational practice and identifying which concepts resonated with them. By reframing the ways in which faculty thought about Open Educational Practices, we have been better able to address the ways in which we support them.

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-414
Author(s):  
Adriana Alves Novais Souza ◽  
Henrique Nou Schneider

O trabalho em questão discute as possibilidades de uso da rede social Facebook como um Recurso Educacional Aberto, pela possibilidade de recursos semelhantes aos de um Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem. A utilização do Facebook sob essa perspectiva de aprendizagem pressupõe flexibilidade, aqui tratada como uma Prática Educacional Aberta, reafirmando a eficácia da Educação Aberta para o apoio, avaliação e consolidação de uma aprendizagem mais dinâmica. Desenvolveu-se uma prática em uma disciplina ministrada na graduação da Universidade Federal de Sergipe, explorando as possibilidades dos recursos da rede social em questão, levantando-se dados a partir da observação diária do ambiente, das interações entre os alunos, verificando-se uma alta frequência e adesão destes à proposta. A pesquisa avançará na fase seguinte, aplicando questionários e entrevistando os discentes, a fim de obter suas perspectivas diante da prática. Palavras-chave: Recurso Educacional Aberto (REA). Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizagem (AVA). Facebook.  ABSTRACT This paper discusses the possibilities of using the social network Facebook as an Open Educational Resource, because it has a possibility of resources similar to those of a Virtual Learning Environment. The use of Facebook in this learning perspective presupposes flexibility, here treated as an Open Educational Practice, reaffirming the effectiveness of Open Education to support, evaluation and consolidation of a more dynamic learning. It was developed a practice in a subject taught at an undergraduate course of the Federal University of Sergipe, exploring the possibilities of this social network resources, collecting data from the daily observation of the environment, from the interactions among students, verifying a high frequency and accession of the students to the proposal. The research will advance in the next phase, conducting surveys and interviewing the students, in order to get their perspectives on the practice. Keywords: Open Educational Resource (OER). Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Facebook.


Author(s):  
Martin Weller

Open education is an evolving term that covers a range of philosophies and practices aimed at widening access to education for those wishing to learn, with the current focus predominantly on practices based around reuse and sharing. This current focus can be traced back to the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, and the use of open licences, such as Creative Commons licences. However, it also has links to open universities, open access publishing, MOOCs, open source software and open approaches to teaching.The current interpretation of open education is heavily influenced by the OER movement with an emphasis on the ‘5Rs of reuse’ (Reuse, Revise Remix, Redistribute and Retain - Wiley 2014). The profile of open education has been further raised in recent years by the popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Although they do not always meet the 5Rs criteria, MOOCs are open to all and freely available, and have gained considerable attention and funding. Another growth area is that of open textbooks, which can be viewed as a specific form of OER, and is particularly prevalent in North America through projects such as OpenStax and BC Campus


2014 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javiera Atenas ◽  
Leo Havemann

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials which are freely available and openly licensed. Repositories of OER (ROER) are platforms that host and facilitate access to these resources. ROER should not just be designed to store this content – in keeping with the aims of the OER movement, they should support educators in embracing open educational practices (OEP) such as searching for and retrieving content that they will reuse, adapt or modify as needed, without economic barriers or copyright restrictions. This paper reviews key literature on OER and ROER, in order to understand the roles ROER are said or supposed to fulfil in relation to furthering the aims of the OER movement. Four themes which should shape repository design are identified, and the following 10 quality indicators (QI) for ROER effectiveness are discussed: featured resources; user evaluation tools; peer review; authorship of the resources; keywords of the resources; use of standardised metadata; multilingualism of the repositories; inclusion of social media tools; specification of the creative commons license; availability of the source code or original files. These QI form the basis of a method for the evaluation of ROER initiatives which, in concert with considerations of achievability and long-term sustainability, should assist in enhancement and development.Keywords: open educational resources; open access; open educational practice; repositories; quality assurance(Published: 24 July 2014)Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2014, 22: 20889 -http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v22.20889


Author(s):  
Adrian Stagg ◽  
Linh Nguyen ◽  
Carina Bossu ◽  
Helen Partridge ◽  
Johanna Funk ◽  
...  

For fifteen years, Australian Higher Education has engaged with the openness agenda primarily through the lens of open-access research. Open educational practice (OEP), by contrast, has not been explicitly supported by federal government initiatives, funding, or policy. This has led to an environment that is disconnected, with isolated examples of good practice that have not been transferred beyond local contexts.This paper represents first-phase research in identifying the current state of OEP in Australian Higher Education. A structured desktop audit of all Australian universities was conducted, based on a range of indicators and criteria established by a review of the literature. The audit collected evidence of engagement with OEP using publicly accessible information via institutional websites. The criteria investigated were strategies and policies, open educational resources (OER), infrastructure tools/platforms, professional development and support, collaboration/partnerships, and funding.Initial findings suggest that the experience of OEP across the sector is diverse, but the underlying infrastructure to support the creation, (re)use, and dissemination of resources is present. Many Australian universities have experimented with, and continue to refine, massive open online course (MOOC) offerings, and there is increasing evidence that institutions now employ specialist positions to support OEP, and MOOCs. Professional development and staff initiatives require further work to build staff capacity sector-wide.This paper provides a contemporary view of sector-wide OEP engagement in Australia—a macro-view that is not well-represented in open research to date. It identifies core areas of capacity that could be further leveraged by a national OEP initiative or by national policy on OEP.


Author(s):  
Bonnie Stewart ◽  
Nick Baker

This paper outlines the design and purpose of an open educational resource (OER) project focused on developing digital literacies and open educational practice (OEP) within a Canadian Faculty of Education. Called The Open Page, the project features a Tool Parade of videos and podcasts created with and by Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) students). Designed to enable students to build critical and participatory digital literacies with common classroom tools, and to encourage the development of OEP, the project assesses classroom uses of specific educational technology platforms. It also engaged student creators in analysis of various platforms' implications for student data and for differentiated learning. Featured on the University of Windsor Faculty of Education's website, The Open Page and its Tool Parade of OER offer professional development resources for faculty and practicing teachers and contributes to a common conversation about digital learning between educators at all levels. This paper will overview The Open Page and its creation, and the ways in which it represents an effort to focus pre-service teachers on the participatory and production capacities of the web for digital learning.


Open Praxis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Bossu ◽  
Adrian Stagg

Open Educational Practices (OEP) have played an important role in assisting educational institutions and governments worldwide to meet their current and future educational targets in widening participation, lowering costs, improving the quality of learning and teaching and promoting social inclusion and participatory democracy. There have been some important OEP developments in Australia, but unfortunately the potential of OEP to meet some of the national educational targets has not been fully realised and acknowledged yet, in ways that many countries around the world have. This paper will gather, discuss, and analyse some key national and international policies and documentation available as an attempt to provide a solid foundation for a call to action for OEP in Australia, which will hopefully be an instrument to assist and connect practitioners and policy makers in higher education.


Author(s):  
Douglas Pearson ◽  
Allen Easton

One of the core tensions in open educational practice in current mathematics and physical science coursework is the use of online homework systems. Many such tools are from commercial providers and have profit to that provider as a motive. Open resources are pursued by those who, for reasons of cost or of pedagogy, seek to resist the tools of commercial providers. This pursuit is frequently made outside of the context of discussions of open educational practices; indeed, the first author of this presentation describes one such effort that started before he was even aware of open education as a discipline. It is important to ask how those faculty, particularly in the mathematics and physical science disciplines at non-elite institutions, assign homework in ways that encourage practice and skill-building, and more broadly, how such content can be shared more robustly and completely among faculty at different institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Stewart

This paper overviews an Open Educational Resource (OER) project aimed at developing digital literacies and open educational practice within a Faculty of Education. The project, titled (redacted), modelled and enacted three core digital learning principles – produsage, presence, and authentic audiences – for a broad audience of faculty and educators through the creation of videos and podcasts about educational technology tools. Designed to enable Bachelor of Education students to work towards authentic assignments and open practice, while leading professional development for faculty and practicing teachers, (redacted) also developed student literacies in assessing and evaluating educational technology platforms. The project’s video and podcast outputs, showcased on a sub-page of the official Faculty of Education website, reflect intensive student research into the classroom uses, data implications, and differentiated learning possibilities of digital classroom tools. The paper will introduce readers to the principles and pedagogy that shaped the design of (redacted), and examine its efforts to create a common conversation about digital learning between educators at all levels.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Yeager ◽  
Betty Hurley-Dasgupta ◽  
Catherine A. Bliss

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) continue to attract press coverage as they change almost daily in their format, number of registrations and potential for credentialing. An enticing aspect of the MOOC is its global reach. In this paper, we will focus on a type of MOOC called a cMOOC, because it is based on the theory of connectivism and fits the definition of an Open Educational Resource (OER) identified for this special edition of JALN. We begin with a definition of the cMOOC and a discussion of the connectivism on which it is based. Definitions and a research review are followed with a description of two MOOCs offered by two of the authors. Research on one of these MOOCs completed by a third author is presented as well. Student comments that demonstrate the intercultural connections are shared. We end with reflections, lessons learned and recommendations.


2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Lin ◽  
Karen Swan

This paper uses an online learning conceptual framework to examine the “rights to education” that the current online educational environments could provide. The conceptual framework is composed of three inquiries or three spaces for inquiries, namely, independent inquiry, collaborative inquiry, and formative inquiry towards expert knowledge [42] that online learners pursue and undertake in the process of their learning. Our examinations reveal that most online open educational resource environments (OERs) can incorporate more Web2.0 or Web3.0 technologies so as to provide the self-directed learners, who are the main audience of OERs, with more opportunities to participate, collaborate, and co-create knowledge, and accordingly, to achieve their full rights to education.


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