Catherine Cronin @catherinecronin

CELT, National University of Ireland, Galway

Open educational practices

(OEP)

for teaching in higher education

links to presentation slides, references & resources:

bit.ly/oep-emergeafrica

pen

Choosing

Image: CC0 by Nadine Shaabana

GO-GN researchers at OE Global Conference – Cape Town, April 2017

go-gn.net/ & conference.oeconsortium.org/2017/presentations/

1. Why and when might educators and educational

technology practitioners choose open, and why not?

questions to consider…

2. In our contexts, how can we balance personal choice

(regarding openness) with institutional and other

constraints?

3. How can we grow open educational practices (OEP)

in African Higher Education?

pre

se

nta

tio

ndis

cussio

n

Open education is a tool for

social change.

Santos, A.I., Punie, Y., & Muñoz, J.C. (2016)

Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions

“

networked

educators

networked

students

Physical

Spaces

Bounded

Online

Spaces

Open

Online

Spaces

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Catherine Cronin, built on Networked Teacher image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Alec Couros

higher education

Openness and praxis:

Exploring the use of

open educational practices (OEP)

in higher education

my PhD research study

1. In what ways do academic staff use OEP?

2. Why do/don’t academic staff use OEP?

3. What practices, values, and/or strategies are

shared by open educators, if any?

4. How do open educators and students interact in

open online spaces, and how do they enact and

negotiate their digital identities?

research questions

“Part of the problem of definition stems from the careless, if evocative,

use of the term open by educators and the popular press to describe the

wide variety of educational innovations which proliferated at the same

time as open education classrooms were being developed.”

Noddings & Enright (1983)

“Open learning is an imprecise phrase to which a range of meanings can

be, and is, attached. It eludes definition. But as an inscription to be

carried in procession on a banner, gathering adherents and enthusiasms,

it has great potential. For its very imprecision enables it to accommodate

many different ideas and aims.”

MacKenzie, Postgate & Scupham (1975)

OEP

(Open Educational

Practices)

OER

(Open Educational

Resources)

Free

Open Admission (e.g. Open Universities)

INTERPRETATIONS

of ‘OPEN’

OER-focused definitionsproduce, use, reuse OER

+ broader definitions…

Licensed for reusefor use, adaptation &

redistribution by others

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

• Open educational practices (OEP)(Beetham, et al., 2012; Ehlers, 2011; Hodgkinson-Williams, 2009 & 2014)

• Open teaching(Couros, 2010; Couros & Hildebrandt, 2016)

• Open pedagogy (DeRosa & Robison, 2017; Hegarty, 2015; Weller, 2014)

• Open scholarship(Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a; Weller, 2011)

• Networked participatory scholarship (Stewart, 2015; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012b; Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016)

• Critical (digital) pedagogy(Farrow, 2016; Rosen & Smale, 2015; Stommel, 2014)

OEP and related concepts

The expanding global collection of OER… contribute to making

education more accessible, especially where money for learning

materials is scarce. They also nourish the kind of participatory culture

of learning, creating, sharing and cooperation that rapidly changing

knowledge societies need.

However, open education is not limited to just OER. It also draws upon

open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and

the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to

benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to

include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and

collaborative learning.

Cape Town Open Declaration (2007)

“

open educational practices (OEP)

collaborative practices that include the creation, use and reuse of

OER and pedagogical practices employing participatory

technologies and social networks for interaction, peer-learning,

knowledge creation & sharing, and empowerment of learners

definition for my study

INTERPRETATIONS

of ‘OPEN’

Policy/

Culture

Values

Practices

Activities

LEVELS of

OPENNESS

OEP

(Open Educational

Practices)

OER

(Open Educational

Resources)

Free

Open Admission (e.g. Open Universities)

Ind

ivid

ua

l

In

stit

uti

on

al

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

Image: CC BY-SA izzie_whizzie

methodology

Approach: qualitative / interpretive / critical

Method: constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014)

Setting: one HEI in Ireland without open education policies/culture

Participants: 19 members of academic staff, varied by discipline,

employment status, and approach to openness

Not using OEP

for teaching

Using OEP

for teaching

DIGITAL

NETWORKING

PRACTICES

Main digital identity is university-

based

Not using social media

(or personal use only)

Combined university &

open identities

Using social media

personally/professionally,

but not for teaching

Well-developed open digital

identity

Using social media

personally/professionally,

including teaching

DIGITAL

TEACHING

PRACTICES

Using VLE only

Using free resources, little

knowledge of C or CC

Using VLE + open tools

Using & reusing OER

DIGITAL

LITERACIES

Using digital natives discourse

to describe self, peers,

and/or students

Developing own & students’

digital & network literacies

PERSONAL

VALUES

Strong attachment to

personal privacy

Strict boundaries:

personal/professional

& student/teacher

Valuing privacy & openness;

striving for balance

Accepting porosity across

boundaries

Continuum: increasing openness

• Many academic staff perceive potential risks

(for themselves & their students) in using OEP;

some perceive the benefits to outweigh the risks.

• A minority of participants (8 of 19) used OEP.

• 2 levels of ‘using OEP’: (i) being open, (ii) teaching openly.

• 4 dimensions shared by open educators:

balancing privacy and openness

developing digital literacies (self & students)

valuing social learning

challenging traditional teaching role expectations

Findings

Balancing

privacy and openness

Developing

digital literacies

Valuing

social learning

Challenging traditional

teaching role expectations

4 dimensions shared by educators using OEP

“I don’t mind if students follow me and if

they find stuff that I’ve written online. But

I just don’t encourage it as part of the

teaching, or their relationship

with me as their teacher.”

- participant (not using OEP)

“I don’t let students know I’m on Twitter,

they seem to figure it out.

It depends on what email account I reply to

them with. Depending on the teaching or

contractual situation in any given year,

sometimes the [university] email account

just evaporates and I have to fall back and

use my own email account. My personal

email signature has my Twitter name, my

blog. The [university] account just has the

department name.”

- participant (using OEP)

Balancing

privacy and openness

Developing

digital literacies

Valuing

social learning

Challenging traditional

teaching role expectations

inner circle(2 dimensions)

Networked

Individuals

both circles(4 dimensions)

Networked

Educators

4 dimensions shared by educators using OEP

using

OERusing

OEP

emergent practice

in this study

See also: Cox & Trotter (2016); Czerniewicz, Deacon, Walji & Glover (2016, in press)

Balancing privacy & openness

Image: CC BY 2.0 woodleywonderworks

“There are no hard and fast rules.”

- participant (using OEP)

“I have personal rules for that.”

- participant (using OEP)

“You’re negotiating all the time.”

- participant (using OEP)

Balancing privacy and openness

will I share openly?

who will I share with? (context collapse)

who will I share as? (digital identity)

will I share this?

MACRO

MESO

MICRO

NANO

An important question becomes not simply whether education is

more or less open, but what forms of openness are worthwhile

and for whom; openness alone is not an educational virtue.

Edwards (2015)

“

critical approaches to openness

additional references:

Bayne, Knox & Ross (2015)

Cottom (2015)

Czerniewicz (2015)

Martins dos Santos Ferriera, G., et al. (Eds.). (2017).

Selwyn & Facer (2013)

singh (2015)

Watters (2014)

Image: CC BY 2.0 vramak

It has never been more risky to operate in the open.

It has never been more vital to operate in the open.

Martin Weller (2016)

Use of OEP is...

Complex

Personal

Contextual

Continuously negotiated

Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NYPL

To hope is to give

yourself to the future,

and that commitment

to the future

makes the present

inhabitable.

Rebecca Solnit (2004)

Hope in the Dark

“

Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NYPL

Thank You!@catherinecronin

slideshare.net/cicronin

bit.ly/oep-emergeafrica