Open Education Practices

OPEN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES

Ehler 2011, defined Open Education Practices as “Collaborative practice in which resources are shared by making them openly available and pedagogical practices are employed which rely on social interaction, knowledge creation (peer learning) and shared learning practices”. Ehler adds that “OEP support the (re) use and production of OER through institutional policies, promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning paths”.

According to Chiappe and Adame (2018), “Open Education Practices can cover several dimensions, including assessment, teaching and educational planning”

Five Conditions

OER: Teaching materials used within OEP should be openly licensed, and the resources produced during the course (e.g., reports, presentations, videos) should also be released as OER.

Enabling technology: Teachers should make use of different technologies and tools to build and support a connected learning community where the OEP can flourish. These technologies and tools include OER authoring tools, OER repositories, social networks, and collaborative editing tools.

Open teaching: Educators should implement teaching methodologies that can help students to construct their own learning pathways (self-regulated) and to actively contribute to knowledge building, both individually and collaboratively.

Open collaboration: Teachers should build open communities, for instance by using social networks, to help students to work in teams to carry out particular learning tasks (e.g. editing a blog, creating a Wikipedia page) as well as to exchange ideas and discussions related to those specific learning tasks. Other teachers and stakeholders can participate in these discussions as well to further assist learners.

Open assessment: Teachers should allow learners to evaluate one another (peer assessment). This can emphasize reflective practices and improve learning outcomes.

Challenges of using OER and OEP by teachers

• Copyright related challenges; “copyright is one of the challenges of using online resources. Indeed, during OEP development, teachers should pay attention to the attributed open license of each OER to ensure its legal use in their context”, (Yang, S. 2020).
• Difficulty by educators to select the best and most appropriate online resources. According to Prof ID 12, “teachers might not be familiar with the process of choosing the most suitable resources to use in their teaching processes”. This is not only laborious but directly affects the quality of the teaching and learning process.
• Educators might lack the necessary technical digital skills to develop their OER and how to use the open education practices. In this case, it may not produce the intended learning outcomes.

Guidelines to the Teachers on the beneficial use of the OER and OEP

Using the Chinese scenario where following Covid 19, conventional physical learning was disrupted and OEP were used as an alternative, education specialists came up with guidelines on how to ensure an active and engaging teaching experience using OER and OEP for better learning outcomes. According to the education specialists, teachers were encouraged to follow some guidelines:

• Select resources from internationally recognized repositories. “Teachers should consider the quality of the OER they would use by referring to well-known national and international OER repositories, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Commonwealth of Learning–OAsis OER and Open Knowledge Repository”, Ozdemir and Bonk (2017).
• Educators should apply open teaching to keep their learners motivated. “During the teaching process, teachers should apply open teaching to engage learners and encourage them to participate in the co-creation of knowledge”. (Nascimbeni and Burgos 2016). This can be through, for example by asking the learners to update a given blog related to a specific learning topic.
• To facilitate OEP adoption, “teachers should select friendly learning tools and technologies that learners are already familiar with. They should also avoid overloading learners by asking them to use too many tools, resulting in inconvenient learning practices for them.” (Zhang et al. 2020).
• Teachers can also promote peer to peer learning of their learners as another mode of teaching and learning. To promote peer interaction, “teachers can build open learning communities where the students can openly exchange ideas, create discussions, and collaborate on different tasks.” (Hegarty 2015). Use of social media platforms can be the best way of ensuring effective peer to peer interaction.
• Techers can also ensure effective use of OEP by playing to role of learning facilitators. According to Hegarty (2015), “During the learning process using OER and OEP, teachers should act as facilitators of the learning process”.

Five Conditions to Enable OEP

• OER as input and output (teaching and learning material)
• Enabling technology to support a connected learning community where OEP can flourish
• Open teaching approaches that empower students to construct their own learning pathways
• Open collaboration to reach out to concerned communities for students to interact with outside of academic actors
• Open assessment through peer evaluation, reflective practice and evaluation by third parties.

Six Reasons to Adopt OEP

Werth, E., & Williams, K. (2022), have provided an elaborate narrative on the rationale of adopting OEP in the six reasons of adopting OEP including open education pedagogy.

Firstly, OEP allow Sharing

OEP allows free sharing of content and knowledge and individuals allow others to use what they create to further their own personal and professional development. This may be done through collaborative efforts, publishing open articles or licensing Creative works in a way that permits the 5Rs of OER.

Transparency

Transparency is evident in the purpose of educational activities, expectations and practices for assessment. It is also provided into the value inherent in education such as how knowledge has been constructed and how one’s own biases, beliefs and values impact the teaching/learning dynamics.

Collaborative Knowledge Construction

Knowledge is not viewed as complete, unchanging, or being determined by those traditionally in positions of authority like teachers. Educators and learners acknowledge the value and participate in efforts to construct knowledge together.

Deconstructing Traditional Power Structures

Concerted efforts are made to evaluate and evolve power structures in the educational environment such as the traditional and pupil relationship. Voice is given to those in underrepresented groups and those with authority move instruction away from a deficit model of learning.

Personalized Learning

OEP give learners the authority to determine what is learnt, how it is learned, how mastery is demonstrated and when learning takes place. This personalization takes place in traditional classroom settings as well as in nontraditional learning environments.

Enhancement of Learner Empowerment.

OEP empowers learners in all aspects of their learning. Learners participate in knowledge creation, how learning occurs, and the assessment of themselves and others.

Open Educator Inventory.

The OEF platform allows university educators to self-assess their capacity and level of development in terms of Open Education and provides some guidelines to further adopt openness in all dimensions of their activities. In the blue table, I was graded as indicated in the positions below in regard to Openness

Open Learning Design	I am positioned A2 (Collaborative Designer). Collaborate in designing courses with close colleagues either from the same university or from international subject related teams.
Open Content	Here I am positioned B3 (OER expert user). Reshare resources I have used Openly through social media and Open education repositories. I use resources created by others. Searches for OER through social media and repositories. Shares links and resources beyond the classroom through an open online identity
Open Teaching	Positioned at C2 (Engaging Teacher). Adopts seminars like strategies either offline or restricted online spaces (chats/discussion forums). Uses flipped classroom methodologies. Uses the university LMS in support to classroom teaching, to share links and resources with students of my course
Open Assessment	Positioned D1 (Traditional Evaluator). I use traditional assessment methods such as tests and classroom work.