Open educational practices (OEP) is a broad descriptor of practices that include the creation, use and reuse of open educational resources (OER) as well as open pedagogies and open sharing of teaching practices. As compared with OER, there has been little empirical research on educators’ use of OEP for teaching in higher education. Catherine’s research addresses this gap, exploring the digital and pedagogical strategies of university educators, focusing on whether, why and how they use open educational practices for teaching.
Catherine’s research was conducted at one European university based on semi-structured interviews with educators across multiple disciplines. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, she found four dimensions shared by open educators: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. She argues that the use of OEP by educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continuously negotiated. Her findings suggest that research-informed policies and collaborative and critical approaches to openness are required to support staff, students, and learning in an increasingly complex higher education environment
This online event invites us to discuss and consider the following (among other) questions:
- Why and when might educators and educational technology practitioners choose open, and why not?
- In our contexts, how can we balance personal choice (regarding openness) with institutional and other constraints?
How can we grow open educational practices in African Higher Education?