Becoming an open educator: towards an open threshold framework

Abstract

page number not for citation purpose) broadened and deepened the original research proposal. We started with a rough diamond, which was faceted by the newly formed team and began to be polished as we discussed, debated and collaborated.Through this iterative process, we have attempted to move towards a deeper understanding of a less-discussed element of open education (OE), trying to answer the following questions: who are open educators, and what is the difference between those educators who embrace openness in their working practice and those who do not? We do not claim to have fully answered these questions yet, but we have documented our ongoing work towards improving the resolution of this picture. This article is partly based on literature review, partly on experimental activities, and to some extent it is a work-in-progress towards future empirical research.

Mapping “A Situation of Open Education”: Using Collaborative Relational Mapping to Explore Motivations and Constraint Among Open Educators

“…The idea of small-scale projects with big potential was a common theme among participants. This perspective points to a desire/ hope/ expectation among open educators that their work will be transformational over time which is in alignment with the literature (Cronin 2017;Nascimbeni & Burgos 2016;Tur et al 2020). Many participants echoed similar sentiments with respect to the need to scale up their transformational efforts, while at the same time demonstrating little consideration of the mechanics and dynamics through which these wider impacts might scale.…”

“…Always in flawed ways, not an ideal, but nonetheless a big loose coalition of the more transformational people and concepts I have access to.These open educators embraced broad and contextual definitions of "open." They delineated a situation of open education that involves not only including OER, MOOCs, OEP and Open Textbooks projects, but also the ongoing work of practitioners seeking to transform a wide variety of educational practices in ways aligned with the literature(Cronin 2017;Tur et al 2020).…”

Online and Distance Education for a Connected World

“…However, such aspirations are not uniquely held by open educators. Open education is very often practised 'on the side' by educators who work in traditional ('closed') roles and institutions, either by opening up resources and participation to audiences beyond their own enrolled students, or by drawing in open content and practices to become part of students' education (Tur et al, 2020). Educational endeavours are therefore always produced through an interplay of openings and closures, rather than being completely open or closed (Edwards, 2015).…”

Building Capacities in Open Knowledge: Recommendations for Library and Information Science Professionals and Schools

“…Open knowledge policies should enable informal and certified continuous professional development opportunities to support educators and instructional designers, therefore incorporating learning opportunities both in pre-and in-service training programmes to enhance capacity in a wide range of open practices, from the copyright and licensing to data management, content development, knowledge co-creation, and also training others. Thus capacity building should lay emphasis on developing pedagogic and technical competencies for the creation, use, reuse, and production of open resources, fostering engagement with wider communities through open social learning with peers, considering that the practices and products derived from these capacity-building activities should be aligned with curricular development policies and strategies, as well as considered in promotion and tenure processes when people invest in building capacities in their communities of practice (Nerantzi, 2018;Neumann et al, 2018;Morgan, 2020;Tur et al, 2020;Rodés and Gewerc, 2021).…”