Using Open Educational Practices to Support Institutional Strategic Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Scholarship

Abstract

This paper explores the integration of Open Educational Practices (OEP) into an institutional strategy to develop distinctive excellence in teaching, learning and scholarship. The institution in the case study is a public polytechnic university serving a metropolitan area in Canada. If emerging Open Educational Practices are to flourish at our university, support for OEP must integrate with and contribute to our broader efforts to clarify and enhance our strategic position.We have identified three focal points where our institution can focus attention in order to ensure that our use of emerging Open Educational Practices will best align with, contribute to, and benefit from our institutional strategy for distinctive excellence in teaching and learning:• Opening up the pedagogy underlying exemplary OER, to enable a deeper faculty engagement in integrating and mobilizing diverse sources of knowledge in teaching; • Opening up that process by which individual faculty improve teaching and learning, as a model for our students' own engagements with knowledge; • Opening up our collective faculty work in innovation networks, as a model for students and as a signature institutional strength and outcome.We summarize the rationale and planned next steps for each of these focal points, which are intended to cumulatively build on each other as a value chain to support the development of distinctive graduate capabilities as signature outcomes of our teaching and learning.

Conceptualising OEP: A review of theoretical and empirical literature in Open Educational Practices

“…The main OPAL project report (Andrade et al, 2011) and related papers by Ehlers and Conole (noted above) continue to be cited widely by researchers in OEP (see Armellini & Nie, 2013;Atenas, Havemann & Priego, 2014;Carey, Davis, Ferreras & Porter, 2015;Casey & Evans, 2011;Coughlan & Perryman, 2015;Cronin, 2017;Czerniewicz et al, 2017aCzerniewicz et al, , 2017bHogan et al, 2015;Karunanayaka, Naidu, Rajendra & Ratnayake, 2015;Masterman, 2016;Murphy, 2013;Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016;Paskevicius, 2017;Smyth, Bossu & Stagg, 2016).…”

“…The work that emerged from UKOER continues to be an important resource for OEP researchers, particularly those focusing on power relations, inequality, and/or culture change (see Carey et al, 2015;Cronin, 2017;Czerniewicz et al, 2017aCzerniewicz et al, , 2017bPaskevicius, 2017;Udas, Partridge & Stagg, 2016).…”

Conceptualizing Open Educational Practices through the Lens of Constructive Alignment

“…Despite the increased availability and breadth of available OER, students report limited awareness of what this means and how to locate these resources (Czerniewicz, 2016). More research is needed into how engaging students with OEP might impact their own personal knowledge and creative practices (Carey et al, 2015). Engaging students with OEP may motivate students to become engaged in the learning process.…”

“…Acknowledging and sharing the resources being collaboratively created through open education can have an impact on students' own knowledge practices (Carey et al, 2015). Not only do these practices make the activities in higher education more relevant in modern society but they also foster the development of valuable literacies for students entering the workforce (Royle, Stager & Traxler, 2014).…”

Open Praxis, volume 9 issue 2

“…This is a significant shift away from a time when educational content was mostly only available to individuals enrolled in formal education. Institutionally, the impetus to share materials in this way may be driven by a marketing objective with an agenda to raise institutional profiles (Dos Santos, 2008); altruistic motivations to provide access to knowledge (Hylén & Schuller, 2007); or to invite innovation networks and collaboration across institutions (Carey, Davis, Ferreras, & Porter, 2015). Open educational practices (OEP) are those teaching and learning practices enabled and supported by the open movement, either in making use of OER, engaging students in openness, or making professional practice more accessible.…”