open education

CPAD Shares Issue 4: EDUCAUSE and Open Education

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C-PAD Shares #4, December 2022

Featured Theme: EDUCAUSE and Open Education

 

classroom with books on desk

 

 

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education through the use of information technology. EDUCAUSE is a highly regarded professional association providing programs, services, and thought leadership to the higher ed information technology community.

 

One popular and quite useful service they provide is the “7 Things You Should Know About” series of briefings, which serve as primers dealing with the most pressing challenges, significant technology developments, and key issues confronting higher education.

 

Each “7 Things” publication answers seven questions in a mere two pages:

 

  1. What is it?
  2. How does it work?
  3. Who’s doing it?
  4. Why is it significant?
  5. What are the downsides?
  6. Where is it going?
  7. What are the implications for higher education?

 

The Open Educational Consortium defines Open Education as an approach that “encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness worldwide.”1 In 2018, EDUCAUSE published a three-part series structured around the main components of Open Education: content, practices, and policies.

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Content

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

EDUCAUSE defines OER (Open Educational Resources) as “teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or that have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others. OER includes textbooks, curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, video, audio, simulations, assessments, and any other content used in education.”2

 

Read on to see why OER adoption is on the rise in higher education, and what the implications may be for you and your students.

 

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Practices

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

While advocates of Open Education are often initially motivated by maximized access to curricular materials and the reduced cost of resources, they soon discover more significant reasons to continue the practice. They observe powerful and unexpected student learning that invites reflection regarding the potential of new teaching approaches not previously possible.

 

Students evidence learning that is more authentic, participatory, and engaged, demonstrating deeper and more complete understanding of what they are learning. Over time, faculty develop greater agency and autonomy. What begins as simply another means to teach becomes a catalyst for a very different kind of teaching.

 

7 Things You Should Know About Open Education: Policies

 

Article reading time – approximately 6 to 7 minutes

 

This article addresses the dilemma OEP practitioners face when their college or university has not articulated an institutional commitment to OER or OEP, compounded by the lack of a comprehensive open education policy statement. Key questions include:

 

  • How can interested faculty be clear regarding whether (and specifically how) they may use OER?
  • What is expressly permitted in the development, adoption, and sharing of OER and the integration of OEP into courses?
  • How does adoption of OER or incorporating OEP impact promotion and tenure?
  • Who holds copyright to work produced with university funding? Are faculty legally free to openly license work produced through Open Education processes?

 

 

If Open Education is unfamiliar to you, we hope these 21 things you should know will leave you better informed and maybe a little intrigued.

 

 

  1. About The Open Education Consortium (no date) The Open Education Consortium. Available at: https://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/ (Accessed: November 30, 2022).
  2. Contributions by: Green, C., Illowsky, B., Wiley, D., Ernst, D., Young, L. (2018) 7 things you should know about open education: Content, EDUCAUSE. Available at: https://library.educause.edu/resources/2018/6/7-things-you-should-know-about-open-education-content (Accessed: November 30, 2022).