The document summarizes a presentation about open educational practices (OEP) in higher education. It discusses definitions of openness and interpretations of OEP. It presents the speaker's PhD research questions examining how academic staff use OEP, their reasons for using or not using OEP, and shared practices/values among open educators. The research approach is described. Key findings include that many staff perceive risks to open practices, and a minority use OEP. Open educators share dimensions of balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging teaching roles. The summary concludes that use of OEP is complex, personal, contextual and continuously negotiated.

1. Catherine Cronin  @catherinecronin
CELT, National University of Ireland, Galway
Open educational practices
(OEP)
for teaching in higher education

2. links to presentation slides, references & resources:
bit.ly/oep-emergeafrica

3. pen
Choosing
Image: CC0 by Nadine Shaabana

4. GO-GN researchers at OE Global Conference – Cape Town, April 2017
go-gn.net/ & conference.oeconsortium.org/2017/presentations/

5. 1. Why and when might educators and educational
technology practitioners choose open, and why not?
questions to consider…
2. In our contexts, how can we balance personal choice
(regarding openness) with institutional and other
constraints?
3. How can we grow open educational practices (OEP)
in African Higher Education?
presentation
discussion

6. Open education is a tool for
social change.
Santos, A.I., Punie, Y., & Muñoz, J.C. (2016)
Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions
“

7. networked
educators
networked
students
Physical
Spaces
Bounded
Online
Spaces
Open
Online
Spaces
Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Catherine Cronin, built on Networked Teacher image CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Alec Couros
higher education

8. Openness and praxis:
Exploring the use of
open educational practices (OEP)
in higher education
my PhD research study

9. 1. In what ways do academic staff use OEP?
2. Why do/don’t academic staff use OEP?
3. What practices, values, and/or strategies are
shared by open educators, if any?
4. How do open educators and students interact in
open online spaces, and how do they enact and
negotiate their digital identities?
research questions

10. “Part of the problem of definition stems from the careless, if evocative,
use of the term open by educators and the popular press to describe the
wide variety of educational innovations which proliferated at the same
time as open education classrooms were being developed.”
Noddings & Enright (1983)
“Open learning is an imprecise phrase to which a range of meanings can
be, and is, attached. It eludes definition. But as an inscription to be
carried in procession on a banner, gathering adherents and enthusiasms,
it has great potential. For its very imprecision enables it to accommodate
many different ideas and aims.”
MacKenzie, Postgate & Scupham (1975)

11. OEP
(Open Educational
Practices)
OER
(Open Educational
Resources)
Free
Open Admission
(e.g. Open Universities)
INTERPRETATIONS
of ‘OPEN’
OER-focused definitions
produce, use, reuse OER
+ broader definitions…
Licensed for reuse
for use, adaptation &
redistribution by others
Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

12. • Open educational practices (OEP)
(Beetham, et al., 2012; Ehlers, 2011; Hodgkinson-Williams, 2009 & 2014)
• Open teaching
(Couros, 2010; Couros & Hildebrandt, 2016)
• Open pedagogy
(DeRosa & Robison, 2017; Hegarty, 2015; Weller, 2014)
• Open scholarship
(Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a; Weller, 2011)
• Networked participatory scholarship
(Stewart, 2015; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012b; Veletsianos & Stewart, 2016)
• Critical (digital) pedagogy
(Farrow, 2016; Rosen & Smale, 2015; Stommel, 2014)
OEP and related concepts

13. The expanding global collection of OER… contribute to making
education more accessible, especially where money for learning
materials is scarce. They also nourish the kind of participatory culture
of learning, creating, sharing and cooperation that rapidly changing
knowledge societies need.
However, open education is not limited to just OER. It also draws upon
open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and
the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to
benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to
include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and
collaborative learning.
Cape Town Open Declaration (2007)
“

14. open educational practices (OEP)
collaborative practices that include the creation, use and reuse of
OER and pedagogical practices employing participatory
technologies and social networks for interaction, peer-learning,
knowledge creation & sharing, and empowerment of learners
definition for my study

15. INTERPRETATIONS
of ‘OPEN’
Policy/
Culture
Values
Practices
Activities
LEVELS of
OPENNESS
OEP
(Open Educational
Practices)
OER
(Open Educational
Resources)
Free
Open Admission
(e.g. Open Universities)
IndividualInstitutional
Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

16. Image: CC BY-SA izzie_whizzie
methodology
 Approach: qualitative / interpretive / critical
 Method: constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014)
 Setting: one HEI in Ireland without open education policies/culture
 Participants: 19 members of academic staff, varied by discipline,
employment status, and approach to openness

17. Not using OEP
for teaching
Using OEP
for teaching
DIGITAL
NETWORKING
PRACTICES
Main digital identity is university-
based
Not using social media
(or personal use only)
Combined university &
open identities
Using social media
personally/professionally,
but not for teaching
Well-developed open digital
identity
Using social media
personally/professionally,
including teaching
DIGITAL
TEACHING
PRACTICES
Using VLE only
Using free resources, little
knowledge of C or CC
Using VLE + open tools
Using & reusing OER
DIGITAL
LITERACIES
Using digital natives discourse
to describe self, peers,
and/or students
Developing own & students’
digital & network literacies
PERSONAL
VALUES
Strong attachment to
personal privacy
Strict boundaries:
personal/professional
& student/teacher
Valuing privacy & openness;
striving for balance
Accepting porosity across
boundaries
Continuum: increasing openness

18. • Many academic staff perceive potential risks
(for themselves & their students) in using OEP;
some perceive the benefits to outweigh the risks.
• A minority of participants (8 of 19) used OEP.
• 2 levels of ‘using OEP’: (i) being open, (ii) teaching openly.
• 4 dimensions shared by open educators:
 balancing privacy and openness
 developing digital literacies (self & students)
 valuing social learning
 challenging traditional teaching role expectations
Findings

19. Balancing
privacy and openness
Developing
digital literacies
Valuing
social learning
Challenging traditional
teaching role expectations
4 dimensions shared by educators using OEP

20. “I don’t mind if students follow me and if
they find stuff that I’ve written online. But
I just don’t encourage it as part of the
teaching, or their relationship
with me as their teacher.”
- participant (not using OEP)

21. “I don’t let students know I’m on Twitter,
they seem to figure it out.
It depends on what email account I reply to
them with. Depending on the teaching or
contractual situation in any given year,
sometimes the [university] email account
just evaporates and I have to fall back and
use my own email account. My personal
email signature has my Twitter name, my
blog. The [university] account just has the
department name.”
- participant (using OEP)

22. Balancing
privacy and openness
Developing
digital literacies
Valuing
social learning
Challenging traditional
teaching role expectations
inner circle
(2 dimensions)
Networked
Individuals
both circles
(4 dimensions)
Networked
Educators
4 dimensions shared by educators using OEP

23. using
OER
using
OEP
emergent practice
in this study
See also: Cox & Trotter (2016); Czerniewicz, Deacon, Walji & Glover (2016, in press)

24. Balancing privacy & openness
Image: CC BY 2.0 woodleywonderworks

25. “There are no hard and fast rules.”
- participant (using OEP)
“I have personal rules for that.”
- participant (using OEP)
“You’re negotiating all the time.”
- participant (using OEP)

26. Balancing privacy and openness
will I share openly?
who will I share with? (context collapse)
who will I share as? (digital identity)
will I share this?
MACRO
MESO
MICRO
NANO

27. An important question becomes not simply whether education is
more or less open, but what forms of openness are worthwhile
and for whom; openness alone is not an educational virtue.
Edwards (2015)
“
critical approaches to openness
additional references:
Bayne, Knox & Ross (2015)
Cottom (2015)
Czerniewicz (2015)
Martins dos Santos Ferriera, G., et al. (Eds.). (2017).
Selwyn & Facer (2013)
singh (2015)
Watters (2014)

28. Image: CC BY 2.0 vramak
It has never been more risky to operate in the open.
It has never been more vital to operate in the open.
Martin Weller (2016)

30. Use of OEP is...
 Complex
 Personal
 Contextual
 Continuously negotiated

31. Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NYPL
To hope is to give
yourself to the future,
and that commitment
to the future
makes the present
inhabitable.
Rebecca Solnit (2004)
Hope in the Dark
“

32. Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NYPL
Thank You!
@catherinecronin
slideshare.net/cicronin
bit.ly/oep-emergeafrica