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Image: CC0 by Nadine Shaabana

Catherine Cronin @catherinecronin NUI Galway#GO_GN Cape Town 6th March 2017

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

“

networkededucators

networkedstudents

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

Openness and praxis:Exploring the use of

open educational practices (OEP)in higher education

study title

1. In what ways do academic staff use open educational practices (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

OEP (Open Educational

Practices)

OER (Open Educational

Resources)

Free

Open Admission (e.g. Open Universities)

INTERPRETATIONS of ‘OPEN’ OER-focused

definitionsproduce, use, reuse

OER+ Broader

definitions…

Licensed for reusefor use, adaptation &

redistribution by others

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

• Open educational practices (OEP)(Beetham, et al., 2012; Ehlers, 2011; Hodgkinson-Williams, 2009)

• Open teaching(Couros, 2010; Couros & Hildebrandt, 2016)

• Open pedagogy (DeRosa & Robison, 2015; Hegarty, 2015; Weller, 2014)

• Open scholarship(Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012b; Weller, 2011)

• Networked participatory scholarship (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a; Stewart, 2015)

• Critical (digital) pedagogy(Farrow, 2016; Rosen & Smale, 2015; Stommel, 2014)

OEP and related concepts

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 and sharing, and empowerment of learners.

definition for my studyOpen Educational Practices (OEP)

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)

Ind

ivid

ual

Insti

tutio

nal

Image: CC BY-SA 2.0 Marcel Oosterwijk

Image: CC0 photo by Saksham Gangwar

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

Not using OEPfor teaching

Using OEPfor teaching

DIGITALNETWORKINGPRACTICES

Main digital identity is university-basedNot using social media (or personal use only)

Combine university & open identitiesUsing social media personal/prof (butnot for teaching)

Well-developed open digital identity Using social media for personal/professional (including teaching)

DIGITAL TEACHINGPRACTICES

Using VLE onlyUsing free resources, little knowledge of C or CC

Using VLE + open toolsUsing & reusing OER

PERSONAL VALUES

Strong attachment to personal privacyStrict boundaries (P/P & S/T)

Valuing privacy & openness; balanceAccepting porosity across boundaries

increasing openness

• 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

Balancingprivacy and openness

Developingdigital literacies

Valuingsocial learning

Challenging traditionalteaching role expectations

inner circle(2 dimensions)Networked Individuals

both circles(4 dimensions)Networked Educators

4 dimensions shared by educators using OEP

“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)

“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)

Balancing privacy & openness

Image: CC BY 2.0 woodleywonderworks

“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)

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

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

using OER

using OEP

e.g. Wiley, 2015

actual, emergent practice in this study

Sociocultural theory: “educators can shape and/or be shaped by openness” – see Veletsianos (2010)

Social realist theory: interrelations of structure, culture & agency in shaping behaviour (Archer, 2003) – see Cox & Trotter (2016)

We must rebuild institutions that value humans’ minds and lives and integrity and safety.

Audrey Watters (2017)

“

Image: CC BY-NC 2.0 carnagenyc

#1. Separate consideration of Individual and Institutional opennessHEIs require open education strategies and policies that recognise the benefits, risks, and complexities of openness for individuals (students & staff) as well as the institution.

#2. Higher education is open educationDaily, academic staff & students negotiate how to teach and learn in an increasingly open, networked, and participatory culture, e.g. deciding whether/how to combine informal & formal learning practices, identities, and networks.

Conclusions

Balancingprivacy and openness

Developingdigital literacies

Valuingsocial learning

Challenging traditionalteaching role expectations

HE institutions should work broadly & collaboratively to build and support academic staff capacity in 3 key areas:

1. Digital literacies/capabilities

2. Navigating tensions between privacy & openness

3. Reflecting on our roles as educators & researchers in increasingly networked participatory culture

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

“

Le spectre de la rose Jerome Robbins Dance Division, NYPL

Thank You!@catherinecronin

slideshare.net/cicronin

Beetham, H., Falconer, I., McGill, L. & Littlejohn, A. (2012). Open Practices: Briefing Paper. Jisc.

Charmaz, K. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd edition). London: Sage Publications.

Couros, A. (2010). Developing personal learning networks for open and social learning. In G. Veletsianos (Ed.), Emerging Technologies in Distance Education. Athabasca University Press.

Couros, A. & Hildebrandt, K. (2016). Designing for open and social learning. In G. Veletsianos, Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning. Athabasca University Press.

Czerniewicz, L. (2015). Confronting inequitable power dynamics of global knowledge production and exchange. Water Wheel 14(5), 26-28.

DeRosa, R. & Robison, S. (2015, November 9). Pedagogy, technology, and the example of open educational resources. EDUCAUSE Review.

Ehlers, U-D. (2011). Extending the territory: From open educational resources to open educational practices. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(2), 1–10.

Farrow, R. (2016). Open education and critical pedagogy. Learning, Media and Technology.

Geser, G. (2007). Open educational practices and resources: OLCOS Roadmap, 2012.

Havemann, L., Atenas, J. & Stroud, J. (2014). Breaking down barriers: Open educational practices as an emerging academic literacy. Academic Practice & Technology conference, University of Greenwich.

Hegarty, B. (2015). Attributes of open pedagogy: A model for using open educational resources. Educational Technology. (July/August).

Rosen, J. R. & Smale, M. A. (2015). Open digital pedagogy = Critical pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy.

References (1 of 2)

Santos, A.I., Punie, Y., & Muñoz, J.C. (2016). Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions. JRC Science For Policy Report.

Selwyn, N. & Facer, K. (2013). The politics of education and technology: Conflicts, controversies, and connections. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Solnit, R. (2004). Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. New York: Nation Books.

Stewart, B. (2015). In abundance: Networked participatory practices as scholarship. IRRODL, 16(3).

Stommel, J. (2014, November 18). Critical digital pedagogy: a definition. Hybrid Pedagogy.

Veletsianos, G. & Kimmons, R. (2012a). Assumptions and challenges of open scholarship. IRRODL, 13(4), 166-189.

Veletsianos, G. & Kimmons, R. (2012b). Networked participatory scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks. Computers & Education, 58(2), 766–774.

Watters, A. (2014, November 16). From “open” to justice. Hack Education blog.

Watters, A. (2017, February 2). Ed-tech in a time of Trump. Hack Education blog.

Weller, M. (2011). The Digital Scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice. Basingstoke: Bloomsbury Academic.

Weller, M. (2014). The Battle for Open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. London: Ubiquity Press.

Wiley, D. (2015). Reflections on open education and the path forward. Iterating toward openness blog.

References (2 of 2)