Striving towards openness

Today I read an article written by Viv Rolfe - someone I've been following on Twitter and listening to in Virtually Connecting hangouts. This research paper shares five elements of openness as gained from faculty interviews. These interviews were analyzed through an "interpretive lens" (something I'll need to investigate to learn more about). This work is linked to work done by Farrow (2016) where openness is described "not as a binary quality or value attributed to one activity or feature, such as cost or licensing terms, but as a 'constellation of elements'" (p. 76). These five elements are:

1. personal practice - open having a personal benefit in enhancing the practice of teaching; part of a community of practice
2. learner benefits - open serving to address accessibility issues; open providing access to education; supporting the digital learner and developing open literacies; open to promote science at open-days
3. content - OER creation by teaching staff; OER creation by students; OER reuse/dismantling; OER sharing; knowledge of open licenses; open licenses for more control over your resources
4. institution - institutional OER agenda and policy; tension with institutional priorities
5. value and culture - openness as a personal value; openness as a trait within the community "the spirit of open"; culture of open within the university

The interesting inclusion in this article are the key messages that can be used to communicate - which could be applied to the work of eCampus Ontario in their work with promotion of openness in higher education.

1. "Open education is a means of enhancing your teaching practice, and allows you to participate in communities beyond your institution."
2. "Open educational resource in their truest sense provide accessible materials for students; these practices widen access in education and support diversity. Engaging in co-creation of open educational resources will support digital literacy development for your learners."
3. "By creating content you will understand (technical) and legal aspects of applying open licenses; open licenses will help you keep control over your resources and specify how you'd like them to be used."
4. "(Research suggests that policy alone is less motivating for staff, but culture and support is.)"
5. "Engaging in open education will catalyze change within your teams and institution; you will connect with global open communities united by "the spirit of open"".

If there is an opportunity to share these elements with the OER Fellows, the eCampus team and/or the #OEORangers, I will do so.

Reference

Farrow, R. (2016). Constellations of openness. In M. Deimann & M. Peters, (Eds.), The philosophy and theory of open education. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. 

 
Rolfe, V. (2017, November). Striving toward openness: But what do we really mean? International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning  (18), 7.