Open educational practices for curriculum enhancement

Abstract

Open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) are relatively new areas in educational research. How OER and OEP can help practitioners enhance curricula is one of a number of under-researched topics. This article aims to enable practitioners to identify and implement appropriate open practices to enhance higher education curricula. To that aim, we put forward a framework of four open educational practices based on patterns of OER reuse ('as-is' or adapted), mapped against the processes of curriculum design and delivery. The framework was developed from the in-depth analysis of 20 cases of higher education (HE) practitioners, which revealed patterns of OER reuse across disciplines, institutions and needs. For each open practice we offer evidence, examples and ideas for application by practitioners. We also put forward recommendations for institutional policies on OER and OEP.

Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education

“…Research studies deal with this broad definition of OEP in various ways. Some focus primarily on the OER aspects of OEP (Armellini & Nie, 2013;Atenas, Havemann, & Priego, 2014;Hogan, Carlson, & Kirk, 2015;Karunanayaka, Naidu, Rajendra, & Ratnayake, 2015;Murphy, 2013;Schreurs et al, 2014). Other studies explore broader aspects of OEP such as open pedagogies and learning in open networks (Casey & Evans, 2011;Nascimbeni & Burgos, 2016; …”

A case study of scholars’ open and sharing practices

“…In academic contexts, open practices take three main forms, " (1) (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a, p. 2), and include teaching, learning, and research activities. In instruction, they frequently (though not exclusively) include the creation, use, re-use, adaptation, and dissemination of open educational resources (Armellini & Nie, 2013;Murphy, 2013;Nikoi & Armellini, 2012;Tuomi, 2013;UNESCO, 2002).…”

Developing a Sustainable Financial Model in Higher Education for Open Educational Resources

“…The Babson report -a survey of over 2,100 US teaching faculty conducted by Allen and Seaman (2014) -also reported that the most significant barrier to more widespread adoption of OER by faculty was the perception that too much time and effort was required to locate and evaluate the material. Okonkwo (2012) and Armellini and Nie (2013) found that, though teaching faculty are willing to use OER, lack of technical skills limits their abilities to adapt and use OER. Though Mtebe and…”