Please help!! Refine my research ideas for #OER #OpenEdMOOC

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I have been trying to come up with a good research proposal around Open Educational Resources (OER) for some time now.  Although it is an assignment for the Open Education MOOC I am involved in, it is real for me because I actually want to follow through with it – fellowship or not. Please comment and rip my ideas apart if you see any issues or have any suggestions for improvement. Below I share most of my thought process leading to the possibly final idea so if you aren’t in a mood to read you can scroll down to the proposal at the end.   The fellowship requires an action research project that is grounded in current literature, feasible and under 500 words.

The Initial Idea

As mentioned in previous posts I am surrounded by people who both support OER and caution against it. In the month leading up to the strike on campus I spent a lot of time talking to people on both sides of this debate over OER. It felt like my biggest problem was dealing with anti-OER people on campus. A team of us got together and came up with an idea. We wanted to focus on identifying the perceived risks of OER among faculty at our institution using Q-methodology. While opinions of OER are known in the literature we do not know what faculty at our institution thinks beyond anecdotal evidence. We would gather the discourse on OER perceptions and narrow it down to a representative list of statements around “What are the most significant barriers for you in the adoption of OER.” Q-methodology asks participants to sort a set of statements that are subsequently grouped together mathematically. For the fellowship, this approach was best conducted by a team since the intent was to use the identified perceptions to develop professional development opportunities for faculty that would address the identified barriers using existing literature in a workshop type format. An additional component of the study could be to measure the effectiveness of the professional development activities, but that portion of the idea was not flushed out before the strike began. The original idea would be feasible for me because of my experience with Q-methodology. However, in an information session about the fellowship we learned that we cannot apply as a team. It was also suggested that this idea may not fit with “action research” for me in my current role as a course professor. Since the idea was vetted by my institution we may move forward with it anyway, but not for the fellowship proposal. Two of our team members are submitting separate research ideas.

Action Research

Action research is meant to solve immediate problems faced by educators like me in an attempt to constantly improve (Ferrance, 2000).  There are different types of action research. The idea above would fit with a group approach, but I feel the need to focus on something more closely tied to my own teaching. As a new adopter of OER in the classroom I am faced with the issue of finding something to research that would also add something meaningful to what is known in the broader literature since I want to use it for ongoing scholarship. I must find a problem that is both relevant to my current context and a gap in current literature. Step 1: Identification of a Problem  Coming into this week’s content I was still thinking of focusing on the perceived risks of OER, but I am not sure that would add enough to the literature after finding out about so much more research than I was aware of through the MOOC. Asking about perceived risks of OER is a more basic level question, which Wiley says has been done. What is Known  In the video below, Wiley indicates that research shows that student outcomes are the same or better when comparing OER to Costly textbooks.  The course then directs us to this page where it is quite clear that studying efficacy and perception has been done. I am really interested to see what comes out of the research Wiley discusses in the video above where he says his team is looking at if there is a difference in student outcomes when the teacher is involved in the development of OER or simply adopting it. That is really interesting and helps to answer, in part, the fear of faculty who are concerned about OER. Many of those fears could also be addressed in a few minutes on YouTube or by reading literature. I think Rajiv Jhangiani says it perfectly in the video below … Abundant literature exists suggesting the perceived and measured value of OER for students and educators. For me it is not a question of if OER is useful – I have logic and research to back that up. I have had too many students in my office crying over finances to ignore the impact of costly textbooks on their lives to ignore it. Identifying Gaps Downes questions the impact of OER on a student’s ability to develop relationships and contribute to society. He elaborates in a way that sounds to me more like questioning the influence of OER on openness as a mindset, which facilitates collaboration and making a meaningful contribution to society. That is a great idea, but way beyond the scope of an action research project. Or is it. If the focus of the research is on open pedagogy a qualitative study could explore student perceptions of how it changed their mindset. A lot of research has been conducted on OER. I tell my students that a good place to start looking for gaps is by reading literature reviews. Hilton (2016) calls for the replication of this study, and designs that overcome issues of potential bias in previous research. Quantitative evaluation in this way would be a good idea if I had something already in place that could be evaluated. However, one of my biggest challenges in nursing is finding open textbooks in the first place.  

Problems that I Face

YouTube and Creative Commons     In a previous post I shared some of my concerns around making my YouTube channel fit the 5Rs of OER. Maybe I could look at the impact of Creative Commons licensing on the performance of my YouTube videos. There are so many variables to try and control for that I have no idea where to start. In a brief literature search it YouTube seemed to be the focus of many articles in relation to how patients and students use it as well as factors influencing popularity, but none that measured popularity or ranking in conjunction with the creative commons licensing. Much of the literature I came across was dated. YouTube is constantly updating their search algorithm so research would get dated quickly. Would anyone else even care about that? How many YouTube educators are out there? I am going to shelf that idea for now, but it is an interesting one for the future. Or, if anyone reading this blog post wants to help me flush out an idea we can try something.   Open Pedagogy  The review project notes a need to study open pedagogy, which is intriguing. Instead of studying the impact of a resource it would be interesting to study the next step – engagement in the 5R activities as a teaching tool. The textbook I have adopted needs to be adapted. Unfortunately as far as I know I will not be teaching a course where I could get students to help me adapt it within the time frame of the institute. Maybe I could get students to help me create OER as an assignment – an idea taken from one of the previous OpenEdMOOC course videos. Encouraged by reading Mays (2017) open textbook, it is worth a try. Two courses that I teach in January do not have current textbooks and could really use one. This idea is quite intriguing. It has been done before in environmental science. Why not nursing? It may be a huge success or a failure. Either way it fits well with an action research approach and will produce meaningful data and an OER! I could definitely use the support of eCampusOntario for something like that. The fellowship would be ideal. I struggled a little (okay a lot) with the design choice. There seem to be quite a few case studies in the book I am using to guide the implementation of my project. As I wanted to focus on the student experience it makes sense to take a qualitative approach, but I am not sure if that is realistic. Since I sit on the Ethics committee at my institution I know they would question the vulnerability of my participants while they are still in my course. It may be more ethical to do something quantitative … or return to Q-methodology in an electronic way. I am also not sure if I should study myself in some way as I engage in this process. I need to talk this idea through with someone! After some searching for methodologies I came across Narrative self-study. While I would prefer to involve student perceptions in the study I think I will focus on my experience – it will be more within my control to get participation that way and eliminate some vulnerability concerns for ethical review boards. The way it is described in this article (and some other non-open ones) seems to fit in a way that would add meaningful data to the literature. So here it is … the idea I will be submitting later this week in the application for the OER fellowship later this week (unless I change my mind again) … please critique it!!

congerdesign / Pixabay

My Proposal:

A narrative self-study of engaging in open pedagogy with students 

Open Educational Resources (OER) have been shown to decrease student cost and improve student satisfaction, retention and graduation rates among numerous other outcomes (Hilton, 2016; Hilton, Fischer, Wiley, & Williams, 2016). In nursing, OER have been implemented in Sweden with some concern expressed about the quality and overwhelming nature of it (Elf, Ossiannilsson, Neljeso, & Jansson, 2015). Quality of OER, like books from big publishers, must be evaluated based on various factors including peer review (Gurung, 2017).  Development of and peer review for OER is increasing. As Gallaway (2016) and  Doan (2017) have identified, the most challenging barrier to OER use is finding appropriate resources. The Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (n.d.) has identified potential sources of OER. Still, finding OER that fits the needs of a specific nursing course has been challenging given the limited peer-reviewed open textbooks and other resources available in specific content areas. Derosa and Jahngini (2017) recommends that educators partner with students to build OER as a way of modeling open pedagogy and offering students a way to derive meaning from their assignments. While several case studies exist, an in-depth understanding of how one navigates the challenges is needed in order to support novice educators attempting open pedagogical practices for the first time. This narrative self-study aims to unearth the lived experience of a nursing educator engaging in a collaborative open textbook creation project with students.  Studying oneself is an innovative approach to research enhances the understanding of teaching practices (Hamilton, Smith, & Worthington, 2008). Consistent with this methodology and open pedagogy, reflective and open journaling through a blog will be used to document experiences. Open journaling will enable discussion of challenges through comments on the blog that will facilitate problem solving and alternate perspectives that will be used to prompt further reflection and enhance the rigour of the study. Key questions guiding the initial reflections are: What is the meaning behind experiences of facilitating a collaborative open textbook creation project? How are student reactions to the project shaping the educator’s view of it? What challenges are experienced? How can those challenges be navigated? What lessons can be derived from this experience? Further questions will emerge as the experience unfolds.

3dman_eu / Pixabay

Note:  Students will be offered the choice of engaging in OER development through creating a learning object that will be licensed under creative commons, evaluated for marks and edited by the professor or completing a traditional assignment for the course. Prior to implementation rubrics and memorandum of understandings will be adapted from Mays (2017) book. Those who choose to engage in the OER development will participate in planning the topics for a textbook and placed into groups or assigned to work individually. Support will be sought from eCampusOntario to promote quality of the end product and educational experience for students.    

References

Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing. (n.d.). Open educational resources for nursing. Retrieved from http://www.casn.ca/education/5656-2/ Derosa, R., & Jahngini, R. (2017). Open pedagogy. In E. Mays (Eds.), A guide to making open textbooks with students. Retrieved from https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/ Doan, T. (2017). Why Not OER?. Portal: Libraries & The Academy, 17(4), 665-669. Elf, M., Ossiannilsson, E., Neljesjö, M., & Jansson, M. (2015). Implementation of open educational resources in a nursing programme: experiences and reflections. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 30(3), 252-266. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680513.2015.1127140 Ferrance, E. (2000). Action research. Retrieved from https://www.brown.edu/academics/education-alliance/sites/brown.edu.academics.education-alliance/files/publications/act_research.pdf Gallaway, T. O. (2016). OER Commons. Charleston Advisor, 17(4), 35-38. doi:10.5260/chara.17.4.35 Gurung, R. A. R. (2017). Are OE resources high quality?. In R. S. Jhangiani & R. Biswas-Diener (Eds.) Open: The philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science (pp. 79–86). London: Ubiquity Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc.f. License: CC-BY 4.0 Hamilton, M. L., Smith, L., & Worthington, K. (2008). Fitting the Methodology with the Research: An exploration of narrative, self-study and auto-ethnography. Studying Teacher for Education, 4(1), 17-28. Hilton, J. (2016). Open educational resources and college textbook choices: A review of research on efficacy and perceptions. Education Technology Research and Development, 64(4), 573-590. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9434-9 Hilton, J. Fischer, L., Wiley, D., Williams, L. (2016). Maintaining momentum toward graduation: OER and the course throughput rate. International Review of Research on Distance and Open Learning, 17(6), 1-10. Mays, E. (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Retrieved from https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/

Creating, Finding and Using OERs #OER #OpenEdMOOC

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In order to be open it is critical that educators have the skills to find and use Creative Commons licensed materials so they do not infringe on Copyright. Open Educational Resources (OER) are really not all that different than what I normally create – the only difference is the licensing. My resource curation for learning to date has occurred primarily inside of the learning management systems at intuitions where I have taught and on YouTube. Typically I search library databases, Google, YouTube and relevant reputable websites using key terms. The only shift I need to make in order to create and use more OER online is to ensure that the license supports that. It really isn’t a huge shift for me since I am use to using public domain or paid images in my YouTube videos. For YouTube I need to check if my current paid resources allow CC BY licensing. Now that I have discovered the creative commons license option inside YouTube my options for finding CC BY content for OER has expanded.

geralt / Pixabay

Since I am actively expanding the use of my domain it only makes sense to move to curating OER. It would be awesome to have students use my website for a full learning experience. The Curator module on the extend website has opened up new possibilities for approaches for curating OER. I frequently use the Pixabay plugin for images on my word press blog. Recently I have also discovered the creative commons search tool. As explained in the Open Ed MOOC, when searching Google I can use the advanced filters to identify CC BY licensed material. On YouTube I often use playlists to organize and share key videos, including videos created by others. These playlists are then available for public perusal. In my experience it is not really that hard to create OER. At times it is easier to create it than to find it. Sometimes finding OER can be more challenging based on the subject you are teaching. At the Ontario Extend Institute I remember sitting with someone who taught Anatomy in French. She had a really hard time finding resources. For me, the textbooks are quite limited right now, but the good news is that they can be adapted to suit the learning needs of your students. More and more open textbooks are being produced so someday they will get to nursing. Until then I can adapt books, which is easier than starting from scratch. The largest barrier to fully embracing OER is the time required to create them. I have written an eBook and have been using my Summers to work on another one. They take a lot of time. While I would love to make them open it is hard to justify all that time away from my family if there is no compensation. It was hard enough to convince my husband that the first eBook was worth writing. Instead of publishing with a major publisher right now I am keeping my eye out for relevant textbook proposal calls. There are a few textbook projects I would love to work on if I could justify the time for it. All of them are because I could not find a good enough paid resource.

PIRO4D / Pixabay

Second, is the lack of clarity around if I am “allowed” to produce OER if it relates to a course I am teaching – an issue that should get sorted out soon. No one wanted to broach this issue right before a strike but my workplace policy needs some clarity. I will probably engage in OER creation regardless because I believe in it, but it would be nice if it could be connected to what I am actually teaching. Also, if given compensation in some way it would influence how large of a contribution I can make. There is a world of possibilities in front of me.

StockSnap / Pixabay

Third, there is a lot of resistance to OER among my peers, which actually has been helpful for me when trying to think of what to research around OER. I am a researcher and want to come up with something meaningful. Thankfully there is an OER supportive community where I work that balances out these pessimists. If you are still reading – Thank you. Maybe you can help me sort out a related question – Is blogging creating OER? Is it hypocritical that I call it OER since students aren’t allowed to cite them in formal papers in my program?        

What is Open Education #OpenEdMOOC

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Today’s MOOC experience is really challenging my reflective brain as so many questions are being raised about open education. As expressed in previous posts I share a core value with the open education community, but today I am struggling to fit Wiley’s (2015) definition of open with my reality. Below is an honest reflection on the open education movement as I consider if I can be on the cutting edge of this movement in Ontario.

Open is not Free

Open Educational Resources (OER) are free, but they are more than free. In fact, David Wiley (2015) suggests that “open is not free.” This statement makes sense when he explains it, but really causes me to think about my own views and experiences of openness in education. When I first learned of the open movement in Ontario this August I immediately knew I would love it. I thought I was already producing open resources, but YouTube videos are not necessarily open. They are freely accessible online but not truly open. This realization is pivotal one for me. What Wiley (2015) defines as open comes with certain permissions for how the resources can be used. In the course they say that:
Open = Free access + Open Licensing
Open educational resources are licensed under creative commons licenses (or something similar) in order to decrease barriers for users to access and use them. David Wiley and George Siemens talk about the 5Rs of open content in a course I am currently taking Introduction to Open Education through edX. Click here fro more about the 5 Rs. Below I discuss some of my questions and concerns about moving from free to open. Retain Content needs to be owned by the user – they need to be able to retain a copy. In order to engage in the rest of the “Rs” of open content the user needs to be able to own content. For textbooks, this ownership means the ability to download a keep a copy of the book. As a textbook writer I have no concerns about this R for my books. Kindle, Amazon, Google Play etc. all allow offline reading of their books. Downloading and owning a copy of a book would not harm the reach of the book from what I can tell. In fact, the more people that download it the better. For YouTube videos the same would not be true. I have no fears around allowing people to download and keep copies of my videos, but it would hurt my YouTube analytics and therefore my reach. If my goal is to empower as many students as possible I need to play the YouTube game to be found through search. While I do not have a full understanding of the YouTube search algorithm I know that a major consideration is watch time. The higher a video’s watch time the more likely it is that the video will be found in subsequent searches. If people decide to download a video and watch it offline instead of on YouTube that video would be less likely to be found in subsequent searches. If my goal is to reach students allowing downloads seems counter-intuitive. Below is one video that looks at the impact of watch time on a channel’s success. Reuse / Revise / Remix / Redistribute  For traditional textbooks to me it makes sense to allow educators to take a verbatim copy of the book and use it (reuse), make changes (revise) or combine it with other OERs (remix). In fact, I am in the process of reviewing one now and hope to adapt it at some point. I would love to take an OER textbook and have students work with me to adapt it to the needs of our class, but for some courses I can’t find one to use as a starting point yet. I have some hope as this course has made me aware of more places to look. Perhaps I will be able to write one but I first need permission and time to do so. Again, I am uncertain of the implications of allowing YouTube videos to be reused and redistributed. My fear is that it will harm my ability to reach students. I assume that the YouTube Creative Commons option means that people would be free to download the video and upload it to their channel or wherever else. That could be problematic or it could be equivalent to the growth strategy of collaboration that I have used in the past depending on how the videos are presented on the other channel.  I created a video for EmpowerRN that is on her channel and mine. As you can see she introduces the video and credits me for the video. In the context of YouTube, revise and remix makes sense to me. However, colleagues have suggested it may tarnish my reputation if OER are used without appropriate context. When I collaborate with other YouTubers as above I do have some control over how they are used. Is that necessary? Oer GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY Creative Commons licensing would allow me to place restrictions on the types of permissions I grant to users through their website. However, YouTube offers only one Creative Commons licensing option – the CC BY license (YouTube’s description). Maybe I would feel more comfortable with the other options being made available. I like that they say my original video will automatically show up under source videos, but I think I will need to look into how that works. I am not sure how they would know if someone downloaded it and made major edits. In my next video I am going to test out the user end of things to see how YouTube reacts to the uploading of Creative Commons content. Why to embrace the 5Rs  Adopting an open approach and the 5Rs could be amazing. The impact of my work on students could be enhanced and built upon by other educators more readily. If we as educators can build upon the work of others more easily we can be more effective in sharing knowledge, which is what education is all about. Some really insightful things to consider are being raised in the #OpenEdMOOC course. I feel like I am at a turning point in my career. Do the potential benefits of going fully open outweigh the risks? To what extent am I able to go open beyond YouTube? Who will go open with me? Am I allowed to go open in aspects of the courses I teach? Thankfully I have some friends at my institution and outside my institution at eCampusOntario that will be able to support me in this journey. Questions to Explore What they are proposing is a paradigm shift for education. While there are obvious benefits for openness in education, for many that I have talked to it raises questions and fears about the future of educational institutions. There is this sense that in order to protect what makes a professor or institution unique it is essential to keep things closed and copyrighted. I disagree. Based on my not quite “open” educational experience on YouTube I see the value in sharing everything I create at no cost to students. However, I still struggle with some aspects of openness in education as it applies to real-world experiences. Will being truly “open” hurt me? Evidence seems to suggest quite the opposite. Hopefully by the end of this course I will have figured some of these issues out or identified what needs to be discovered. Since I have been involved in this discussion since August I can tell you that there is no quick solution. As an innovator it can be challenging to be on the cutting edge of such a movement when systems are not yet in place to facilitate such a movement. Maybe it is because my union and management are still in contract negotiations, but I was held back from trying some open education ideas this semester (by both sides). In a previous blog I expressed some of these frustrations. I can’t wait for the strike to end so I can get back to discussions about what is allowed or not in terms of high impact open education within the context of the courses I teach. Open education should, after all, decrease student costs and increase their success in learning.  

References

Wiley, D. (2015). OER summit at LLC – Dr. David Wiley. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/sOhaJZMZ-rc  

Exploring my YouTube Copyright #OpenEdMOOC

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In week 2 of a course I am navigating at my own procrastinator’s pace we have been asked to consider Copyright, the Public Domain and the Commons. I am actually really excited to delve into this week’s content because it is a critical think to understand as a content creator. Lawyers, Librarians and Educators please jump in and comment on this post to help me get my head around this issue.

Copyright

I live in Canada. Since the MOOC I am taking says that laws are specific to where you live I decided to visit the Government of Canada’s guide to copyright. If I am interpreting it correctly the Copyright Act “protects” materials that I produce (written work, sound recordings, videos etc.) since I am a Canadian citizen for 50 years after I die. Interestingly, “copyright exists automatically when an original work or other subject-matter is created, provided the conditions set out in the Copyright Act have been met.” These conditions, from what I can tell, are tat the work is original and produced in Canada (or another treaty country). There is an optional registration process explained on that page for those who are interested. From what I can tell Canadian law is a lot like what is explained in the video below. As our course instructors point out, copyright in an educational context is complicated. Much of the discussion over intellectual property and copyright is yet to be settled in the current discussions between faculty and their employers. Individual institutions may also have policies on intellectual property. That may be a topic deserving of further exploration in the upcoming months. Educators need to be careful not to share content that they do not actually own. To complicate things further, “Fair use” in Canada is a topic that is actually going through some clarification in the courts, but as I understand it that does not apply to public dissemination, a core component of open education. My librarian would have a lot to say about that topic. Recently, York University lost a legal battle over this issue (Read more here). Personally, I have avoided any potential “fair use” in my classroom because I am fuzzy on the boundaries of such laws. If you want to show a movie in class, play music or even post sections of a book make sure you run that by your local librarian expert before you get you and your institution sued. Or, better yet, move towards open educational resources so you don’t need to worry about getting sued. Copyright by Default  Copyright is assigned by default to creative works. Instead of opting-in to copyright, creators who want to share openly need to opt out. Take a look at what I just found hidden under the advanced options on my YouTube channel.
YouTube Copyright

YouTube Copyright

By default my videos are licensed under a Standard YouTube License. I didn’t read through all of section 6, but I did notice that “you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content.” Now I know why I get emails asking if educators can use my videos in their courses. I always say yes, of course, it is on YouTube, that means it can be used right … maybe. I thought that was a given when I posted videos online, but I guess the default is not that way. I am still a little fuzzy on this point since it is quite common for educators to give students links to YouTube videos to watch before/after/during classes. Maybe embedding a video in the course is different.

Gellinger / Pixabay

I want my videos to be used for education. What I need to wrap my head around is the consequences of moving to a creative commons license instead of the default license. Will I be misinterpreted when people remove the context in a remix of my video (one of the fears expressed by a colleague)? What about plagiarism? I have actually found one of my videos, unchanged, uploaded to a different channel without attribution in the past. Despite my commitment to openness, that kind of bothered me.  

Creative Commons 

Here is a helpful video explaining Creative Commons licensing. Creative Commons makes it easy for creators to grant permissions to others to share and use content they create.   Reach more people. That is a huge benefit of creative commons licensing. Generally speaking, I would like my videos and other creative works to be revised, remixed, reused and redistributed like Wiley and Green (2012) discuss. However, a lot of work goes into the creation of YouTube videos. As a creator I want to be credited (cited) for that work. There are a lot of creative commons licensing options. It gets a little confusing. YouTube has simplified things for my by offering me only two options – Standard or Creative Commons. The Creative Commons license that YouTube allows creators to select is a CC BY license (read more here). Conveniently, I think that is the one I want. Today I learned that it layers on top of Copyright and allows a creator to say what others can do with their work. If someone uses a video but doesn’t meet the terms set by the creator they can no longer use the work. Neat. I am just not clear on how that will be enforced on YouTube. I am fine with a remix of my videos – I just want to be cited. I also don’t want a pure copycat. Can I still make a copyright claim against someone who downloads a video of mine, doesn’t edit it at all, and re-uploads it without citing me? Creative Commons goes both ways.  Guess what – I have also discovered the potential to use other videos in my work. YAY! Now that I know about this feature of YouTube I might be able to cut down some of my own video production costs. I pay yearly for a lot of the images you see in my videos. The only problem is that I don’t like the YouTube video editor. This nifty website helps you find content licensed under creative commons licensing that I can download, edit and use! Awesome … I am going to add that to my to-try list. https://search.creativecommons.org/   Experimentation time I am working on a video about Open Educational Resources – it would only make sense to license that video using creative commons and test out this new approach.

Why you should Embrace Openness as a Value #OpenEdMOOC

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I first heard of the open education movement during a life changing experience that ran in August called Ontario Extend. Since then I have dove into the movement head first by engaging with peers on Twitter, exploring opportunities through eCampusOntario, adopting (and reviewing) an open textbook, and taking a course called Introduction to Open Education through edX. This journey has been exciting and challenging as you may be able to tell if you follow my blog. Please join my connected community as I delve deeper into the open education movement, exploring the evidence around it.

What is Open Education

Good question – the definition of “open education” or “open educational resources” will vary based on who you talk to.  There is no standard definition in the literature (Wiley, Bliss, & McEwen, 2014) that I have come across to date. In a future post I hope to explore this concept in more depth, but for now let’s consider open educational resources as characterized by
  • Free high quality learning materials
  • Visible and accessible to the public
  • Can be used for teaching and learning

Why Embrace Open Education

There are so many reasons to embrace openness in education. Some of the ones that stood out for me include removing barriers to learning, therefore increasing access to education and creating new ways of engaging with learners around the world. One of my favorite take-aways so far in this OpenEdMOOC course is that No longer do I need to sit in front of a computer being my own critic. With a simple press of the “publish” button inside word press I can invite discussion around evolving ideas in my head that will ultimately increase my reflection and promote a higher quality end product. [Side note: Yet, in academia these open resources are traditionally not regarded as acceptable sources of information (a topic for another post someday)].   Openness should be widely accepted in education, in my opinion. After all, education is about sharing knowledge … If you are an educator you have probably dealt with students who have not been able to afford text books. Think about the difference it would make for them if you could remove that barrier to education – good news! you can. More an more high quality open textbooks are being published. There are not nearly enough yet, but it is a work in progress.   With an open approach to education you can literally break down the walls of the classroom and create more meaningful learning opportunities for students. Students can interact with people from all over the world and get answers to their questions. Openness is also beneficial for educators. Being open invites critique on a public platform where ideas can be shared and developed. It has made me stronger as an educator.

My Commitment to Open Education

If one perceives openness as a value (Wiley, 2016) then I have been committed to the idea of open education since before I became an educator. As a student I remember making my study notes “open” in a way by sharing them with my peers. If I had a website back then I would have posted everything I had. Sharing knowledge is just part of who I am as an educator. The idea is that sharing in study groups or with everyone would ultimately make us all more successful as nurses. Flash forward a few years and I became an educator who freely shares whatever I can wherever I can. The values underpinning open education resonate with my own values. It feels like I have found a home among friends who share common beliefs as I get more and more connected to open educators. While exciting this new journey I am on comes with scrutiny from those who fear their jobs will be replaced by open educational resources. The videos from week 1 briefly touched on this fear, dismissing it, but I hope there will be more discussion in the future.

Fotomek / Pixabay

I am particularly interested in Week 2’s content about Copyright, the Public Domain and the Commons.

NDE / Pixabay

     

References

Wiley, D. (2016). Iterating toward openness. Retrieved from https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/4828 Wiley D., Bliss T. J., & McEwen M. (2014) Open educational resources: A review of the literature. In: Spector J., Merrill M., Elen J., Bishop M. (eds) Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. Springer, New York, NY.