Positioning the values and practices of open education at the core of University business [O-088] Members : OER19

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Thu, Apr 11 2019, 11:30am – 12:30pm

Authors: Stuart Nicol, Anne-Marie Scott, and Lorna Campbell

Room: CA107

Theme: Sustainability

Type: Workshops and panels (60mins)

Description

Session Description

This workshop will explore how open education might inform core functions of the modern university. We aim to consider the question from three positions: where we currently are; where this will lead us; and where we would ideally want to be.

Practice-based open education, embedded within the institution over a number of years, is informing an ethical approach to new strands of core business at the University of Edinburgh: developing and delivering high quality, research-led taught online programmes at scale. Participants will help us identify and model how to pragmatically drive forward similar activities in open ways.

In the early twenty-tens various predictions were made about open education and how it might disrupt the core business of top universities: MOOCs gave free access to university teaching, Mozilla’s Open Badges challenged “those who’ve long controlled what constitutes accreditation and certification” (Carey 2012). At the end of the twenty-tens the social capital of university accreditation remains. What has changed, as Olneck (2012) predicted, is that top universities have embraced the values of open education to engage with more people and activities “and more kinds of learning, doing, and being within the embrace of formal, albeit micro-divided, certification” (p 6).

The vision of the University of Edinburgh is to be a global university making a sustainable and socially responsible contribution to the world. In a newly expanded partnership with edX the University aims to lower the bars of access to new groups of learners and students by offering microcredentials as a stepping stone from open to formal accreditation. Openness informs our decisions and approaches: edX is a not for profit organisation built on an open source platform; the technology and policies that drive our new pedagogical approaches at scale, are open and shared; aligned to our institutional OER policy, we build openness into the creation of all teaching materials; in the process of designing our courses the importance of equality is emphasised and we strive to ensure the academic voices foregrounded echo the diversity of the global community we teach.

In the first part of the workshop we introduce the project and outline three thematic areas in which open is being re-centred: policy and data; open practice; and widening access. (20 mins)

Working in groups we will discuss these areas in more detail, and identify other areas where open can have impact. (10 mins)

Using creative approaches, such as writing, drawing and making, to represent and communicate, we will model how open could be centred within core areas. (15 mins)

Finally, each group will share back. (15 mins)

We will collate and document the various ideas, sharing as an openly licensed living document. We hope that this will facilitate ongoing discussion and idea generation in the higher education sector and beyond.

References

Carey, K. (2012). Show Me Your Badge. The New York Times.

Olneck, M. R. (2012). Insurgent Credentials: A Challenge to Established Institutions of Higher
Education? In Education in a New Society: The Growing Interpenetration of Education in
Modern Life.

Session content

In the first part of the workshop we introduce our project and outline three thematic areas in which open is being re-centred: policy and data; open practice; and widening access. (20 mins)

Working in groups we will discuss these areas in more detail, and identify other areas where open can have impact. (10 mins)

Using creative approaches, such as writing, drawing and making, to represent and communicate, we will model how open could be centred within core areas. (15 mins)

Finally, each group will share back. (15 mins)

References

Carey, K. (2012). Show Me Your Badge. The New York Times. Retrieved November 03, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/show-me-your-badge.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&

Olneck, M. R. (2012). Insurgent Credentials: A Challenge to Established Institutions of Higher
Education? In Education in a New Society: The Growing Interpenetration of Education in
Modern Life.

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