Open Education: Changing Educational Practices
Shifting from resources to practices
The idea of open education has spread to hundreds of educational institutions, foremost higher education and adult learning institutions, across the globe. “Giving away knowledge for free” (OECD 2007) seemed like a revolutionary idea, it fascinates educators, interests learners, scares publishing houses and challenges educational organisations who view selling produced knowledge as their core-business. OER as a term was first used by UNESCO in 2002, since then the concept has spread epidemically. Today OER are a widespread reality, they are produced, shared, used and re-used by educators and learners and often accessible through large databases, the most recent one being the initiative of the African Virtual University http://www.avu.org.
The publication of this issue of eLearning Papers coincides with a global meeting initiated and led by the OER Foundation, hosted in New Zealand, which an international group of educators and educational activists are attending. The aim of the meeting is to install the first global OER University. In Europe, Initiatives like the Open Educational Quality Initiative (http://www.oer-quality.org) and the OERTest project are working on a culture shift in higher education and adult education to raise acceptance and educational transformation through OER.
The OER movement has been successful in promoting the idea that knowledge is a public good, creating incentive for organisations and individuals to publish OER. However, the potential of OER to transform educational practice has not yet been realized. The current focus in OER is still mainly on increasing access to digital content in the form of repositories and infrastructures whereas there is little consideration of whether the technology will support educational practices, open education, or promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. There is clearly a need for innovative forms of support for the creation and evaluation of OER. The use of OER demands a shift in educational practices, it calls for institutional change and innovation in teaching and learning.
The purpose of this 23rd issue of eLearning Papers on Open Education is to further our understanding of the way in which open access and open educational resources impact educational practices in organizations, learners, and other stakeholders, both now and in the future. We can see in the contributions that a shift from open educational resources to open educational practices is suggested. The In-Depth articles are designed to give a detailed insight from research. The category “From the field” displays a selection of shorter articles allowing insight into practices taking place within Europe and beyond.
