OPEN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

Table of Contents

BROADER CONCEPTS

Open educational practice

The International Council for Open and Distance Education defines open educational practices, quite simply, as ‘practices which support the production, use and reuse of high quality open educational resources (OER)’. However, this implies a narrow view of educational practice which centres on the production of content. A broader definition would encompass all activities that open up access to educational opportunity, in a context where freely available online content and services (whether ‘open’, ‘educational’ or not) are taken as the norm. The JISC case studies in open education demonstrate something of range: four very different institutions that are taking distinctive approaches to open education at a strategic level.The Capetown Open Education Declaration, a founding text of the OER movement, concurs with this broader approach:
‘open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and collaborative learning’. (Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2008)

This is an emerging subject and we discuss it in relation to UK OER work in more depth in one of the sections of the Open Practices Briefing Paper – Open Practices What

Open Education Week – The purpose of Open Education Week is to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. Participation in all events and use of all resources is free an open to anyone.

The OER infoKit primarily focuses on OER but touches on the wider aspects of open practice