The jagged edge of OEP: De(constructive) Personal and Institutional Spheres [1452] Members : #OER17

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Thu, Apr 6 2017, 2:50pm – 3:50pm

Authors: Janice Jones, Chris Campbell, David Jones, and Peter Albion

Room: Seminar 3

Theme: Inst/Org Politics

Type: Presentations

Description

Despite a global shift towards creating and using Open Education Resources (OERs) the growth in cross-institutional Open Education Practice (OEP) in higher education (Masterman, 2016) is slow. Four Australian university teacher educators share their experience of working across two institutions to re-purpose their separate two interdisciplinary arts-technology courses to form a single course for cross-institutional offer. In doing so they test the parameters of their respective institutions’ policies and practices, and their own beliefs and ways of working, or habitus (Jones, Beatorowicz, Ladislas Derr, 2015), as they strive to create “innovative pedagogical models, (that) respect and empower learners as co-producers” (OPAL, 2011, p. 12). They point to enabling and limiting institutional discourses, policies and processes and the possibility thinking of Open Education Practice (Bossu, Brown & Bull, 2014), but consider also with Ferrari and Traina (2013) that contemporary political trends appear to shape how far Open Practices may be supported within universities. Adopting the visual metaphor of a sculpture by Arnaldo Pomodoro the authors refer to a mechanical sphere within a sphere to represent their experience and choices and to show the forces limiting how far they could achieve their goal. They explore issues of control, compliance and disruption, and the risk of being ‘broken by the machine’, or ‘breaking the machinery’. Against the backdrop of conflict between liberal thinking and practices worldwide, and the de-cosmopolitanising positions of political leaders in key global economies, they consider the implications of operating as a sphere within a sphere for cross institutional Open Practices.

References

Bossu, C, Brown, M, & Bull, D 2014. Adoption, use and management of Open Educational Resources to enhance teaching and learning in Australia. Office of Learning and Teaching. Sydney, Australia.

Ferrari L, & Traina I 2013, ‘The OERTEST Project: Creating Political Conditions for Effective Exchange of OER in Higher Education’, Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society, vol.9, no.1, pp. 23-35

Jones, JK, Batorowicz, B, Ladislas Derr, R, & Peters S 2015, ‘Decolonising research and teaching methodologies: A “ninth moment” symphony of artist-educator-researcher voices’, International Journal Of Pedagogies And Learning vol. 10, no 2 pp166 -178.

Masterman E 2016, ‘Bringing Open Educational Practice to a Research-Intensive University: Prospects and Challenges’, The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, vol. 14, no 1 pp. 31- 42.

Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) 2011, Beyond OER: Shifting Focus to Open Educational Practices. International Council for Open and Distance Learning. Oslo, Norway.

Sphere Within Sphere 2017, Wikipedia 23 January 2017. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_Within_Sphere. [23 January 2017].

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