Open Education 2017

This presentation will share findings from a research study being conducted on the experience of faculty as they redesign a graduate program in Learning and Technology that has openness as a key design principle. Openness was adopted as a program goal predicated on the philosophical stance that openness and open educational practices facilitate collaboration and cultivate networked learning in its many forms as necessitated by the digital age. The graduate program under study prepares students to design, create, implement and evaluate contemporary digital learning environments that many may not have experienced themselves. By adopting openness as a key design principle, the program presents a model of a contemporary digital learning environment in the context of post-secondary education.

This research examines the faculty experience designing a graduate program along a continuum of openness at a post-secondary institution defined by a blended learning delivery model that to date has no formal institutional open education strategy or open policy in place. Initial findings of how embodying this view of openness impacted the experience of faculty in designing for, and facilitating in, these more open learning spaces will be shared. Research themes such as: the complexity of defining openness within the bounds of a graduate program; alignment between openness and an institutional learning and teaching model; faculty level of risk and comfort and, the impact on course design and delivery will be discussed. Examples of ways in which the 5 R's of openness: retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute (Wiley, 2014) have been applied at program and course level will be shared. Ways in which faculty perceive the digital learning environments they have created with respect to the spectrum of networked and open practices outlined by Paskevicius & Forssman (2017) will also be discussed.