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The aim of this report is to explore how stronger relationships between higher education and business can address barriers to mainstream adoption and development of innovative and sustainable models and policies for Open Educational Practices (OEP). In this report, we explore how educational institutions and business interests can work together to better leverage the potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) in the service of OEPs. The report provides an overview of existing literature and research in the field of OER and presents a series of business models and approaches to supporting the development of OER, as well as their policies and practices. The issue of sustainability and longevity of OER materials, content and communities is discussed and three case studies are presented to illustrate different business models for supporting capability development, knowledge exchange and Communities of Practice.

This case study describes the experiences of the #Openteach project team in developing a flexible and evidence-based approach to support professional learning for those who teach online. The project targeted online educators in particular. The rationale for this was Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is recognised as crucial to the upskilling of educators to enhance the student learning experience. However, teaching online requires different pedagogical approaches and staff require specific CPD opportunities relating to online learning in order to teach effectively in that context. The #Openteach project sought to address this gap by creating a flexible, online, open access course about teaching online that was grounded in evidence-based practice. The project had a number of phases, which included a needs analysis of online students and educators about effective online teaching, the publication of a literature review entitled Teaching Online is Different, and a pilot evaluation report. The #Openteach open course ran in March 2020 and focused on five key aspects of teaching online: social presence; facilitating discussion; collaboration online; live online teaching; and supporting online students. Following the first run, an evaluation study was conducted to explore and understand participants' learning experiences of the course. Our findings indicate that professional learning about online teaching should be situated online, and the experience of being an online student is invaluable for online educators as it facilitates empathy with students learning in online contexts. Time management and workload are major challenges for educators, therefore professional learning should allow for flexible engagement. Building confidence and reducing the fear of online teaching is an important aspect of professional learning related to online education. Developing understanding and knowledge of online pedagogy is an important element of professional learning about teaching online. Finally, confidence and competence with the tools and technologies for teaching online are important threshold digital competencies for online educators. The #Openteach project has had a significant impact on the professional learning of educators at a number of levels: at a local university level, at a national level; and at an international level.

In summary, this paper challenges the sector to go beyond altruism and endorses the view that “...policy will be the lever by which open practice can become sustainable and mainstream” (Weller, 2014, p.201). The ENCORE+ project seeks to give “voice” to more stakeholders to support the development of OER institutional strategies in both academia and business contexts in order to promote their mainstreaming and a strong European OER ecosystem.

his paper reports on the activities of a team in Dublin City University (DCU), composed of academic staff and library staff, who engaged in a collaborative project, Go Open, in 2020 and 2021 that encourages members of the DCU community to engage in open educational practices. The academic staff team members, from DCU’s Open Education Unit, have experience in providing online, flexible, open education/access programmes that include many examples of open educational practice, while the library staff have experience in advocating for engagement in open educational practice and open scholarship/science. The project goals were: to produce user-friendly resources that would give an introduction to open education generally and more specifically key types of open educational practice; to provide concrete examples of open educational practice to contextualise the educational problems for which such practices can provide a solution; and provide links to other sources of information on open education such as key websites and thought leaders so that those whose interest in open education is sparked by the resources are facilitated in taking their next step. These project goals align with the first action area of the UNESCO OER recommendation, that of building capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER. The Go Open project developed both a guide, ‘Go Open: A beginners guide to open education’, and a LibGuide (https://dcu.libguides.com/GoOpen), both of which were launched at an event in April 2021 as part of the team’s ongoing project output dissemination and advocacy for open education practice. In the two weeks after the launch event the guide had 387 views and 178 downloads, while the libguide had 781 views. The Go Open Project was funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education and DCU’s Teaching Enhancement Unit through the SATLE 19 fund.

In this book we aim to share the knowledge, resources and research generated by the #Openteach project. The aim of the project was to create an evidence-based and open professional learning approach to support educators to teach online. Teaching online is different, in this book we explore this difference with the aim of supporting educators to develop their online teaching practice and knowledge of online pedagogy. The Covid-19 Pandemic has been a game changer for online education, impacting 1.5 billion students worldwide and thrusting the majority of schooling and higher education online (Bozkurt and et al. 2020). Additionally, the pandemic has thrust most higher education staff into teaching online, the majority without previous experience of this mode of education (Bozkart et. al., 2020; Farrell, 2020) However, teaching online requires different pedagogical approaches to traditional lecturing, therefore institutions need to support educators transitioning into online teaching to ensure quality (Gurley, 2019). Effective online teaching supports student engagement and success, this is key as online students are more vulnerable to attrition (Coker, 2018; Woodley & Simpson 2014). This book aims to address this need for professional learning opportunities for educators to upskill in the area of online teaching practice and pedagogy. The intended audience for the book is any educator interested in learning more about effective practice for teaching online and online pedagogy.

In this short guide, we aim to give you a beginners guide to the area of open education, so that you can engage with open education practices in your teaching, research and support activities and to Go Open!

本文追溯了档案袋从文艺复兴时期迄今的演变历程。档案袋最初是指装活页文件的盒子,后来演 变成用于金融、政府和教育等其他用途。档案袋从纸质演变成电子形式,从存放在局域网发展到应用 于因特网。21世纪最初十年 (2000—2010年) 见证了技术融入主流社会、教育技术成为主流高等教育 的一部分和档案袋在全世界得到推广应用。随着过去十年电子档案袋的研究与实践的重心转移,学界 更加重视教学法和学生学习,而非无处不在的数字技术。我们从电子档案袋的应用中所学到的重要经 验之一是教育工作者和教育机构应该用批判的目光看待新教育技术和方法。最后,高等教育电子档案 袋的历史说明高等教育系统将继续逐渐发展变化,吸收各种能与之相容而不是旨在颠覆之的理念、技 术和方法。

The aim of this evaluation report is to evaluate the pilot run of the #Openteach course in order to explore, understand and evaluate its impact on the professional learning experiences of the participants and to inform the iterative design process.

How the ABC Learning Design Framework was used to design the #OpenTeach Professional Development course for Open Online Educators

This mixed-methods study reports on a continuing professional development intervention (CPD), called #OpenTeach, designed to upskill part-team online teachers. CPD is recognised as crucial to the upskilling of educators to enhance the student learning experience. However, an important gap exists in the provision of CPD for part-time and online teachers who rarely have the opportunity to avail of campus-based resources (Beaton & Gilbert, 2013). To address this gap we need to better harness the potential of more flexible models of online education. Geographically dispersed online teachers require opportunities to engage with new learning designs, new digital competencies and new ways of embedding digital technology in teaching, learning and assessment. Accordingly, the #OpenTeach intervention addresses this challenge through a highly targeted CPD programme for part-time online teachers. The core of the initiative involves the development a short open online course on online teaching best practice. This course will develop the digital and pedagogical competencies of the 90 DCU Connected online teachers locally and will be open to online educators globally. The #OpenTeach: Professional Development for Open Online Educators project is funded by the Irish National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

This paper reports on a qualitative case study set in Dublin City University which explored student experiences of studying online. The project adopted a case study approach, following twenty-four online students over one academic year. The setting for the study was an undergraduate sociology module on the BA (Hons) in Humanities, an online programme delivered through DCU Connected at Dublin City University (DCU). Following an open and distance learning philosophy, DCU Connected aims to afford educational opportunities to adult students. The research question for the study was: How do online students construct their narratives about learning online? Data was collected from participant generated learning portfolios and semi structured interviews. Two instruments were developed: a learning portfolio instrument and an interview schedule. Participants were interviewed with their learning portfolios, which were used as stimulus during the interviews. A circular model of data collection and analysis was followed and data analysis was an ongoing and iterative process. The analysis followed a data-led thematic analysis approach based on Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six phases and comprised of several cycles of coding, theme generation, refining and reviewing themes. Through this analysis process five themes were constructed with reference to the research questions, literature and theoretical framework. The findings were constructed into five themes: motivation, peer community, module supports, studying while balancing life commitments and my approach to learning. Findings indicate being a successful online student was impacted by the challenge of lifeload issues such as balancing competing demands of family, work and illness. In addition, the findings suggest that the learning portfolio gave online students a personal space to evaluate their own learning, to process their thoughts and experiences and to document their lives and learning in an authentic and meaningful way. Online students’ learning portfolio gave a unique window into their learning experiences where they documented the development of their highly personal approaches to studying. Another important finding was that participants placed a high value on the peer communities they formed.

This literature report is a phase one output from the #Openteach: Professional Development for Open Online Educators project, which is funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. The #Openteach project aims to generate new knowledge about effective online teaching practice. It aims to harness this knowledge to support the professional learning of online teachers and to more effectively support online student learning experiences. This report was developed to help lay a foundation for the project through a critical analysis of relevant literature.

This work arises from the #Openteach: Professional Development for Open Online Educators project, which is funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. The #Openteach project team are based in the Open Education Unit (OEU) at Dublin City University (DCU). Formally known as the National Distance Education Centre and subsequently Oscail, the OEU is a provider of online, off-campus programmes through the DCU Connected platform. Throughout the years the mode of delivery moved gradually from that of a traditional distance education provider to incorporate more elements of online learning. A significant step in this process came in 2011, with the introduction of synchronous live online tutorials and the electronic delivery of modules in a virtual learning environment (Delaney & Farren, 2016; Farrell & Seery, 2019). Following an open and online learning philosophy, the OEU aims to afford educational opportunities to students who have not managed to access more traditional entry routes into higher education. The main aim of the #Openteach project is to produce, and evaluate, evidence-based open professional development for part-time online educators. In an earlier phase of the project a synthesis of the relevant literature was completed in order to identify online educator roles and the associated competencies for effective online teaching. Concurrently, we conducted a needs analysis of the target population, online students and their online educators based in the OEU. This report contains the outcomes of this needs analysis and will be used, along with the literature synthesis, to guide the development of the professional development resources and course to be implemented in later stages of the project.

This paper reports on a qualitative study of the transition experiences of refugees studying through open and online higher education. Online, open education programmes have considerable potential to provide flexible access to education for refugees, who are not well represented within higher education. As part of a wider University of Sanctuary initiative, interview data from six Ireland-based refugees was analysed using a data-led, qualitative methodological framework grounded in discursive psychology. Findings indicate that participants’ transition narratives are typical in many ways as they form student identities while managing their existing identities and begin to feel, or not, that they belong. Participants constructed a stark divide between two duelling identities, between their identity as a refugee and their new identity as an online learner. Identification with the university was emphasised in contrast to disidentification with the ‘asylum world’. These findings indicate that a strategically connected approach to supporting refugees transition into higher education can impact positively on these students.