Over the last three decades, open educational practices have emerged as a field of both practice and research. In the language of this year’s theme, Open is Everyone’s Business, and business is booming. This boom has spurred institutionalization through myriad published papers, specialized journals, even dedicated classes and courses of study. But this institutionalization raises many questions, especially in regards to course offerings: are there regular courses offered in open educational practices, and if so, where are they taught and what do they include? Are courses on open education the purview of dedicated departments or centres, into transdisciplinary programs like Digital Humanities, or housed under the umbrella of education departments? To what extent are courses in open education inclusive of diverse perspectives and ways of knowing? Are courses on open educational practices taught using open educational practices? To answer these questions, I’ll conduct bibliographic and curricular analyses. I’ll construct a database (that will be shared openly) of courses by searching college catalogs, starting with those listed in Boston College’s Worldwide Higher Education Inventory (“Worldwide Higher Education Inventory), and US News’ list of top education programs in the US (“Best Universities”) as well as the English-speaking institutions on US News’ list of global universities (“Top Education”) and open universities such as the UK’s Open University and Canada’s Athabasca University. To cast the widest possible net, I will add the institutions of leading scholars (drawn from those who have keynoted open education conferences and/or publish frequently in open education journals) and emerging scholars (drawn from the members of the Global OER Graduate Network). Finally, I will email the initial database to multiple list-servs that focus on open education to request information on any institutions and courses of which their members are aware.
Once the list is assembled, I will search each institutions’ course catalogs to find any courses that have the search terms “open education,” “open educational resources,” “OER,” “open pedagogy,” and/or “open educational practices” in the title or course description to find out which institutions are offering courses, in what departments, as part of which degrees, and whether the courses are regular course offerings or special topics courses. Course syllabi and degree maps/courses of study that focus on open education will be requested from the instructors of the identified courses for content analysis to identify what topics are covered, what readings/materials are assigned, and what these courses say about the current state of the field of open education. Mapping where and how courses in open education are offered as well as what topics and readings these courses include, will provide insight as to what the field of research in open education truly is at this moment in time.
This proposal overlaps several of the possible proposal areas: *Open practitioners, identity, and space in education *Open data *Open educational practices, including open assessment *Inclusion, diversity, equity, and access to Open Education Resources (OER) and Open Education Practices (OEP)
Included in
[Session 3E]: Practice and Policy in OEReferences“Best Universities in the US for Education Degrees 2024.” 2023.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/best-universities-us-education-degrees.
“Top Education and Educational Research Schools in the World - US News Education.” n.d. Accessed December 13, 2023.
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/education-educational-research.
“Worldwide Higher Education Inventory - Lynch School of Education and Human Development - Boston College.”
https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/schools/lynch-school/sites/cihe/research-resources/worldwide-higher-education-inventory.html.
Author Keywordsopen educational practices, open practitioners, open curriculum, open syllabi
