scholarly journals A Case Study of Applying Open Educational Practices in Higher Education during COVID-19: Impacts on Learning Motivation and Perceptions

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9129
Author(s):  
Xiangling Zhang ◽  
Ahmed Tlili ◽  
Ronghuai Huang ◽  
Tingwen Chang ◽  
Daniel Burgos ◽  
...  

Open Educational Resources (OER) have been researched for a long time in the open education field. Researchers are now shifting their focus from resources to practices for delivering open education, an area called Open Educational Practices (OEP). However, there is little information in the related literature regarding the design of an OEP-based course or the impact of these types of courses. Therefore, this study designs a new OEP-based course at a public university for teaching family education during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also investigates its impact on learning motivation and teachers’ perceptions. In this context, a practical pilot experiment using both qualitative and quantitative methods was conducted. Specifically, 36 learners participated in this experiment. The obtained findings highlight: (1) an innovative design framework for OEP-based courses that teachers can refer to in their contexts; (2) that learners had a high motivation level in terms of knowledge achievements, individual connection and engagement when taking the OEP-based course; and (3) several advantages and challenges of the OEP-based course from the teacher’s and learners’ perspectives. For instance, the teacher reported the fear of losing control over the learning process when applying OEP. The findings of this paper can help researchers and educators in adopting OEP in higher education especially in times of crises, as well as increase the sustainability of OEP, hence contributing to open education development.

Author(s):  
Catherine Cronin

<p class="3">Open educational practices (OEP) is a broad descriptor of practices that include the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER) as well as open pedagogies and open sharing of teaching practices. As compared with OER, there has been little empirical research on individual educators’ use of OEP for teaching in higher education. This research study addresses that gap, exploring the digital and pedagogical strategies of a diverse group of university educators, focusing on whether, why, and how they use OEP for teaching. The study was conducted at one Irish university; semi-structured interviews were carried out with educators across multiple disciplines. Only a minority of educators used OEP. Using constructivist grounded theory, a model of the concept “Using OEP for teaching” was constructed showing four dimensions shared by open educators: balancing privacy and openness, developing digital literacies, valuing social learning, and challenging traditional teaching role expectations. The use of OEP by educators is complex, personal, and contextual; it is also continually negotiated. These findings suggest that research-informed policies and collaborative and critical approaches to openness are required to support staff, students, and learning in an increasingly complex higher education environment.</p>


Open Praxis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Paskevicius

The act of instruction may be conceptualized as consisting of four elements: learning outcomes, learning resources, teaching and learning activities, and assessments and evaluation. For instructors in higher education, the way they manage the relationships between these elements is what could be considered the core of their instructional practice. For each of the elements, this paper seeks to identify open educational practices, their affordances, and evidence of their utility in supporting the work of teachers in shifting from existing teaching and learning practices to more open educational practices. The literature reviewed and model proposed may provide educational developers or proponents of open education a lens with which to discuss open educational practices with faculty specifically related to their teaching and learning design practices.


Author(s):  
Franziska Bellinger ◽  
Patrick Bettinger ◽  
Valentin Dander

Offenheit an Hochschulen wird derzeit vor dem Hintergrund der Idee einer ‹Open Education› diskutiert, welche auf die Etablierung von Open Educational Practices (OEP) und Integration von Open Educational Resources (OER) im Lehr-/Lernalltag zielt. OEP und OER werden dabei nicht losgelöst voneinander thematisiert, sondern sind in den Debatten eng miteinander verwoben. Zu konstatieren ist jedoch, dass in theoretischen und empirischen Arbeiten zu OEP eine Erläuterung dessen, was unter offenen Bildungspraktiken zu verstehen ist, weitestgehend unbeantwortet bleibt. Ausgehend von der Feststellung, dass im Diskurs um OEP meist eine theoretische Reflexion des Praxisbegriffs ausgespart wird und ein programmatisch-idealistischer Duktus vorherrscht, wird im vorliegenden Beitrag für einen praxeologisch-diskursanalytisch informierten Zugang plädiert. Es wird argumentiert, dass OEP auf einer solchen Grundlage empirisch zugänglich gemacht werden können und so ein definitorisches Fundament geschaffen wird, das an aktuelle praxistheoretische Arbeiten anschliesst. Der Beitrag skizziert beispielhaft Anknüpfungspunkte mit Bezug zu aktuellen Problemfeldern, um die Potenziale der vorgestellten Forschungsperspektive aufzuzeigen.


Author(s):  
Franziska Bellinger ◽  
Kerstin Mayrberger

Open Educational Practices (OEP) erscheinen in der Debatte um Openness im Bildungskontext und in Verbindung mit Open Educational Resources (OER) trotz einer nachweislichen Verbindung als noch relativ unterrepräsentiert. So wird hier der Annahme gefolgt, dass es aus theoretischer, empirischer wie diskursiver Perspektive notwendig erscheint für eine Kultur des Teilens und weiter eine offene Bildung im Sinne von Open Education und Open Pedagogy, die sich in Variationen von OEP manifestieren, zu sensibilisieren. Auf Grund der Bedeutung von OEP für den derzeitigen Transformationsprozess im Hochschulkontext unter den Bedingungen der Digitalisierung liefert der Beitrag einen systematischen Überblick zu Forschungsarbeiten zu OEP. Dabei findet eine Orientierung entlang der übergreifenden Fragestellung, in welchen Zusammenhängen und unter welchen Fragestellungen OEP im Kontext Hochschule erforscht werden und mit welchem Begriffsverständnis gearbeitet wird, statt. Das Ergebnis des Literature Reviews zeigt, dass in den Forschungsarbeiten ein variantenreiches Verständnis von OEP thematisiert wird. In Abhängigkeit dessen wie das Verhältnis der Praktiken der Subjekte und die Praxis jeweils gefasst werden, lassen sich vier Dimensionen einer OEP im Kontext von Openness identifizieren. Der Beitrag plädiert daher für eine begriffliche Schärfung von OEP im jeweils spezifischen Verwendungszusammenhang. Die Autorinnen forcieren dabei eine praxistheoretische Perspektive. Es wird argumentiert, dass ein praxistheoretischer Zugang es ermöglicht, offene Bildungspraktiken für den Hochschulkontext theoretisch zu fundieren und empirisch zu untersuchen, um damit einen Beitrag zur zeitgemässen Mediendidaktik respektive Medienpädagogik leisten zu können.


Open Praxis ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita R Walz ◽  
Jyldyz Bekbalaeva

The study was undertaken to understand the propensity for increased engagement with open educational practices (OEP), to include methods prioritizing student-centered teaching & learning, and awareness, use, and development of open educational resources (OER) among higher education faculty in Kyrgyzstan. The study employed a mixed-methods research design, combining qualitative and quantitative data obtained from 35 faculty, librarians, and administrators in institutions of higher education in Kyrgyzstan. This study aimed to identify current teaching practices and learning resource usage practices, gauge levels of knowledge regarding Kyrgyzstan’s Copyright law, Creative Commons licenses, and Open Educational Resources, and investigate perceptions regarding potential roles for libraries in enabling others’ learning regarding Copyright and Creative Commons, and open educational resources. Analysis of the results revealed a higher than expected gravitation toward student-centered pedagogy than previously assumed. The study also identified broad use of digital downloads as learning materials, conflation of open educational resources with free online resources, and positive perceptions of libraries’ potential to instruct regarding Kyrgyz copyright, Creative Commons, and open educational resources, and needs for further professional development training for librarians.


Author(s):  
Ana Nobre

In this chapter, the authors highlight the potential of open educational resources (OER) to increase access to knowledge and the challenges to adapt these resources with the participation of students. They analyze the emerging practices resulting from pedagogical innovation, with open educational resources, in the cycles of design, implementation, and evaluation in the curricular unit of a Master's course in Pedagogy of eLearning at Universidade Aberta de Portugal. The investigation is carried out through the methodological procedures of design-based research with two groups of students of higher education at a distance where they addressed the concepts related to OER and participated in the educational practices for integrating OER in online education. In the field of innovation scenarios in online education, the results demonstrate the need to carry out/think about training, with practical actions, so that students can know, adapt, produce, integrate OER in their activities and share resources, thus contributing to increase the availability of quality OER.


Risks ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Ignatowski ◽  
Łukasz Sułkowski ◽  
Bartłomiej Stopczyński

Nepotism and cronyism are forms of favoritism towards certain people in the workplace. For this reason, they constitute a problem for organization managers, ethicists and psychologists. Identifying the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the increase of nepotism and cronyism may provide a basis for organizations to assess their extent and to take possible measures to prevent their negative effects. At the same time, the research presented in the article may provide a basis for further research work related to nepotism and cronyism at the times of other threats, different from the pandemic. The aim of the article is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on growing acceptance for nepotism and cronyism in Polish enterprises. Qualitative and quantitative methods have been included in the conducted research. Qualitative study aimed at improving knowledge of nepotism and cronyism and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these phenomena, followed by a quantitative study conducted in order to verify the information obtained in the qualitative study. This research has demonstrated that Nepotism and cronyism in the workplace, are phenomenon that are basically evaluated negatively. They adversely influences social and economic development, but the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nepotism and cronyism is not significant.


Author(s):  
Francis Atuahene

The diminishing financial resources and the growing demand for participation remain the biggest threat to higher education in Ghana. Cognizant of these quagmires and realizing the impact of higher education on national development, the National Union of Ghanaian Students proposed and the government established a special education trust fund called the Ghana Education Trust Fund bill (GETFund) in 2000. Despite these challenges, the GETFund is making significant contributions toward higher education development in Ghana in infrastructure, student development, faculty research, and staff support.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Jean Bosco Harelimana

The study analyzed the impact of ICT utilization on the financial performance of microfinance institutions inRwanda with case study of Réseau Interdiocesain de microfinance (RIM) Ltd undertaken within 5 years (2011-2015). The study adopted the use of descriptive survey using both qualitative and quantitative methods for a totalsample size of 132. Purporsive and simple random simpling was used for this purpose. Primary and Secondary datawere collected and thene analyzed using SPSS version 16.00. The study found that ICT has been introduced and usedabout 5 years and above. The study found that ICT impact firstly on financial sustainability and profitability (65.8%),secondly on financial efficiency and productivity (23.7) and finally on portfolio quality (5.3%). ICT utilization havea high influence to the RIM Ltd.’s financial performance compared to the previous situation.The correlation results imply that ICT usage has a positive impact on financial sustainability and profitability as theymove in the same direction (R=0.502). The strength of the impact was found to be low due to the low investments inICT among microfinance institutions.


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