Practical ways to promote academic engagement in OER
Mackintosh, W. and Wood, S
Once teachers become aware of the ethos and possibilities of OER, they are often enthusiastic about using and contributing to OER. However, without clear and accessible pathways for engaging with OER, this initial enthusiasm can easily be lost amongst the many other demands on academics’ time. In this workshop we will explore some ways in which educators in Aotearoa New Zealand’s tertiary institutions, in partnership with New Zealand’s new Centre for Open Education Practice and the OERu, could be supported to take small but concrete steps towards becoming open educational practitioners. Suggestions will include:
- Crowd-sourcing small tasks such as the creation of individual learning activities, and the review of open source course materials, for OERu
- Creating a network of volunteer online tutors for occasional facilitation of OERu courses
- Adapting British Columbia’s Faculty OER Toolkit (BCcampus Open Education) for the local context
- Institutions recognising time spent on OER contributions within normal workload
- Institutions recognising significant OER contributions through institutional teaching awards
Workshop participants are encouraged to bring their own ideas to add to the discussion. We hope that an output from the workshop would be one or two practical ideas for COEP or individual institutions to take forward.
Speaker profiles
Dr Wayne Mackintosh is the Managing Director of the OER Foundation which coordinates the implementation of the OERu. He is also New Zealand’s UNESCO and International Council for Open and Distance Education Chair in Open Educational Resources.
Simonne Wood is a Learning and Teaching Specialist at Otago Polytechnic, with a focus on supporting academic staff to use educational technologies. Since August 2018 she has been seconded part-time to OERu, where she helps to develop new courses on the WikiEducator platform. Coming from a background of tertiary sector administration and social enterprise, she is interested in the potential of OER to bring together the values of education and social justice.
Event Timeslots (1)
Track 1 (Room Z114)
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Wayne Mackintosh
