Conference Contribution by
Dr Jennifer Mattschey
produced as part of the Open University Master of Arts in Online and Distance Education
Time of presentation: 13th February 2021, 3.15pm
The multimedia poster above is supported by closed captions.
Using Open Educational Practices and Resources and Psychology: Barriers and how to overcome them
While there are many advantages to using Open Educational Practices (OEPs) and Resources (OERs), many academics are reluctant to engage with these topics. Besides the fact that adopting OEPs benefits the public image of Higher Education institutes, they also have the potential to lower our ever-increasing workload and reduce the time required to prepare teaching materials (McGill, Falconeri, Dempster, Littlejohn, & Beetham, 2013; Wenk, 2010). For students being able to access materials for free contributes to widening access to Higher Education. Importantly, many OERs are accessible electronically and thus present more accessible alternatives for non-neurotypical students and those who are affected by visual and/or auditory impairments (Vojtech & Grissett, 2017; Weller, De los Arcos, Farrow, Pitt, & McAndrew, 2015). Compared to commercial teaching materials, e.g. textbooks, this can make OERs the more inclusive option. Thus, both staff and student benefit from their use.
While the benefits of using OERs and engaging in OEPs are readily apparent, many Psychologists are reluctant to engage with them (Jung, Bauer, & Heaps, 2017). We will have a look at barriers to the use of OEPs and OERs and how to overcome them. For example, we have long embraced the benefits of peer-review in research, yet we appear to be more reluctant to facilitate a similar exchange of experiences by allowing for a process of peer-feedback in a teaching context. Similarly, workshop attendees may also have questions about the copyright of materials they share or how to identify reputable OERs that work within the context of their teaching. This workshop will address these concerns.
Students welcome the use of OER resources and the use of, e.g. open textbooks, has been linked to better student performance and student retention (Clinton, 2019). Staff that use OERs have also consistently been rated higher by the students they teach compared to educators who rely primarily on commercial materials (Hilton, 2019). Importantly, many OERs can easily be adapted for your own teaching and thus support student learning. For example, open textbooks can be downloaded and sections within them can be changed, replaced, or added. This allows us to create resources that are tailored to the courses we teach without having to start from scratch. This workshop will give attendees the opportunity to find out how OERs fit into their teaching and how they can apply OEPs as part of this.
References:
Clinton, V., 2019. Cost, outcomes, use, and perceptions of open educational resources in psychology: A narrative review of the literature. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 18(1), pp.4-20.
Hilton, J., 2019. Open educational resources, student efficacy, and user perceptions: a synthesis of research published between 2015 and 2018. Educational Technology Research and Development, pp.1-24.
Jung, E., Bauer, C. and Heaps, A., 2017. Higher education faculty perceptions of open textbook adoption. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4).
McGill, L., Falconer, I., Dempster, J.A., Littlejohn, A. and Beetham, H., 2013. Journeys to open educational practice: UKOER/SCORE review final report.
Vojtech, G. and Grissett, J., 2017. Student perceptions of college faculty who use OER. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(4), pp.155-171.
Weller, M., De los Arcos, B., Farrow, R., Pitt, B., & McAndrew, P. (2015). The impact of OER on teaching and learning practice. Open Praxis, 7(4), 351-361.
Wenk, B., 2010, April. Open educational resources (OER) inspire teaching and learning. In IEEE Educon 2010 Conference (pp. 435-442). IEEE.