When the discussion around what “open” really means in an educational context, I found myself constantly renegotiating (and admittedly grappling) with my own understanding of it.
Open education and Open Educational Resources (OER) to me have always (sort of) been synonymous with “free”. Right?
In South Africa (SA), the concept of Open Access was only introduced in 2012 when the South African Department of Higher Education and Training considered OER in its Draft Policy Framework for the Provision of Distance Education in South African Universities (Department of Higher Education and Training, 2014). There was (and still is) no specific mandate in place – on behalf of South African universities – to even consider making a handful of courses or academic programmes open to students without them paying first. Cox (2016) postulates that, “There is no financial or status reward or recognition in annual performance reviews for contributing teaching materials to any Open platform.”
Coupled with the fact that only around 10% of South Africans have computers in their home, 16% still do not have electricity in their homes, and capped data plans are just too expensive for most South Africans (Sokolow, 2020), how feasible is open education in SA?
It seems that SA may not be totally ready for this paradigm shift. This got me thinking about the notion of open pedagogy versus OER. This was also further expanded upon in the webinar ONL students had with Maha Bali. Simple prompts such as encouraging participants to provide commentary on her slides, “Use these, but please reference my name and don’t sell them” made me seriously think about whether or not I have got this all wrong. When I used to lecture, I remember spending hours developing slides for my students to consolidate text-heavy sections of the Study Guide. I would tell them to use this to make their own notes, reflective of their own understanding. And when they asked me for the slides, I often got annoyed. I guess – to me – this meant that they were being lazy. But I’ve started to reflect on why I might have felt that way. Why not share them and let students provide their own input? Perhaps Maha was right when she said that people develop an emotional connection to the things we share.
When thinking more about how we – both in our personal and professional lives – negotiate knowledge, I also considered the Eight Attributes of Open Pedagogy (Hegarty, 2015). Which (if any) of these attributes did I feel I even had or could demonstrate?
As a Learning Designer (LD), I feel that perhaps out of all the listed attributes, I am better able to demonstrate the third – “Innovation and Creativity“. The significance of learning versus instructional design is being able to identify segways for learning – where content is meaningfully linked to the platform/online classroom. As a LD, we have to find innovative ways to replicate what a student would ordinarily do in a physical classroom, but in an online environment. For example, how would you replicate a peer discussion activity? You may want to design an interactive forum, and so forth.
So as I explore the concept of open education and pedagogy, I am uncovering more of what they both mean to me and in my industry. But most importantly, what value I can contribute to the online experience of South African students. I’m not sure the overall feeling of our government and academics towards open education will change any time soon, but perhaps the most important change starts with oneself.
References:
Department of Higher Education and Training, South Africa. 2012. Draft Policy Framework for the Provision of Distance Education in South African Universities. [Online]. Available: https://www.che.ac.za/file/6121/download?token=c-DFGPZJ [2022, April 08].
Cox, G. 2016. Open Education in South African Higher Education. [Online]. Available: https://education.okfn.org/open-education-in-south-african-higher-education/ [2022, April 08].
Sokolow, A. 2020. South Africa’s Fourth Industrial Revolution limited by lack of computer literacy, access. [Online]. Available: https://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/south-africas-fourth-industrial-revolution-limited-by-lack-of-computer-literacy-access/#:~:text=The%20scale%20of%20the%20problem,expensive%20for%20most%20South%20Africans. [2022, April 08].
Hegarty, B. 2015. Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources. Research Gate. [Online]. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281286900_Attributes_of_Open_Pedagogy_A_Model_for_Using_Open_Educational_Resources [2022, April 01].
