Institutional mapping of open educational practices beyond use of Open Educational Resources

Abstract

Many initiatives exist to increase the adoption of open educational practices (OEP) within universities, but few initiatives start by exploring the capacity of educators to adopt open approaches. This paper addresses this challenge, suggesting that in order to build OEP capacity, universities should build on the existing skills of local champions who are familiar with open approaches. The paper builds on the Open Educators' Factory methodology to map the capacities of university teachers across four areas: open design, open content, open teaching and open assessment and presents the results of its application to a case study within an Italian university. The pilot demonstrates that by using this approach, it is possible to map universities' existing OEP and connect them with the capability of local educators. This enables university managers to build on the expertise of open education practitioners to raise the overall capacity of their staff to adopt open approaches.