Chapter 16 open practices

Chapter 16 – The nature of openness

Introduction
Wiley suggests there has been a shift in the context in which education takes place:
from analogue to digital, from tethered to mobile, from isolated to connected, from
generic to personalised, from consuming to creating and from closed to open (Wiley,
n.d.). This chapter focuses on the last of these. It explores the impact that an
increasingly ‘open’ technologically mediated learning environment will have on
learning in the future. In a world where content and expertise is free and where
services are shifting to the ‘cloud’ (Katz, 2008), what are the implications for
education? The chapter takes a particular position on the notion of “openness”;
considering it from a broad perspective covering each major phase of the academic
lifecycle: design, delivery, evaluation and research. It will consider this in relation to
these four facets of openness:

Open design. What would a vision of a truly open approach to design mean;
beyond open educational resources towards a more explicit representation and
sharing of the whole design process? A scenario of the future might be as
follows:
A newly formed course team brainstorm their initial ideas for the course, using
visual representations, which make conveying and sharing the essence of their ideas
easy. They share this openingly with others, through appropriate Web 2.0
technologies. They invite comments – from other subject experts, from past
students, from potential students. They use the Web 2.0 spaces to continue to
develop and refine their ideas; incorporating peer critique and leaving a visible
audit trail of their design decisions and development process.

Open delivery. With a shift towards more open practices the boundaries
between traditional, formal educational contexts and other non-formal and
informal learning contexts are changing. What would adopting a more open
approach to delivery mean? What will be the impact of mixing institutional
systems and freely available services? How can a more dialogic engagement for
learning and teaching be fostered, starting as part of the design process
described above, but then carried forward during the delivery process?

Open evaluation. How can we harness and utilise the data we collect about
learners on our course? How can we build on the understanding developed as
part of the learner experience research work and the associated new
methodologies? What new methodologies and approaches might we develop to
gain new insights into the impact of a changing technological context for
learning?

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Open research. What will be the impact of the Open Access Movement for
learning? How can we capitalise on the rich research data, which is now being
made available on a global scale?

Underpinning all of these is a set of principles, namely that adopting more open
practice will mean:

being “open” in as broad a sense as possible
fostering and enabling dialogue around learning and teaching ideas and designs
aiming to result in aggregation and cumulative benefit with the ultimate aim of
enhancing the learner’s experience
being based on the notion of sharing and peer critiquing
encouraging serendipity, lateral thinking and new perspectives.

Understanding the nature of openness in the context of a rapidly changing
educational context is important from a research perspective but also has a number
of practical, tangible benefits.

Better understanding of how OER (Open Educational Resources) can be
designed and repurposed should lead to a much greater uptake of their use.
Adopting a more open approach to the design process should lead to better
sharing of learning and teaching ideas and the creation of a vibrant community
of scholarship around learning and teaching. Making designs more explicit will
help the meaning of the designers to be more easily conveyed to those
delivering courses and to the learners.
Capitalising on the outputs of the Open Access Movement will help us to shift to
a more research-led and evidence-based approach to teaching; ensuring that
learning is informed by the very latest research findings.

Adopting such an approach is likely to have an impact on learning and teaching in a
number of ways:

More transparency in terms of how our educational provision is designed,
delivered and evaluated
Better sharing and discussion of learning and teaching, leading ultimately to a
cultural change in practice
Practical instantiation of what open practices mean
A mechanism to showcase e-learning research and practice by foregrounding
exemplars of good practice in learning and teaching, and in demonstrating how
“openness” can be instantiated using innovative tools and new approaches.

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Defining openness
Openness is a difficult term to define, particularly in its application to technology
mediation for teaching and learning. Dictionary definitions1 include: accessible to
all, unrestricted in terms of participation, free from limitations, boundaries or
restrictions, and available (obtainable and for use). All of relevance for open
practices in education.

Siemens posed a number of questions on the nature of openness and is concerned
that the term is becoming diluted and misused (Siemens, 2009). What does it mean
to be open? What is an open methodology? What does openness look like in relation
to technology, information, learning content, administrative systems (transparency
of the student record and related data collection by an institution), and pedagogy?

Wiley articulates his position on openness and its perceived benefits (Wiley, 2010).
Firstly, in relation to the notion of ‘open’ in OpenCourseWare he argues that this
means the course materials are licensed with an open license from the OCW
consortium website; i.e. a free-to-access, online digital publication of high-quality
university-level educational materials. Secondly, he sites Carson’s extensive list of
the benefits of openness (Carson, 2010). These include improvement in personal
knowledge, learning new teaching methods, improving the quality of instruction,
saving time in preparing to teach new students, adapting teaching materials for
personal use, improving skills as a lecturer, improving the interactivity of classes,
and seeking ideas on how to design a new course.

Weller cites a number of strategies for promoting openness: i) in terms of making
the economic case for adopting open practices, ii) by creating robust reward
schemes to enable teachers to engage with and adopt open practices, iii) clear
articulation of the benefits to an individual academic of being open and iv) by
providing easy routes to engaging and using new technologies.

Characteristics of openness
Writing before the emergence of social and participatory media, Rumble argues that
it is important to distinguish between open and distance education and
describes 18 characteristics of openness that he classified into 5 categories

1. Access related criteria (finance, age and prerequisite requirements etc)
2. Place and pace of study
3. Means – referring to choice of media to be used
4. Structure of the program – defining learning objectives, what content to skip etc.
5. Support services

One of the reasons why it is important to critique the notion of openness is that it is
at the heart of the nature of web 2.0 practices. Straub lists open societies, open

1 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/openness

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innovation, open standards, open ecosystems, open source and open architectures.
He suggests that the idea of openness is emerging as a dominant attribute of key
developments in our economic and social fabric (Straub, 2008). Hence better
articulation of the nature of openness will enable us to more effectively harness new
technologies for learning and teaching. Cited in Bartolomé (Bartolomé, 2008) Cobo
and Pardo list seven principles of Web 2.0: the web as a platform, harnessing the
collective intelligence, managing database relevance, not more software versions,
lighter programming, multi-devices orientation and a semantic Moore’s law (Cobo &
Hugo, 2007). Whilst Anderson lists six ideas behind Web 2.0: individual production
and User Generated Content, harnessing the power of the crowd, data on an epic
scale, Architecture of Participation, Network Effects and openness (Andersen,
2007). Straub (2008) suggests that the following values are associated with
openness: tolerance, individual freedom, lifelong learning, participation,
empowerment and cooperation.

Freire (2008) discusses the implications of using Web 2.0 technologies for
educational institutions and in particular some of the associated challenges posed
by them. The first is the issue that teachers and learners, on the whole, are reluctant
to embrace the potential of these new tools. Secondly, there is a lack of incentives or
rewards to use them. Thirdly, universities have legacy technology systems, which
are out of kilter with new technologies. Fourthly, universities are adverse to
innovation and entrepreneurship.

Weller argues that if we were starting an Open University now we would use open
source, open educational resource, open teaching/courses, open research, open
systems, open scholarship and open technology (Weller, 2009). He argues that the
cost of sharing had disappeared and that sharing can transform practice. Through
sites like SlideShare, presentations can become social objects. He puts forward five
principles of social learning: the power of embedding, simple with reach is better
than complex with a small audience, sharing provides a motivation for participation,
it makes sense to start simple and let others build on top and complexity comes
from the network not the app. He poses the question of how we can apply these
principles to transform education.

Bates argues that open learning is primarily a goal or an educational policy and that
the essential characteristic of open learning is the removal of barriers to learning
(Bates, 2005). He goes on to state that open learning has particular implications for
the use of technology. However openness is rarely found in its purest form. No
teaching system is completely open (for example a minimum level of literacy is
required) and few students ever study in complete isolation.

Weller suggests there are three features of today’s Internet: openness,
decentralisation and robustness (Weller, 2007). He argues that successful Internet
developments usually display all three of these characteristics and cites Napster,
blogging and open source software as examples. In terms of openness he argues that
e-learning communities are necessarily open in that all individuals are encouraged

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to contribute, and the ethics of collaborative activity usually dictate that all
contributions are valid. Access is possible from different locations and devices and it
is open in the sense of open to the flow of material.

The OU’s Supported Open Learning (SOL) model
McAndrew et al. (2010) discuss the implications of adopting more open practices at
an institutional level. They draw to begin with on the establishment of the Open
University, UK, which was established as a means of expanding access to higher
education. The OU developed a model of Supported Open Learning (SOL)
(McAndrew & Weller, 2005; Tait, 2003; Tait & Mills, 2003).. Open learning means
that students learn in their own time by reading course material, working on course
activities, writing assignments and perhaps working with other students. Supported
means support from a tutor and the student services staff at Regional Centres, as
well as from centralised areas such as the Library or Open University Students
Association. Jones et al. (2009) provide a comparison of three international Open
Universities (Open University UK, Open University of the Netherlands and Open
University Japan). The OUUK SOL model is described as being based on three
factors:

Distance or Open Learning (learning individually through readings, activities
and assignments, and working with others)

Resources (course texts, DVDs, home experiments, interactive materials, web-
based materials, TV programmes)

Systematic support (via an allocated course tutor, assignment to one of 13
regional centres, central library and IT support, plus regional tutorials, day
schools and online support).

A more up to date and technology aligned description of the OU model has recently
been presented to the HEFCE online e-learning task force (Bean, 2010; Bean & Yeo,
2010). This includes a diagrammatic representation with the SOL model defined as
follows:

The relationship between technology, people, and ideas. The focus is on
maximising the connection (and benefits) between these, delivered through
technology-enhanced learning. The skill is in striking the right balance between
elements. Pedagogy is seen as a way of bringing technology into the service of
people, and facilitating the communication of ideas.

The relationship between trust, open sharing, and community. With the plethora
of social tools, the concept of trust is now concerned with reliability and
security, and not just integrity of communicating properly researched material.
In terms of sharing, collaboration and group work are seen as important
elements and indeed have always been a prominent feature of OU courses.
Today’s technology refreshes the meaning of ‘open’, enabling easier sharing and
co-construction of resources between students. Finally, community emerges

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between people and ideas, as people come together around shared interests and
goals. Pioneering the use of computer conferencing in the early ‘80s enabled the
OU to support its learning communities electronically. Modern technologies
simply make it easier – the principles are the same.

Figure 1: The Open University SOL model 2

McAndrew et al. (2010) suggest that the Open University had several motivations to
work openly with a key one being to experiment and engage with open provision.
They go on to list a range of more general organisational benefits of adopting open
practices, including:
Enhancing the institution’s reputation
Extending the university’s reach to new users and communities
Recruitment of students from those who use Open Educational Resources
repositories, such as OpenLearn
Supporting widening participation
Providing an experimental base of material for use within the university
Accelerating uptake and use of new technologies
Acting as a catalyst for less formal collaborations and partnerships.

McAndrew et al. (2010) conclude by saying that they have a view of openness that
sees it as an enabler for sharing and communication that then impacts on both they
ways we learn and the ways we research. They also believe adopting open practices
can act as an agent for change.

Applying openness
In this section I will provide some examples of open practices across the four facets
outlined at the beginning, namely: open design, open delivery, open evaluation and
open research.

2 Diagram reproduced from Bean (2010)

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Open design
Open design is concerned with opening up the process of designing learning
interventions.

Open teaching
Wiley cites a number of examples of how to adopt open practices: opening your
students’ work to a wider audience through blogs, using open materials, writing
your own teaching materials, putting teaching materials and course syllabi in a wiki
and encouraging students to contribute, and adopting an open participation
approach in class (Wiley, n.d.).

Open Educational Resources
In terms of open teaching perhaps the most significant change in practice has been
the explosion of repositories of freely available Open Educational Resources (OER).
Research on OER and initiatives in the field are discussed in Chapter 10, here I want
to concentrate on what they mean for teaching practice and describe some examples
of how they are being used.

The vision behind the OER movement is to make educational resources freely
available for use by learners and as inspiration for teachers to repurposes. As
discussed in Chapter 10 there are now many high quality OER repositories. This
section will provide some examples of how they are being used by learners and
teachers.

Through evaluation of learner using OpenLearn, volunteer learners and social
learners. The volunteer learners sought content they wanted to learn from, as wells
as tools for self-assessment and ways to reflect on their individual learning. Social
learners were less motivated in working through the content, but instead saw this
as a way of meeting people with shared interest. Hence they were particularly
interested in the communication tools available on the site (Godwin & McAndrew,
2008).

Open courses
Moving beyond the provision of freely available resources, in recent years a number
of open, free online courses have emerged Siemens and Downes developed and
delivered a twelve-week online course on Connectivism., called ‘Connectivism and
Connective Knowledge’. Not only were the tools and resources they used in the
course free, but also the expertise. They describe the course as a MOOG (Massive
Open Online Course). The content, deliver and support for the course was totally
free and anyone could join. An impressive 2,400 joined the course, although
ultimately the number of active participants was only about 200. The course
provides a nice example of an extension of the open movement, moving beyond the
OER movement to providing a totally free course. Siemens (2008) reflected on the
course as follows:
Did we change the world? No. Not yet. But we (and I mean all course participants,
not just Stephen and I) managed to explore what is possible online. People self-
organized in their prefered spaces. They etched away at the hallowed plaque of

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“what it means to be an expert”. They learned in transparent environments, and in
the process, became teachers to others. Those that observed (or lurked as is the
more common term), hopefully found value in the course as well. Perhaps life
circumstances, personal schedule, motivation for participating, confidence,
familiarity with the online environment, or numerous other factors, impacted their
ability to contribute. While we can’t “measure them” the way I’ve tried to do with
blog and moodle participants, their continued subscription to The Daily and the
comments encountered in F2F conferences suggest they also found some value in
the course.

Wiley developed and delivered a similar course, entitled ‘Introduction to Open
Education’. It was also free and offered to anyone, the only requirement was that
students need to keep a blog and to publish weekly posts on the various course
topics. Students could attend the course in a number of ways: i) credit – students
who needed credit had to sign up for an independent study at their university and
find a supervisor to whom the instructor would send a grade at the end of the
course, ii) non-credit – students could attend the course without any grading from
the instructor, if they completed they could get a certificate, and iii) informal – fully
non-credit attendance of the activities. The course aimed to provide the students
with an overview of the field of open education and related topics such as copyright,
licensing and sustainability. Students were asked to think, write and debate current
practices and possible alternatives to open education. Fini et al. (n.d.) derived a
number of insights about how learners engaged with the course. While the initial
didactic structure promoted individual learning through reading and reflection,
during course delivery peer learning occurred and participants were encouraged to
take more active control over the course design and activities. The instructor then
revised the course based on student observations and the learning materials they
produced. Wiley describes the philosophy underpinning the design of the course. He
suggests that the course is a mix of direct skills instruction, combined with project-
based learning and collaborative problem solving. The course introduces
progressively complex problems with supportive information and requires the
learners to synthesize relevant literature, interview data and their own design
intuition to produce meaningful artefacts both individually and as part of
collaborative teams.

Open evaluation
Digital scholarship
New technologies have tremendous potential in terms of supporting more open
digital scholarship practices. Borgeman argues that the Internet can facilitate
distributed, data- and information-intensive collaborative research (Borgeman,
2007b). Researchers now have access to literature in their field, a growing body of
research data, and sophisticated research tools and services. The can collaborate
with others around the world. New social and participatory media offer new
mechanisms for researchers to communicate and disseminate their research and to
engage in peer review and reflection. She argues that communication is the essence
of scholarship, which is inherently a social activity, involving a wide range of public

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and private interactions within a research community (Borgeman, 2007a, p. 47). She
argues that publication is part of a continuous cycle of reading, writing, discussing,
searching, investigating, presenting, submitting and reviewing. Today’s technologies
means that researcher can communicate in a variety of ways with others and more
frequently than was possible before.

Weller refers to Boyer’s (Boyer, 1990)definition of scholarship in terms of discovery
(i.e. the creation of new knowledge), integration (i.e. creating knowledge across
disciplines), application (i.e. engagement with the wider community beyond
education) and teaching (i.e. applying research to teaching). He lists three
characteristics of digital scholarship: openness and sharing as a default, digital, and
networked, a global network of peers to generate and share ideas (Weller, 2010). He
considers what these means for digital scholarship. He argues that new
technologies mean we can do things differently. He cites the way in which Twitter,
for example, can enable researchers to have access to immediate expertise.

Weller et al. (2010) argue that the concept of openness is synergistic with the use of
new technologies. He cites Anderson (2009) and Burton (Burton, 2009)who suggest
that as a result of new technologies the notion of the ‘open scholar’ has emerged. In
terms of discovery, Weller et al. (2010) argue, that new technologies offer new ways
of generating, analysing and discussing research data. In terms of integration, there
is a tension between the fast, open access mechanism now possible for publishing
research outputs with the traditional publication vehicles of journals and books.
There are a number of issues with the latter, long lag times between submission and
publication, increasing subscription costs and a growing resentment in terms of
writing, reviewing and editing and then having to buy back an individuals own
materials. New technology-mediated dissemination channels offer powerful
opportunities for researchers to convey their ideas with a wider audience; through
for example blogs, Twitter, YouTube and SlideShare. Finally, Weller et al. (2010),
consider teaching and in particular open education. Which is where they argue we
are seeing the biggest impact of new technologies and open approaches. They argue
that the digitisation of learning and teaching resources means that they can easily be
reproduced and shared on a global scale. They site initiatives such as MIT’s
OpenCourseWare project and the Open University’s OpenLearn repositories as
examples. They conclude by reflecting on the ways in which technologies are
changing practice and in particular scholarship:
It is clear from the foregoing discussion that new technologies hold out very real
possibilities for change across all facets of scholarship. In each case these afford the
possibility for new more open ways of working. Academic work has always
contained a significant element of collaboration within academia but now it is
increasingly easy to collaborate with more colleagues within but also beyond the
academy and for the varied products of these collaborations to be available to the
widest possible audience.

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Open research
Open research focuses on the question: What will be the impact of the Open Access
Movement for learning? How can we capitalise on the rich research data, which is
now being made available on a global scale?

ISpot
Work on this area is still relatively new, but includes the iSpot initiative
(http://ispot.org.uk/), which is an online site where users can share and discuss
nature findings. The site is an excellent example of collective intelligence and
harnessing the power of the masses, as it enables the capture of sighting on
changing’s in patterns of nature that can then feed into ongoing research activities.
Once registered, a user can add an observation to the website, suggest an
identification, or see if anyone else can identify the species. Users can also
contribute to existing observations and there is a forum to stimulate debate. Despite
the overall look and feel of the site being focussed on ‘fun’ it feeds directly into real
research activities and also enables users to transfer their informal
learning/interests into more formal educational offerings if they wish.

eBank
The eBank project3 is a good example of adopting more open practices both in
research and teaching. The aims of eBank were threefold: i) to make data available
through open access, ii) to link data to references and iii) to make research data
available and applied in the learning context. Lyon (2003) outlined a number of
benefits to making data openly available: providing direct access to data, linking
data to research publications, providing a mechanism for ensuring robustness,
openness and provenance in the academic process, and enabling more rapid
dissemination of scientific ideas. For teaching and learning she saw a benefit in
terms of:
…enriching the student experience, this approach [i.e. provide students with access to
original data and linking data to research references] would help to develop their evaluation
and critical skills, because they would be able to go back and look at the conclusions a
researcher had derived from a set of data and they could analyse it themselves and think did
they [the researcher] make the right decisions, how would I have done it, was the method
correct, those sorts of things, so that was the pedagogical benefits I could see? [Int 10].
(Conole, 2006)

The evaluation of the project (Conole, 2006) indicated was the need to articulate the
benefits of this approach (ie open access to research data) both to individual
researchers (so that they could disseminate their research findings more quickly)
and to the wider research community. Traditionally research outputs have tended
to be as ‘polished’, peer-reviewed, published data (often in the form of static, journal
articles). eBank opened up the possibility of making ‘raw’ research data available –
either for individual use, within a shared research work space or more widely
across the research and teaching communities. One of the key points, stressed by
those interviewed, was that this was about making data easy to find and easily

3 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk/

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available, enabling researchers to think of different ways in which they might then
use the data. This however does potentially change the perceived ‘value’ or worth of
such data – if it is ‘open’ and easily accessible. It also raises questions about an
individual researcher’s ‘moral obligation’ in terms of making their research
information available and shareable across the research community. Indeed the
university sector fundamentally differs, it could be argued, from other Business
sectors, in that its primary ‘product’ is the research and teaching outputs of
individuals, their intellectual capital, rather than any tangible, physical product. This
view of ‘information’ and intellectual outputs and its worth is an inherent
characteristic of universities (both in terms of research and teaching) and is
fundamentally different from the perspective of those in other sectors – such as
commerce (Oliver, et al., 2007). It is unclear yet what the impact might be of making
such intellectual capital more explicitly available in terms of its perceived value and
worth.

A feature to emerge from the evaluation was the importance of the conceptual
models underpinning eBank and how these models help conceptualise and shape
the project vision. What is also evident is that development and in particular clear
articulation of such models requires time – to develop and refine the language used,
establish the models and to think about how they can be applied. A number of
models were evident (Figure two).

Figure 2: Inherent models underpinning eBank

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Firstly there is the scholarly knowledge lifecycle model (Lyon, 2003). Secondly there
is a model around the notion of providing the link from the data through to
publication and vice versa and thirdly there is a nascent model about articulating a
set of pedagogical approaches which might be applied to capitalise on the potential
of this approach. More difficult to articulate but also evidently important is the issue
about shared language and the evolution of definitions as the consortium worked
towards developing some shared understanding. These concepts - ‘scholarly
knowledge cycle’ (as a means of describing the process) and ‘data as collections’ (as
a means of describing a particular aspect of or property of data) – can be viewed as
examples of how the researchers were struggling with, attempting to articulate and
make sense of the problem space they were working in.

One of the three aspirations underpinning eBank was to explore how making
research data electronically accessible and linked to published references could be
utilised in a teaching context. To explore this, the consortium trialled the use of
eBank material in the MChem course at the University of Southampton, within the
final year module on Chemical Informatics (Chem 6016). Typical activities used in
the course included searching the eBank database for molecules and then getting
the students to make links with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. A key
pedagogical aspiration of the module was to get students to understand and
manipulate chemical research data. The module was designed so that students had
ample opportunities to work collaboratively in workshops, but they also had the
opportunity to work through problems individually. It was an optional module,
running in the second semester until the last week of May. The course was
accompanied by a Blackboard site which contained course material and was used
for course administration and dissemination. All the students had previously
completed a six-month work placement in industry. The face-to-face components of
the course ran on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. During 2005-2006 the course had 15
students registered. In the previous year it was also combined as an option for third-
year students, which increased the numbers taking the course. Some postgraduates
also did the course (all postgraduates need to get 120 credits during the first year of
their PhD, which is the equivalent of 4 units). The course was designed so that there
was a progressive building up of complexity and use of real and authentic data,
clearly linked and of relevance to work-based learning, which was timely as these
students had just completed their six-month work placement.

In terms of the application of the ideas in eBank for teaching and learning purposes
there did not appear to be an explicit pedagogical model, although those
interviewed did have some specific ideas of how the outputs from eBank might be
used for teaching. The development of new pedagogical models which harness the
potential of technologies is notoriously difficult and work in this area is still in its
infancy (see Conole et al., 2005 for a critique of existing pedagogical models and
their impact), however without a clear explicit pedagogical model it is difficult to
guide teachers in designing new activities which make use of technical innovations.
A book does not encourage problem-based or reflective learning; it’s about how this
is used within a structured learning activity that enables these approaches to be

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adopted. Similarly the outputs from eBank in isolation are of little use for teaching
purposes unless they are applied within a clear pedagogical model to achieve
specific learning outcomes. There is a nascent pedagogical model implicit in the
scholarly cycle, what’s needed is to turn this into an explicit model which can be
used in teaching. The development of specific learning scenarios or patterns
(Goodyear, 2005; Goodyear & Retalis, 2010) built around the use of eBank data
might be the basis for developing a pedagogical model.

Furthermore what would ‘count’ as an innovative pedagogical model in this respect?
For the crystallography students, access to material electronically is no longer
innovative (they are used to and constantly exposed to a myriad of electronic data to
support their studies). And students involved in crystallography are particularly
comfortable as research data has been available in electronic format for a long time
in crystallography. To innovate the pedagogical model would need to draw out the
new learning opportunities access to data in this format might provide for the
students; ways in which it might enable them to do things such as interrogate and
manipulate the data in ways that they haven’t been able to before.

However, it is worth noting that other areas of Chemistry and other Science
disciplines are generally not so technically literate as the Crystallographers and
hence providing access to data electronically in a teaching context would be
valuable. There is therefore a balance between about the degree of readiness of a
discipline to take ideas forward and apply them versus the level of technical
expertise – if they are already using technology extensively, it will take more to
demonstrate innovation.

EPrints
In the nineties Steven Harhard lead the development of the open access movement,
aimed at making academic outputs freely available (Harnard & Hey, 1995; Hey,
1997, 2004). The University of Southampton developed the EPrints software,4 as a
vehicle for creating open access archives of research output. Since then more and
more institutions have set up similar repositories and these are now recognised as
important mechanisms for valuing and showcasing institutions’ intellectual assets.
Reflecting on the evaluation of the implementation and uptake of ePrints at
Southampton University, Hey (2004) concludes that:

To achieve a sustainable repository we need to integrate our archive within
the natural processes of its staff and students; this gives them the bonus of a
reusable resource. While immediate visibility leading to increased research
impact is the primary aim of Stevan Harnad's campaigns, we can achieve this
by example, practice and cooperation.

Blogs and Twitter
Finally academics are increasingly using blogs and microblogging sites like Twitter
to communicate their learning and research ideas and communicating with others.

4 http://www.eprints.org/

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Many academics now keep blogs and use them as a way of disseminating there
latest research ideas. Conole (Conole, 2007)argues that blogging sits alongside and
compliments other forms of communication, namely academic papers and
conference, and suggests the following as functions for these:

Academic paper: reporting of findings against a particular narrative, grounded
in the literature and related work; style – formal, academic-speak
Conference presentation: awareness raising of the work, posing questions and
issues about the work, style – entertaining, visual, informal
Blogging – snippets of the work, reflecting on particular issues, style – short,
informal, reflective.

She goes on to argue that academic discourse is a mix of all three forms of
communication. I would add to these Twitter as a additional mechanism for
disseminating information and for communicating with peers. For many in
educational technology Twitter has become an important part of their personal
digital environment, providing just-in-time access to resources and expertise. For
example in research background material for this chapter I tweeted the following:
Looking 4 gd examples of openness & open practices 4 my chapter any examples?
will include learning design, CCK09, OER, digital scholarship

and here are some of the replies I got within minutes:

manmalik: @gconole use of twitter by proj students is open and invites comments
from their community on what they are working on: resources, ideas

mpaskevi: @gconole Example of openness through OER leading to an opportunity to
publish. http://bit.ly/hdJ04G

dombles: @gconole TESSA? Open2.net?

AJCann: @gconole Google open chemistry & chemwiki

misetak: @gconole Materials online or meetings
online?http://edtechroundup.wikispaces.com/

I think this demonstrates the power of these tools and how they can be used to
support distributed, open research practices.

Conclusion
This chapter has discussed the notion of openness and associated open practices. It
has considered how technologies can be used to enable more open practices across
learning, teaching and research. It has argued that we are seeing a fundamental
change in practice. It considered in particular four categories of openness: open

14

design, open teaching, open evaluation and open research. It discussed the tensions
between these open practices and more traditional mechanisms for engaging in
academic discourse.

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