How research and teaching can reinforce each other
Every year, the dissertation prize is awarded to the best dissertation of the past year by the Association for Educational Research (VOR). Marjon Baas (ICLON researcher) is one of the nominees. She talks about her dissertation.
’Open to all, not known to all: Sustaining practices with open educational resources in higher education’
Worldwide, there are several initiatives within higher education to promote the sharing and use of OERs in education. Yet it appears that many such initiatives disappear again after project funding ends. In addition, many teachers and students are also unaware of the available range of OERs and the opportunities they have to use the materials in the curriculum or for their own learning. The question, therefore, is how to make the open movement in higher education sustainable.
Free educational resources
Higher education programmes regularly revise their teaching to keep up with various social, technological and subject-related developments. Teachers can use various materials when (re)developing and teaching in order to support student learning.
Nowadays, many (learning) materials are available with open licences. These materials are freely available for teachers and students to use, adapt and download. The underlying idea is that materials created with public money are also free and publicly accessible. Cooperation between educational institutions on high-quality materials and sharing them with each other prevents institutions from individually investing a lot of time, money and energy in developing high-quality (online) learning materials. And it contributes to achieving high-quality and accessible education.
Gaining greater insight into adoption of OERs in higher education
Relatively many OERs are available, but at the same time the use of these materials in the curriculum lags behind. We know from previous research that this is because there is insufficient support for teachers in both finding and using these materials. Also, the quality is not always of a sufficient level.
In the study, we looked specifically at how OERs are valued by teachers. What makes a learning material useful? We also gained insight into how professional communities of instructors (in which there is collaboration across institutions) can be further cultivated to achieve sustainable collaboration on education. The thesis contributes to reducing the gap between the increasing attention to (collaboration on) OERs and the limited insights from the literature. It aims to contribute to a landscape in which both teachers and students have access to a wide range of materials appropriate to their needs.
Why do you think your thesis in particular has been nominated?
I think my dissertation was nominated because of the current and relevant focus on collaboration between educational institutions, and specifically on OERs. The dissertation brings practice-based research to the fore. It shows how research and education can reinforce each other.
In addition, I made use of various theoretical frameworks and research designs. This allowed me to gain valuable and in-depth insights. The insights from research in practice, in turn, can lead to new research questions and additional insights or tools for the practice situations in which teachers or education professionals find themselves.
What will you do with your research?
I work as an advisor at Saxion University of Applied Sciences, from which the PhD research was funded, and therefore have direct involvement in educational innovation alongside my research. We are using the insights from the research to further facilitate and organise access to and use of digital and Open Educational Resources. We can reinforce this movement through the awarded OpenUp grant from Npuls in which we are joining forces with 23 other institutions to advance learning and working with digital and open learning materials in further education.
Podcast
Anyone wishing to become acquainted with the concept of open educational resources while taking in the main points of the study, can listen to this episode of the podcast In Context. It is particularly interesting for staff involved in educational development in higher education, such as lecturers, educationalists and information specialists.