PRESENTATION AVAILABLE AT
jamesmskidmore.com/presentations. SOCIAL MEDIA: jamesmskidmore
In writing A Place for Policy (appearing summer 2019), a report commissioned by eCampusOntario, we explored the role institutional policy plays in creating more favourable conditions for open educational resources and practices at Ontario’s universities and colleges. We will outline the major findings of the report and discuss their implications for the broader open education community.
An extensive review of the academic and SoTL literature on OER and OEP, as well as background interviews with various stakeholders in Ontario and across North America, surfaced one intractable barrier to wider OER and OEP adoption: the lack of professional recognition for instructors involved in open education, a problem at the root of many of the obstacles facing OER and OEP in higher education.
We take the view that institutional policy is the most effective remedy to this problem. Some proponents of open education, however, feel that the pursuit of policy solutions enables administrative dominance that negates the grassroots support for OER and OEP.
The pushback against policy can be alleviated, however, when stakeholders understand that policy development is an organic process involving both bottom-up and top-down activity. External organizations such as eCampusOntario can play a crucial role by providing sideways facilitation of these processes. Our report recommends that eCampusOntario develop a policy workshop based on an environmental scan model that we created for the report. This scan assists institutions in establishing where they are in terms of OER and OEP, where they want to be, and how to get there.
The model, which we will share in our presentation, illustrates that by thinking globally (believing in the efficacy of open education) and acting locally (establishing an organic policy development process for institutions), grassroots advocates and administrators alike can ensure that open education attains a more prominent place on the higher education landscape.
