How can theories of open education help us to understand the personal dimension of open practice?
In this post I plan to further explore ideas around the personal dimension of open practice that I considered in my OKHE1 post. In looking at this phenomenon from my perspective as an archivist with a career largely based in Higher Education, I examined how both the traditional work of an archivist and the adoption of open practice have intrinsically personal elements, which results in an interplay between the two. ‘Open’ is not simply the opposite of ‘closed’, it is far more complex, and individual practitioners need be mindful of this when considering adopting open practices. They need to understand what the benefits of open practice are, and consider how open they are prepared to be as individuals.
I intend to continue this exploration firstly by examining the difficulties in open practice, and then by considering scholarly perspectives and theories of open practice, reflecting upon how they might help us to understand how we might navigate the personal aspects involved in the adoption of open practice. Naturally, I continue to write from my perspective as a practitioner operating in a university special collections context but I believe that much of this will be applicable to practitioners operating in other sectors and disciplines. As an aside, when considering the term open practice in a special collections and archival context, I’m primarily thinking about the creation of open educational resources (OER) by digitising, interpreting and making available online rare books, archives and manuscripts, and engagement through blogging and social media platforms.
Why might openness be difficult?
As I stated in OKHE1, I began this course thinking of open practice as wholly positive. As a movement that promotes and facilitates the sharing of resources, data and opportunities for education to as wide an audience as possible, as freely as possible, and under conditions which allow fair reuse, it is entirely in keeping with my personal values.
However, open practice at the level of the individual is a personal act, which can present difficulties for the practitioner. Martin Weller summarises potential difficulties of open practice in his post: these include the blurring of the boundaries between public and private, how one establishes an open online identity safely while taking into account sharing of personal data involved in operating in public online spaces, and the time pressure involved in creating and monitoring these online open spaces. The blurring of the personal and public spheres is difficult when faced with the inherent nature of historical material. Practitioners may work with material which conflicts with their own world view, or contains perspectives, language and imagery which could be perceived as offensive or troubling, so may feel uncomfortable being personally connected to these things in an online space.
Padma examines the role imposter syndrome might have in inhibiting open practice from the perspective of a teaching librarian. She examines how feelings of inferiority and not being good enough might be a barrier to open practice. This is applicable in a Special Collections context too, where archivists and curators can be responsible for material covering broad and diverse subjects which don’t always closely align to their specific areas of expertise (to use myself as an example, I’ve worked with collections relating to subjects as diverse as psychiatry, DNA research, higher education, military history and non-conformist Christianity in my career so far — I wasn’t an expert in any of these subjects). The act of curating materials when you aren’t an expert in a particular field is complex, as it involves you being a gatekeeper and facilitator of access and understanding of such materials, while you are simultaneously undertaking a process of learning which has much in common with your users’ experiences. It is unsurprising therefore that practitioners may feel vulnerable about making their work openly available under these circumstances, especially in a field such as higher education which is, by its very nature, populated by experts.
Padma makes a further interesting point relating to the ‘permanence’ of making resources available online, in comparison to the transient nature of teaching in a face-to-face setting, and how this might be a barrier for practitioners. Archivists and curators may also feel a similar pressure. As a profession we’re used to the idea of permanence — long term preservation is at the core of what we do — but we’re not used to doing it in such an open and exposed manner.
Sava Singh discusses how open practice, for certain individuals, might move beyond feeling uncomfortable and become damaging or harmful. Women, people of colour and other individuals who come from marginalised or non-dominant groups can be subjected to significant levels of abuse and disrespectful interaction in open online spaces.
Can theoretical frameworks for open education help us to navigate the personal dimension?
I would like to look at educational theory in relation to open education to better understand the personal dimension in the creation of open educational resources, and help us as practitioners have the skills and confidence to navigate it. While the research and theory in relation to open practice is chiefly focused on the learner and the process of learning via open educational resources, I would argue that some of the concepts examined are applicable to practitioners too.
Socio-historical perspectives
Stefanie Panke and Tina Seufert examine a variety of different theoretical and methodological perspectives for conceptualising learning with Open Educational Resources. Their consideration of socio-historical perspectives in particular are especially insightful. They consider the theory of distributed cognition, a branch of cognitive science which describes cognition and knowledge as not confined to an individual, but distributed across objects, individuals, artefacts, and tools in the environment.
“The forces that drive cognitive ability do not reside solely inside the head of the individual, but instead are distributed across the individual and the situation as they interact. Therefore, to understand cognition we must study the situation and the situated cognizer together as a single, unified system.”
(Wilson, in Panke and Seufert, 2015)
This is connected to connectivism, a theory first posited by George Siemens, which views learning as a process which is focused on the connections made by learners. Among the key principles of connectivism are the principle of learning and knowledge being situated in a plurality of ideas, and the process of connecting specialised information sources. As summarised by Panke and Seifert, “…learning takes place when learners collaboratively generate new connections through producing knowledge artifacts, such as blog posts, podcasts or diagrams”.
Other theoretical concepts considered by Panke and Seifert include activity theory, which “…sees people as socioculturally embedded actors who embark on a common activity that requires division of labor… Thereby, the framework emphasizes the impact of emotional attributes, individual gains and power structures that can enlighten the analysis of learning communities”. They also consider social constructivism, which highlights the various social contexts that individual learners bring to a learning situation, and the learning which occurs when an individual learner’s understanding is scaffolded and supported by the understanding of others. The role of communities of practice to support learning is important, too, in order to provide those structures and frameworks.
As I mentioned, all of these theoretical approaches focus on the experience of the learner, but much of this can be applied to the practitioner, too. These theoretical concepts don’t just provide a framework for the interaction between learners, but between creators and learners too. Despite the nuances and differences evident in these approaches, what they share is a central focus on the contribution of the various personal perspectives and dimensions which are brought to the learning environment. Indeed, the personal perspectives of the creator of open educational resources will inevitably impact upon the resource created by them.
Furthermore, they examine the importance of the interaction between learner and situation in the quality of the learning process. I wonder if there are parallels which can be drawn between this, and the interaction between a creator of open educational resources and the ‘situation’ of being open — this will inevitably impact on what is ultimately created, and how it is interpreted by learners and other practitioners. The very act of being open will affect the resource.
This is useful when thinking about creation of open educational resources from a Special Collections perspective. In the introduction I considered the vulnerability that might be present in a practitioner due the fact that they are themselves engaged in a learning process while simultaneously aiding the learning process of others. In a sense, this is no different to the role of the learners — everyone, to a varying degree in these models, occupy the roles of learner and practitioner. A recognition and acceptance of that might help a practitioner feel more at ease with embracing the personal dimension of open practice.
Open education as Bildung
In seeking a theoretical basis through which to examine open education, the academics Markus Deimann and Robert Farrow have focussed on the concept of Bildung, a term which can loosely be translated as ‘self-cultivation’ or ‘self-realisation’. Bildung first came into existence as an idea in Germany in the late eighteenth century, and is described by Deimann and Farrow as “…a free, dialogical, and dialectical interplay between the individual and the world which allows and supports the individual’s self-realisation”. In a contemporary setting, Deimann and Farrow suggest that some of the core features of Bildung can be understood by considering theories of transformative learning, which refer to our ‘frame(s) of reference’, which are ever changing — “the structures of assumptions through which we understand our experiences” (Deimann and Farrow, p.350). Deimann, writing with Peter Stoep, highlights the interplay between the individual and the world which is needed for an individual to achieve Bildung as correlating with the interplay between an individual, the plurality of sources and resources open to them through open education and critical, reflective process necessary to interpret and develop learning from them. They also raise the point that it is precisely this which makes the process of learning in an open context unpredictable and difficult to control from a practitioner’s point of view, which, it could be argued, is an intrinsic characteristic of the development of Bildung.
Attributes for open pedagogy and the personal dimension
In Bronwen Hegarty’s article, ‘Attributes for Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources’, she examines a number of attributes she deems necessary in open educational practice. The attribute which strikes me as of utmost importance in open education is that of trust. She talks about the fragility of students’ willingness to learn, and the level of trust that’s necessary for students to participate and interact. She notes how negative experiences can crush the confidence of learners, and highlights the importance of structures, spaces and communities where they feel valued and can build their confidence. I believe that exactly the same is true for practitioners and content producers — they also need trusted and supported spaces in which to produce and share their content.
Also discussed in the article is the importance of practitioners sharing ideas openly and willingly, and how this may result in higher quality and more diverse teaching resources. The role of connected communities is highlighted as essential for collaborative open practice, in which knowledge and resources can be constructed between learners and practitioners through collaborative creation. Also considered is the importance of reflective practice, and an acknowledgement that the pressure of possible public scrutiny can, in fact, be a catalyst for greater levels of reflective practice.
What does this mean in practice?
An examination of the theories described above reveal the importance of the personal dimension in open practice. All of these theoretical viewpoints have at their heart the importance of the interplay between learners themselves, plus learners and practitioners, at the heart of the successful outcomes in the use of open educational resources. This suggests that in open education, the personal dimension provided by the creators and users of the OER are integral to their success as learning resources and tools for educational development, and attempting to diminish or remove the personal dimension would decrease their efficacy. It is my belief, therefore, that for open education to fully embrace personal openness, we need structures in place to allow the personal dimension to be included and explored in a safe way for both learners and practitioners. Hegarty’s attributes of open education provide a useful basis upon which we are able to consider the continuum of openness — how open we are willing to be at a personal level, and how we can achieve a balance between allowing personal openness in order to produce high quality and engaging open educational resources, while providing safe structures in which practitioners can operate. Doing so might result in trade-offs — in order to embrace a level of personal openness, other types of openness may need to be compromised. The necessary balance will differ between practitioners, and between projects or resources.
Different facets of trust
Hegarty’s centring of trust as core attribute in open practice is a valuable way in which we can consider the structures that are necessary to truly embrace the personal dimension of open practice. At the centre of this are trusted communities. This highlights the role of communities of practice and networks of expertise in the development of open educational resources. Communities of trusted colleagues and critical friends allow practitioners to develop resources within a safe environment before being released more widely. It allows the practitioner to adopt the personal dimension of open practice in a gradual way.
The identification of trusted platforms for the adoption of open practice is also vital when considering open practice and the personal dimension. Different platforms allow for different levels of openness, and it is here where the trade-off between personal openness. For example, when considering social media, a practitioner may be more comfortable about embracing the personal dimension in a closed Facebook group or forum in which participants have to be approved for access, than on Twitter, in which anyone can comment. The practitioner has to decide what bit of ‘openness’ is more important for that specific resource or project, and select the platform accordingly. You might have to lose some openness in relation to accessibility in order to have more openness in relation to personal identity.
Lastly, I’d like to consider the importance of trusted institutions. Practitioners are more likely to be comfortable embracing the personal dimension of open practice if they can rely on the support of their institution to do so. This might mean the provision of corporate or institutional social media and other online accounts, rather than the expectation that personal ones are utilised. Policies designed to provide practitioners with institutional support in the event of online abuse are valuable for engendering trust, particularly for marginalised groups. Structures and boundaries created and enforced by institutions are one way of providing a trusted environment in which practitioners can embrace the personal dimensions of open practice.
