Impact of Open Educational Resources in Healthcare Technology Teaching Practices

Posted on March 20, 2025 by Gousalia Sukumar

Impact of Open Educational Resources in Healthcare Technology Teaching Practices by Dr Gousalia Sukumar

This blog post was written Gousalia Sukumar as part of the final assignment for the module EDM 122 at City University of London

Introduction

In this essay, I reflect on the importance of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) into my teaching practices aligned with the existing digital world. Through critical analysis, I will be exploring how I incorporate OER to adapt my teaching strategies and their impacts on healthcare technology.

Initially, the term “Open” means universal access of inclusive education, and equity for all learners. This term is used for open education defined by the European Commission (EU Science Hub, European Commission, 2016) as “a way of delivering education, frequently using digital technologies by eliminating barriers and making learning reachable, abundant, and adaptable for all …”

I recognised OERs are fundamentally a pool of high-quality teaching and learning resources that can be accessed freely and openly. I have been using a few OERs in my teaching, learning, and research activities in addition to the online resources. However, I was not familiar with the term “OER” until I followed the EMD 122.

My research explores the ambiguity of open/openness and free/non-free controversial aspects of OER. OER classified teaching and learning materials as available for free, open to access: a set of right “5Rs of Openness” Retain, Revise, Remix, Reuse & Redistribute by re-users (Wiley et al., 2014). Certain resources appear to be free under some restrictions (Winn, 2012). I recognise that they require registration, restricting modifications, or imposing commercial purpose bans. Non-free OERs grant free access, and do not allow full permission to modify the content (Creative Commons, 2019).

I acknowledge the most common definition for OERs is any format of teaching, learning, and research resources that exist in the public domain, with an open license providing no-cost access, reuse, adaption, repurpose, and redistribution by others (UNESCO, 2019). These resources have a Creative Common license (CC) that indicates how the resources may be used, reused, adapted, and shared. I was not familiar with Creative Commons before following this course. Understand that this grant free tools and copyright licenses (CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC By-ND, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA; CC BY-NC-ND) that assist scholars/designers share their resources with others while keeping some rights (Creative Commons, 2019).

My scholarly reviews highlighted that the OER is a part of an Open Educational Practice (OEP). This explains the ways academics use OER in teaching/learning to create, use, reuse, and share in pedagogical practices (Karunanayaka & Naidu, 2020). Some scholars mainly focus on OER predominantly (Hogan et al., 2015). The idea of OEP has been shifted from resources to practice and applications. Researchers have analysed the effect of academics on knowledge creation and sharing as a form of pedagogical practice (Beetham et al., 2012). When analysing these views, the resource-centric view is highlighted by Wiley (2014) as education would improve by using OER. But Cronin (2017) argued the practice-centric approach which fosters open pedagogies and learner empowerment. Also, OEP includes OER, open pedagogies, and open sharing of teaching practices that promote collaboration and engagement Cronin (2017).

I teach Healthcare/Clinical technology, realised that digital innovation in Health technology evolves continuously but the integration and delivery of this knowledge in education remain limited. It urges a high demand for a workforce with specialised knowledge and skills to meet current expectations and minimise the gap between academia and employment on practical experience (Weeks et al., 2019). I have challenges in providing hands-on experience with expensive wearable devices, work placement opportunities, curriculum design, and policies of institutions etc. I integrate a range of online resources and a few OER in my teaching to better prepare the students for the workforce, however, I was not clear about OER’s features and confusion over copyright policies (Rolfe, 2012). This course enhanced my OER literacies and supported to integrate of more OERs in teaching to reduce the gap. Many scholars showcased OER related to my discipline as open textbooks, Open access journals, streaming videos, and digital learning objects (Bauch et al., 2020); open access clinical resources in the Osmosis library (Hassall & Lewis, 2017); Wikis, e-textbooks and podcast (Purdy, 2015); virtual patients (Lehmann et al., 2015); surgery stimulators (Funke et al., 2012); Massive open online courses-MOOC (Frey et al., 2010) promote the teaching and learning.

Integrating OER effectively replaces traditional online-based teaching to meet all learner’s needs (Parsley et al., 2018). My learners are from different backgrounds and experiencing setbacks such as language barriers, financial, health issues, dyslexia, etc. UNESCO imagined OER as a “Universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity” (UNESCO, 2002, p.28). Adil et al. (2022) categorised the benefits as “stretched access to knowledge; support lifelong learning, pedagogical advantages and boost students’ outcomes”. Moreover, benefits learners by being cost-effective (Parsley et al., 2018), the high-quality resources are accessible (Pande, 2018), openly reachable, customisable, and adaptable (Write et al., 2019), and globally accessible (Tang, 2020).

I become aware, that following e-courses upskill the knowledge in modern healthcare (MH). An e-health online course attaches with Health Education England, MOOC/OER support to connect the existing knowledge by integrating MH into education. Telemedicine and telehealth are offered by the University of Edinburgh to deliver remote healthcare services. I recognise following these courses provide invaluable experience for life-long education.

Active learning

Active learning is more effective than the traditional teacher-centred approach (Zhou et al.,). My usual teaching and learning strategies are primarily student-centred approach (Lee, 2018) and promote learners’ knowledge and interpreting skills (Fuad et al., 2018). OER has been very demanding in higher education (Baker et al., 2019); and enhances learning through practice and implementation (Amornrit et al., 2018). I design my activities tailored to meet all learner’s needs and learning styles (visual, auditory & kinaesthetic) (Kolb, 1984). I integrate Gamification, problem-based learning (PBL), case studies, and digital technology-based activities to improve learners’ outcomes and students’ satisfaction (Garcia et al., 2022). This evidence – high attendance, participation, and outcomes of assessments, validate my outcomes. Regarding pedagogical innovation (Rolfe, 2012), I intend to embed more suitable OER in my active learning strategies to shift from online-based activities such as Wikimedia videos, Pixabay for images, DOAJ for open-access journals; and employment-based group activities/projects and class discussion (Driessen et al., 2020). When I incorporate the OER in active learning, I recognise that three main parts are crucial: awareness of guidelines and selection of OER; assisting learners with resources and network facilities, and delivering content through tasks (Amornrit et al.,2018).

I analysed a few selected active learning strategies as follows:

My favourite strategy is implementing practical-based PBL. Currently, I ask students to interpret patients’ clinical data (Asthma, BP, ECG, Blood Glucose level, etc). This method is very effective for clinical learning as it focuses on patient-based learning (Dring, 2019). I provide clinical practical for hands-on experience & patients’ clinical readings from different backgrounds aligned with NMC guidelines to meet the discrimination code (online digital resources from NHS, BUPA, and Diabetes websites). Integrating OER-based active learning strategies is valuable for “theory to practice” gap implementation (Dewsbury et al., 2022). To implement OERs, I am planning to integrate OER-based activities with Wikimedia Commons for medical tests/clinical videos (eg- Asthma, blood glucose test, urine test- videos on clinical medicine, medical diagnosis); BioiXiv – operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (Cancer biology resources-case studies) that are available under a Creative Commons CC0 license (public domain – anyone can use for any purpose without attribution; enable to distribute, remix, adapt and build) which is valuable for “theory to practice” gap implementation (Hills et al., 2022).

Moreover, I use YouTube videos on clinical/wearable devices and virtual learning to bridge the gap between theoretical and real-world practical skills. Students enjoy these activities by doing and thinking (Patiño et al., 2023) is very effective for clinical learning as it focuses on patient-based learning (Dring, 2019). I use Khan Academy YouTube videos to explain pathophysiology and create activity sheets for group activities. I was not aware that these pages could be accessed via Creative Commons and lack of knowledge of licenses (Ertmer, 1999). I now understand Khan Academy has CC-BY-NC-SA and academics can remix, adapt, and build for non-commercial purposes. Currently, I integrate online-based case study analysis where students write their views, and feedback from peers, and groups in forums. I write my feedback in the forum as well (synchronous and asynchronous). I create a forum in Moodle to share ideas among learners. Now I understand that Moodle is a search engine, this is not open accessed platform. I need to learn how to set up for open forum discussion. Moreover, I expect that it increases my workload to give continuous feedback, and it is time-consuming. In the future, I plan to do more research on open license and free access resources and copyright literacies (Atenas et al., 2015).

I integrate activities with online journals, especially on wearable clinical devices from Google Scholar, and ask learners to download, annotate, and summarise the articles. In addition, I am not aware of the copyright policies of Google Scholar journal articles. I now updated my knowledge as Google Scholar is a search engine to access journals, OERs must be open access and come through Creative Commons with open licenses this organisation allows users to reuse, retain, revise, remix, and redistribute (5Rs) the content. Many of them are behind paywalls or have copyright restrictions. Therefore, not all Google Scholar journals are freely accessible and open-licensed. I should search it through Creative Commons which is freely accessible without a paywall as teachers identified this as a barrier for adaptation Nkuyubwatsi (2017).

When I integrate activities, I apply Roger’s (2003) diffusion of innovation theory which has five key elements knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation. Also, I ask, “Will the innovation be beneficial to me in my particular situation?”. On some occasions, I found this process unproductive ultimately rejecting the innovation (Nkuyubwatsi, 2017) due to some learners’ poor IT skills (Kaosaiyaporn, 2011); lack of motivation & suitable platform (Hu et al., 2015) and internet access (Adil et al., 2022).

Many hardcopy textbooks are replicated by e-textbooks (Gu et al., 2015). I use e-textbooks for making notes, research-based projects, etc. I now admit that not all e-books are OER. Many eBooks are purchased by commercials and copyrights. They cannot be repurposed or adapted the open access e-textbooks through Creative Commons allows to revise, adapt, or adjust (Wiley et al., 2014). I use OER e-textbooks from the library that support to develop of my healthcare learners’ inter-professional experience (free & high-quality materials). Open-access E-textbooks have multiple tools such as highlighter, magnification, copy and paste, download, print, and search within the book to fulfill learners’ differentiated needs. However, students and I struggled to read continuously on the computer screen, and it caused eye strain (Casselden & Pears, 2020). Some OERs are non-editable. Sometimes, I print journal/book pages to minimise this challenge. In the future, I am dedicated to integrating OER repositories like DOAJ, PubMed Central, POLS – medical journals or institutional open-access archives, and Elsevier open-access journals.

I incorporate images into my teaching resources to enhance learning making difficult concepts more understandable and creating an imaginative learning atmosphere for learners. Also, I persuade learners to use it in their tasks to improve visual communication. I extract images from Google images, my pictures, and institutional repositories. I use the Fair Use copyright clause. I understand that OER images need to be in the public domain and contain Creative Commons attributes or permission needs to be granted from the copyright holders. In the future, I am planning to use Wiki images, and Pixabay which are OERs (Perez, 2017).

Future Implementation:

Integrate Wikipedia pedagogy. Create active learning tasks to engage students in the Wikipedia community, asking learners to take part in encyclopaedic articles as formative assignments. It will develop digital literacy skills, research skills, and subject knowledge. Moreover, develop collaborative learning and knowledge sharing with a global audience (McDowell et al., 2022).
Organise training sessions for both teaching & support staff and learners due to their limited knowledge of OER. Moreover, I would attend CPD to update my knowledge (Ertmer, 1999).
Integrate open networks supported by social media and Web 2.0 tools (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram (Luo et al., 2020)
Feedback from students and support staff for further improvement

Conclusion:

The Integration of OER into healthcare technology enhances inclusive teaching and learning practices and supports scholars to adapt to evolving technologies and bridge the gap between academia and employment. However, there are several challenges addressed that could be resolved in the future to promote developed teaching practices.

I plan to publish this essay on the course blog EDM 122: “Digital Literacies and Open Practice” blog under the Creative Commons license CC- BY-NC-SA to ensure accessibility and attributions. This license allows for adaptation, remixing, adaptation, and building on the materials as long as the creator and adaptors are shared under the same licensing terms and not allow for commercial purposes (Creative Commons, 2019). I trust this license protects authoring rights and permits to develop of knowledge and thoughts impartial to future users as it needs to be shared under the same terms and in a non-commercial way.

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Image with a pile of books and text Open Access Resources — Created using Adobe Firefly

Openness in IP Law Education: A cross-disciplinary approach?

Posted on March 19, 2025 by Nouf Ali S Algazlan

The Author & Licence

This blog, by Nouf Ali S. AlGazlan, a final-year PhD student and graduate teaching assistant at City, St George’s University of London, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, is part of the final assignment for the EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practices. It is published under a CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution Licence). You are free to copy, redistribute, and adapt the material in any medium or format, even commercially (Creative Commons, n.d.; Cambridge, n.d.). The rationale behind this licence is that, because the course is on digital literacies and open practices, offering maximum flexibility and accessibility better aligns with those principles and encourages the sharing of open knowledge.

Introduction

A few years ago, I had a conversation with my PhD supervisor about Posner’s paper, The Decline of Law as an Autonomous Discipline (Posner, 1987). We explored Posner’s critique of the traditional view of law as a self-contained field, isolated from the influence of other disciplines. This perspective resonated with me again several months ago when I began taking EDM122 and learned about Open Practice. This piece aims to demonstrate how Posner’s perspective holds true by examining openness and its role in fostering cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in the field of Intellectual Property (IP).

I begin by explaining the relevance and significance of open practice to my role, looking at the literature on open practice, exploring what openness means, and focusing on open educational resources (OERs) and open educational practices (OEPs). I then explain how openness can aid in cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in IP law through two main examples: the MA Academic Practice programme and Institute for Creativity and AI (ICAI). Throughout this piece, I reflect on the role of openness in cross-disciplinary education and how it has influenced my future practice.

Open Practice & My Role

Teaching IP law at City St George’s takes an open approach. Lectures provide foundational knowledge (e.g., an introduction to patent law), while tutorials focus on advanced materials (e.g., the implications of patent law on Artificial Intelligence (AI)). Advanced materials are strategically chosen to reflect current legal debates. Previous topics have included Covid-19 vaccines and weapons relating to patent law, and the trademarking of fictional characters and celebrity names.

Although I try to find open resources to engage students, a key challenge is ensuring access to the most up-to-date materials. Many of these resources are not open access and require either a fee or institutional access. On Day 2 of EDM122, we examined the Jisc Digital Experience Survey which highlighted the impact of the cost of living on students: over 52% of students reported taking on paid work (Jisc, n.d.). While the survey did not explicitly address access to paid resources, it suggests that financial pressures may limit students’ ability to access materials that require payment. This issue must be addressed to ensure all students have equal access to resources. A practical approach is to leverage existing materials at City St George’s while exploring ways to expand open-access legal content. The next section will review relevant literature and practical examples.

What does openness mean?

As Cronin (2017) highlights, there are several interpretations of openness in education. Broadly speaking, openness can be identified as “open admission, open as free, OERs and OEPs” (Cronin, 2017, p.2). In short, open admission refers to education policies that remove entry requirements for learning allowing learners to enroll without prior qualifications. Open as free refers to educational resources that can be used freely (e.g., YouTube videos and massive open online courses (MOOCs)) (Moe, 2015). OERs are teaching and openly licenced learning materials, meaning users can retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute them, to promote adaptable education (Wiley et al., 2014). Finally, OEPs are about moving beyond a content-centred approach, changing the attention from resources to practices, with both learners and teachers collaborating in the creation of knowledge (Ehlers, 2011).

For this blog, OEPs and OERs are of primary importance. While OEPs lack a single, universally accepted definition, Open.Ed (n.d.) describes it as encompassing teaching methods and academic practices that leverage open technologies, pedagogies, or OERs to foster collaborative and flexible learning experiences. This includes but is not limited to, the co-creation of learning experiences by educators and learners, as well as the use or development of OERs.

The UNESCO definition of OERs demonstrates the significance of freely accessible educational materials in developing open education practices globally (Camilleri and UNESCO, 1970). This can be creating or reusing OERs (materials that are out of copyright or are licenced to allow reuse). Nevertheless, open education goes beyond such resources. It can involve practices such as involving open science in teaching and sharing educational strategies (UCL, n.d.).

Encouraging OERs is crucial for both legal and educational institutions, particularly in the context of achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote opportunities for lifelong learning (Moulitharun, 2024). For legal entities, such as governments, one way to encourage OER adoption is by having laws that require publicly funded educational resources to be freely available to the public. This ensures that educational content is open and accessible and that copyright laws are less of a barrier to sharing information.

For educational institutions, such as universities, it is important to integrate OERs into their policies and encourage the use of OERs in teaching (Moulitharun, 2024). One effective way to achieve this is through promoting cross-disciplinary learning, a practice that can greatly benefit legal education, particularly in areas like IP. In my view, OERs extend beyond access to resources; it is about exploring and engaging with other disciplines to foster a more inclusive approach to knowledge. This allows for cross-disciplinary teaching and learning, where collaboration between fields like technology, business, art, and law can be very important.

How can openness aid in cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in IP law?

There are countless examples of how openness can help cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in IP law. This blog will examine two in detail.

MA Academic Practice: Open Education Principles

The MA Academic Practice is a part-time postgraduate taught programme aimed at staff with an educating role with students in Higher Education (City, n.d.). Throughout my time in the course, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with staff from various disciplines including computer science, politics, health, and employability. As a result, my teaching of IP law was enriched in ways I had not initially anticipated. Such experience resonates with the broader principles of open education. As the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007) rightly asserts, open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It involves open technologies that aid collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices, allowing educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. This vision aligns closely with my own experience in the MA programme, where collaboration across disciplines has been important in expanding my teaching approach.

For example, in one module, Student Support and Personal Tutoring, I collaborated with other staff members from Computer Science and Policy and Global Affairs to create a guide on the responsible use of AI for students. Not only did this project allow me to explore how AI can impact learning and provide valuable information on how to teach students to engage with AI responsibly, but it also has relevance in IP law education. One of the pressing challenges in IP law is ensuring that students understand the ethical considerations of their current and future practice. This goes beyond issues like plagiarism and copyright infringement to include growing challenges such as ownership of data. Dalton (2002) stated that one of higher education’s key tasks is to help students link intellectual and ethical development, preparing them to live lives of both achievement and responsibility (p. 1). This is especially crucial in teaching ethical decision-making in IP law, especially as technology introduces new ethical problems such as the potential for AI to infringe upon creative works.

Moreover, open education can expand to include new ways of assessments, accreditation, and collaborative learning, all of which mirror the European Commission’s definition of open education. According to the EU, open education is a method of carrying out education, usually using digital technologies, intending to widen access and participation (e.g., removing barriers, making learning accessible, etc) (EU Science Hub, European Commission, 2016; Jhangiani et al., 2024). It encourages multiple ways of teaching and learning, as well as building and sharing knowledge. These principles are reflected in the MA Academic Practice.

For instance, in the Curriculum Development and Evaluation module, peers reviewed video assessments, providing constructive feedback and learning from each other. Similarly, in Assessment Design and Feedback (EDM126), peers wrote formative feedback for assessment briefs, encouraging a collaborative learning environment. In Digital Literacies and Open Practices (EDM122), online forums were used as a discussion tool (e.g. on day 4, staff reflected on embedding digital literacies and open practice in the curriculum, answering questions such as whether it was useful and how to implement it in their own teaching). The use of digital tools within the MA course, such as online discussion forums and collaborative platforms, has allowed for flexible learning and easy access to materials tailored to individual needs.

Moreover, Huitt and Monetti (2017) offer an insightful comparison between open education and traditional methods, particularly in the areas of assessment, teaching philosophy, and learning resources. Traditional assessments, such as standardised tests, are often artificial and focus solely on end results. In contrast, open education stresses that assessments should mirror real-world processes and encourage authentic learning (Jhangiani et al., 2024). This approach is exemplified in modules of the MA Academic Practice, such as creating a video in EDM122 or developing an assessment brief in EDM126. These methods not only align with the principles of open education but also contribute to a more inclusive and adaptable learning environment. In my future teaching of IP law, I plan to incorporate these principles, using authentic assessments, fostering collaborative learning, and using flexible digital tools to engage students and accommodate diverse learning styles.

2. Institute for Creativity and AI (ICAI): Open Access Research

Another example of how openness can help cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in IP law is through ICAI. Recently, City St George’s established the ICAI to explore the strategic impacts of creativity, creative work, and AI technologies (City, n.d.). This initiative brings together academics and students from various fields across the university, including law, business management, healthcare, journalism, and the arts, fostering an interdisciplinary approach to research and education. As Gamsby (2020) highlights, open access, that is, making research freely available to everyone, and interdisciplinarity, that is combining knowledge from different fields, are closely connected. While open access and interdisciplinarity may initially seem unrelated, Gamsby argues that these two concepts fundamentally support each other.

Thus, although the ICAI’s goals may not explicitly mention open access research, its interdisciplinary nature, which bridges various academic fields through research involving AI, aligns with the principles of open access. Sharing knowledge openly supports the core tenets of interdisciplinarity, such as fostering collaboration and breaking down barriers between disciplines. By publishing research findings and making them openly accessible, the ICAI has the potential to contribute significantly to open-access research. This, in turn, can provide valuable resources not only to City St George’s staff and students but also to the broader academic and professional community.

Finally, the ICAI could organise public events, such as workshops and conferences, focusing on the relationship between AI and IP law. For instance, when teaching IP law to second-year LLB students, a recurring theme is AI, particularly in copyright and patent law. It would be beneficial if experts from various disciplines participated in these events to share their insights. By making these events open and accessible to all, the ICAI would promote the open sharing of knowledge, ensuring that information is available to everyone without barriers, much like OERs have done for course materials.

Making these events open-access would allow both students and professionals to benefit from cross-disciplinary perspectives without financial barriers. This mirrors the impact of OERs, which provide affordable, accessible educational content and help alleviate the financial burdens faced by students. Over the past few decades, the rising costs of commercial textbooks have posed a significant barrier for many students (Jhangiani et al., 2024). This issue has been further exacerbated by the shift to digital learning, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic (Lederman, 2022). In response, OERs have emerged as a solution, providing affordable and accessible course materials. These efforts align with the broader principles of open practice and open access, which seek to make educational content more widely available. Just as OERs ensure equity in learning, open-access events foster inclusivity and broaden participation, supporting both academic and professional communities.

Conclusion

Reflecting on Posner’s critique and the concepts of Open Practice from EDM122, I see how these ideas challenge traditional boundaries of law and knowledge. The MA Academic practice and the ICAI are prime examples of how openness fosters cross-disciplinary learning and teaching in IP law. Sustainability, art, and other areas offer further opportunities to explore these connections, which future blogs can explore.

Reference list:

Camilleri, A. & UNESCO (1970). ‘Open educational resources’. UNESCO. Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources [Accessed: 1 January 2025].
Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007). Cape Town Open Education Declaration. Available at: http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/ [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
City (no date b). Ma Academic Practice – Master’s Degree, City, University of London. Available at: https://www.city.ac.uk/prospective-students/courses/postgraduate/academic-practice [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
City, University of London (no date). The Institute for Creativity and AI. Available at: https://www.city.ac.uk/research/centres/the-institute-for-creativity-and-ai [Accessed: 13 January 2025].
Creative Commons (n.d.). ‘About the licenses’. Available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ [Accessed: 13 January 2025].
Creative Commons (no date). Deed – Attribution 4.0 International – Creative Commons. Available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
Creative Commons Licenses (no date). Cambridge Core. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/open-research/creative-commons-licenses [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
Cronin, C. (2017). ‘Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education’. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096.
Dalton, J.C. (2002). ‘Debunking the campus culture of detachment’. Journal of College & Character: What They’re Reading!. Available at: www.collegevalues.org/ethics.cfm?id=683&a=1 [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
Digital Experience Insights (no date). Jisc. Available at: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/digital-experience-insights [Accessed: 1 February 2025].
Ehlers, U.-D. (2011). ‘Extending the territory: From open educational resources to open educational practices’. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(2). Available at: http://www.editlib.org/p/147891/ [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
EU Science Hub (2016). ‘What is open education?’ EU Science Hub. Available at: https://joint-researchcentre.ec.europa.eu/what-open-education_en [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
Gamsby, P. (2020). ‘The common ground of open access and interdisciplinarity’. Publications, 8(1), p. 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8010001 [Accessed: 13 January 2025].
Huitt, W. & Monetti, D. (2017). ‘Openness and the transformation of education and schooling’. In: R. Jhangiani & R. Biswas-Diener, eds., Open: The philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science. London: Ubiquity Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc.d [Accessed 3 February 2025].
Jhangiani, R., Farrelly, T., Ó Súilleabháin, G. & Coakley, D. (2024). ‘Open education practices in higher education: Focusing on responsiveness, innovation & inclusivity’. N-TUTORR Stream 3, May 2024. Available at: https://www.transforminglearning.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Open-Educational-Practices_green-paper1405.pdf [Accessed: 3 February 2025].
Lederman, D. (2022). ‘Turnover, burnout and demoralization in higher ed’. Inside Higher Ed. Available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/05/04/turnover-burnout-and-demoralizationhigher-ed [Accessed 3 February 2025].
Moe, R. (2015). ‘The brief and expansive history (and future) of the MOOC: Why two divergent models share the same name’. Current Issues in Emerging eLearning, 2(1). Available at: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/ciee/vol2/iss1/2 [Accessed: 1 January 2025].
MOULITHARUN, S. (2024). ‘Unlocking knowledge: The intersection of open educational resources (OER) and copyright in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4’. Articles. Available at: https://articles.manupatra.com/article-details/UNLOCKING-KNOWLEDGE-THE-INTERSECTION-OF-OPEN-EDUCATIONAL-RESOURCES-OER-AND-COPYRIGHT-IN-ACHIEVING-SUSTAINABLE-DEVELOPMENT-GOAL-4?utm_source=chatgpt.com [Accessed: 13 January 2025].
Posner, R. (1987). ‘The decline of law as an autonomous discipline: 1962-1987’. Harvard Law Review, 100, pp. 761-779.
UCL (no date). ‘Open educational resources and copyright: What do you need to consider?’. OpenUCL Blog. Available at: https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/open-access/2024/11/07/open-educational-resources-and-copyright-what-do-you-need-to-consider/ [Accessed: 1 January 2025].
What is open education practice? (no date). Open.Ed, University of Edinburgh. Available at: https://open.ed.ac.uk/what-is-open-education-practice/ [Accessed: 1 January 2025].
Wiley, D., Bliss, T.J. & McEwen, M. (2014). ‘Open educational resources: A review of the literature’. In: Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology. New York: Springer.

Experiences of using Open Educational Resources in journalism teaching and research

Posted on April 12, 2024 by Carolyne Lunga

This blog post was written by Carolyne Lunga as part of the final assignment for the module EDM122 at City, University of London

In this essay, I reflect on using OERs in my teaching and research of journalism and media studies and discuss the challenges I have encountered and strategies I have adopted to improve my knowledge on OERs and indicate plans for improving my practice.

Open Education Resources (OERs) have been defined in various ways. Literature shows that a discussion on OERs generates mixed understandings since scholars do not agree on copyright, openness, cost, and universal access among others. While some definitions celebrate OER benefits to higher education and those who previously did not have access (UNESCO, 2002; Mishra, 2017a, Mishra, 2017b), others interrogate the notion of whether OERs are ‘free’ or ‘not free’ (Downes, 2012) considering that access to the internet itself requires financial and time resources and that there are some societies who lack access to electricity. In terms of definitions, Mishra (2017), notes that OERs, are understood by many as referring to any resources available free of cost on the internet. This is supported by UNESCO’s definition of open access as referring to “free access to information and unrestricted use of electronic resources for everyone (UNESCO website). As Mishra (2017: 371), further notes, the basic premise of OERs is that “they can be reused and adapted in various contexts without seeking further the permission from the original copyright holder”. This is advantageous to educators who can reuse OERs for teaching and research. Mishra (2017a: 371) further notes that without a discussion on copyright, the discussion on OERs is incomplete since “information available on the internet can be shared for personal use, its reuse, revision, remixing and redistribution require the permission of the copyright holder”. In relation to cost and access, Olivier and Rambow (2023) are more positive about the value of OERs, noting that they are beneficial for those who cannot afford to purchase paid for content, specifically in contexts where higher education is expensive and inaccessible to many. D’Antoni (2008: 8) also provides an optimistic view when he contends that they can “assist in achieving educational justice across the world”. Meanwhile Richter and McPherson (2012) criticise the notion that OERs can bring about justice when they argue that unless they are fully adaptable or reusable in various contexts, their mere existence cannot bring out justice. Furthermore, there is no discussion of what this justice may entail.

As a journalism lecturer, a discussion on OERs is significant for bringing to the fore issues that are central to discussions of how digital journalism/communication is practiced. This includes access and participation online, the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation on online platforms and how it affects access to credible news/information, the digital divide, how credible journalism is hidden behind paywalls and the rise of hate speech, and propaganda. In digital journalism, I teach students to adopt a critical stance and question how big tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have the power to influence and control how and what we consume online, the dominance of advertisements online and algorithms among others can divert our attention towards entertainment. For these topics, I rely on journal articles and books from journalism scholars who publish with Routledge, Elsevier, and other big publishers criticised for commercialising education (Paywall movie, 2018). Journalism is concerned about democracy and my students, and I discuss how ‘democratic’ the internet is. I believe that a conversation about the internet itself, how it structured and its development in a capitalist era is important if we are to explore fully the value of OERs for education and society in general. For instance, Papacharissi (2002; 2004) argues that while the internet has potential to revive the public sphere, by enabling the participation of various social groups, it is inaccessible to some due to high data costs, lack of digital and media literacy skills, and censorship of information. Carson (2020) supports this by arguing that the commercialisation of the internet and inequalities online make it inaccessible. The quick spread of fake information through digital technologies also hinders the internet from being truly democratic (ibid). These issues resonate with the debates around OERs.

I teach Digital Media Communication and Introduction to Visual Communication which combine the theoretical and practical components of design where students work with images to manipulate, combine them, and edit them using Photoshop software. I teach students to develop content for social media platforms and analyse various news websites in various parts of the globe. I teach how disinformation, and misinformation have become prevalent online, particularly on social media platforms and how this threatens the normative role of journalism in providing citizens with accurate and truthful information (Carson and Farhall, 2018). In delivering journalism courses, I mostly use books, journals, newspapers, and other materials which are paid for and accessible through the university library. These are readily available, and I make use of the subject librarians if I require assistance accessing a particular resource. I have used OERs to complement library materials. However sometimes I struggle with questions of whether I have properly repurposed and reused these resources to avoid plagiarism? I mitigate this challenge by checking several times if I have fully referenced the source. For instance, the UNESCO website provides access to OERs on media and democracy. Informed by Mishra (2017) that OERs can be reused, I have been able to reuse the materials and make them relevant for the diverse group of students that I teach by including examples of journalism practice in other contexts. I also use Hybrid Investigative Journalism, an open access textbook by Konow-Lund et al (2024) which considers how reporters, citizens, bloggers, community coordinators and others undertake investigative journalism for teaching and research. My research students use it for their dissertation research and say that they find it useful in that it incorporates empirical evidence and experiences of scholars researching diverse contexts. Adopting OERs in my teaching and research supervision has enabled me to enhance the learning experience of students and provide them with access to information that they may not have access to (Mishra, 2017a, 2017b).

I make students aware of the vast OERs that are available on the UNESCO website. Apart from information on media, the OER resources on the UNESCO website include those on the Creative Commons (cc) licences, education and technology and artificial intelligence. Before taking the EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practices (in Higher Education), I was not aware of the meaning of cc licenses and how they work, and I did not have a full understanding of OERs. After learning about them in the course and being exposed to literature on OERs including links to where to find them (e.g. the OERs guide from Edinburgh), I feel more confident guiding students on what the different licenses mean and how content can be reused, knowledge which they can use when researching for their essays or writing news stories on place and in their professional lives as journalists. I am also able to use the UNESCO materials and attribute them accordingly. For instance, some of the UNESCO publications I have accessed are licensed using the Creative Commons-Attribution 3.0 IGO license which means I can “download, copy, translate any of these publications and use it free of charge, as long as the original author is given credit for the original creation. No prior permission is required to do so” (UNESCO website, 2024).

In a context in which journalism is practiced differently in various parts of the world and some credible newspapers are found behind paywalls, discussing about OERs with my students has enabled me to help them understand what they are, and why it’s important to acknowledge work which is originally created by another person and made available for reuse and how they can add on to the knowledge by incorporating their own examples. The advantages of using OERs in teaching and learning supports Olivier and Rambow (2023: v)’s point that “OERs bring fresh air to the higher education ecosystem when higher education is not accessible to millions, is not affordable, and is plagued with issues of poor quality in many countries”. However, problems of quality and discoverability of OERs remains a challenge for most educators and students (Kortemeyer, 2013).

In teaching Introduction to Visual Communication and Digital Media Communication courses, I can talk about OERs, copyright and good professional journalistic practice. In the former course, students are required to find images which they can transform using Photoshop software and I have observed how some students come into the course with no in-depth understanding of copyright and licensing. Various journalism student guides at City and in other universities include information on copyright for students benefit in ethics classes which they mostly take at first year. Informed by knowledge gained from the EDM 122 course, I have had the opportunity to discuss copyright law and licensing of images in more detail to make students aware of the ethical and legal implications of violating regulation by manipulating images that belong to others and are not for repurposing. I have included additional copyright readings on the module handbook including Ekstrand and Silver (2014) which explores theories of the image to inform discussions about copyright reform in the digital age and the university’s Copyright guide. During lectures and practical sessions, I made the students aware of images that they could use and corrected the assumptions that they had, about images on the internet being widely accessible and free to use for all.

Another problem of downloading and reusing images and videos without checking the licensing restrictions is that students can become victims of propagating disinformation. Kirchengast (2020) argues that deepfake technology requires strong regulation due to the harm they can cause to individuals and society. I assign students practical assignments to take their own photographs to use in the course. In some instances, students develop their own photos by making use of generative AI software such as Adobe Firefly which enables one to create their own images and use without having to worry about violating copyright or licensing regulations. But still it raises questions about how to acknowledge information developed by generative AI platforms. The university’s generative AI policy states that students should indicate when materials are generated by AI including the prompts used (City Generative AI policy, 2024). I emphasise why students should always exercise integrity when conducting research and acknowledging sources. The result has been the creation of high-quality essays with thorough in-text citations and bibliography creation.

I use the UNESCO digital library to access various materials on topics that are relevant for my teaching. For example, during the pandemic UNESCO published a lot of information on the Covid-19 pandemic, and disinformation and I found their open access library very useful considering that very little was known and published at the time about the Covid-19 pandemic. I was careful in how I used other materials on the pandemic as not all information available online is open access, though this was a challenging process which took time.

During this time when artificial intelligence is topical and conversations around generative AI tools impact in higher education and society at large, I am constantly referring to the UNESCO website to access information and understand more about generative AI. For example, the open access UNESCO document titled “Generative AI in education and research” has helped me to understand potential risks that generative AI could pose to human agency, inclusion, equity, and gender equality. Furthermore, the document provides information and recommendations to government agencies, and policy makers on how Generative AI can be used for society’s benefit (UNESCO, 2023). To improve my practice, I plan to continue learning about OERs, including talking to librarians who specialise in these resources to acquire expert guidance on using them and how to publish my own work. I am organising student workshops with OER experts so that my students can also benefit.

In conclusion, the essay demonstrated how I use OERs in teaching and research of journalism. While OERs provide advantages of access particularly to those without access. Scholars acknowledge problems associated with internet access, lack of digital and media literacy skills and lack of internet infrastructure to some sectors of society which means that they cannot fully benefit from OERs. I have shown how issues discussed when talking about OERs are directly linked to the conversations discussed on digital journalism which has enabled me to discuss disinformation, access, copyright, and licensing. By taking the EDM 122 course, I have had the opportunity to enhance my knowledge and support my students better.

I plan to publish this essay on the course blog “EDM 122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice” blog under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-SA. This licence allows for distribution, adaptation, remixing and building on the materials as long as the creator is given credit and adaptations are shared under the same licencing terms, not allowing for commercial use (Creative Commons, 2019) This licence protects authoring rights and allows for build-up of knowledge and ideas in a fair way to future users as it needs to be shared under the same terms and in a non-commercial way (ibid).

References

Carson, A. (2020) Investigative Journalism, Democracy, and the Digital Age. New York: Routledge.

City, University of London. (2024) Using generative artificial intelligence (AI) for learning https://studenthub.city.ac.uk/help-and-support/studying-online/using-ai-for-learning (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Creative Commons (2019) “About CC licenses” https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ (Accessed 31 January 2023).

D’Antoni, S. (2008) Open educational resources: The way forward (Deliberations of an International Community of Interest). Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO Creative commons http://learn.creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2008/03/oer-way-forward-final-version.pdf (Accessed 27 January 2023).

Downes, S. (2012) Free and not free [Blog post]. Half an Hour. Retrieved from https://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-and-not-free.html (Accessed 27 January 2023).

Ekstrand, V.S. and Silver, D. (2014) “Remixing, Reposting, and Reblogging: Digital Media, Theories of the Image, and Copyright Law”, Visual communication quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 96-105.

Kirchengast, T. (2020) Deepfakes and image manipulation: Criminalisation and control. Information & Communications Technology Law, 29(3), 308-323. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600834.2020.1794615 (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Konow-Lund M., Park M., and Bebawi S. (Eds.) (2024) Hybrid investigative journalism. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41939-3 (Accessed 30 January 2024).

Kortemeyer, G. (2013). Ten Years Later: Why Open Educational Resources Have Not Noticeably Affected Higher Education, and Why We Should Care. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/2/ten-years-later-why-open-educational-resources-have-not-noticeably-affected-higher-education-and-why-we-should-care (Accessed 29 January 2024).

Mishra, S. (2017a) Open educational resources: removing barriers from within, Distance Education, 38:3, 369-380, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2017.1369350 (Accessed 25 January 2024).

Mishra, S. (2017b) Promoting use and contribution of open educational resources. New Delhi: Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. http://oasis.col.org/ handle/11599/2659

Olivier, J. and Rambow, A. (2023). Open Educational Resources in Higher Education: A Global Perspective (2023) Springer Nature Singapore, Singapore.

Papacharissi, Z. (2004) “Democracy online: civility, politeness, and the democratic potential of online political discussion groups”, New media & society, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 259-283.

Papacharissi, Z. (2002) The virtual sphere: the internet as a public sphere. New Media and Society. Vol 4. 9 (9-27)
Paywall the business of scholarship: the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAzTR8eq20k (Accessed 24 November 2023).

Richter, T. and McPherson, M. (2012) “Open educational resources: education for the world?”, Distance education, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 201-219.

UNESCO Digital Library https://unesdoc.unesco.org/search/72a71bb0-74c9-4ef5-a26b-934dd8b90ab8/N-e90ced73-7869-4795-a37f-56423ebf1cde (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO OER platform https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources Accessed on the 23 January 2024

UNESCO The Creative Commons licenses https://www.unesco.org/en/open-access/creative-commons (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO (2002) Forum on the impact of Open Courseware for higher education in developing countries: Final report. Paris: Author. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001285/128515e
(Accessed on 30 January 2024).

UNESCO (2023) Guidance for generative AI in education and research https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386693 (Accessed on 30 January 2024).

Heading to the European Conference on Information Literacy

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Jane Secker

Photo by Richard Balog on Unsplash

Next week I will be in Krakow, Poland for the European Conference on Information Literacy and I am really excited to be speaking about the impact that this module has on staff attitudes and their academic practices. My session takes place on Monday afternoon and is part of a series of papers about Information Literacy Education. The module primarily focuses on digital literacy and open educational practices, but in my view these are both very much part of information literacy teaching and I am really looking forward to sharing my experiences with the conference delegates. I’ve not been to ECIL for a few years but it’s a fantastic supportive community of educators.

I’m really looking forward to sharing my experience of teaching this module over the past 6 years and also reporting on some of the research I have been undertaking over the summer with my colleague Dr Luis Pereira. We’ve been investigating staff attitudes to both digital literacy and open practices and particularly have been focusing on the impact that the pandemic has had on staff. I’ll be sharing my slides soon, but this builds on research I undertook in 2019 and presented at the Inted 2020 conference in Valencia. This was written up for the conference proceedings and is available on open access.

I’m also looking forward to the module starting again on 20th October 2023, when I have a new cohort joining the course including students from the Masters in Academic Practice at City and Library and Information Science students. I’m so grateful to all the fantastic guest speakers that join me each year and a list of these is available from the webinar page. I wish you all the best for the new academic year!

Impact of open education resources in nursing education

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Filipa Da Silva Miranda

This post is written by Filipa Da Silva Miranda who is a nurse educator who recently completed the module EDM122. The essay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. She writes….

For the purpose of assessment on the module EDM 122 (Digital Literacies and Open practices), I will be reflecting on the importance of open education practices. Because of my role as a practice development educator in nursing, I will focus more specifically in the use of open education resources and their impact on nursing education and consequently, on better provision of care.

Open education as a term had its origins in the 1960s, as part of an effort to make education universally available through the creation of open universities, sharing of educational materials and democratizing access to educational opportunities (Blessinger and Bliss, 2016). In the following essay I will define open education and open educational resources; reflect and critically analyze the use of open educational resources and factors that might prevent this, while linking it to education in the healthcare sector.

The Open Education Consortium (cited by Cronin, 2017) defined open education as the resources, tools and practices employed in a context of open sharing in order to positively improve educational effectiveness and educational access around the world.

Open education resources (OERs) are defined as teaching and learning materials presented in a medium or digital format that can be used, re-used or repurposed by others with no cost (Hersh, 2020). The use of such resources is rooted in the will to democratize and make education universal. Ossiannilsson (2019) supports this view by highlighting the fact that OERs expand access to learning opportunities, increasing quality in education and promoting social justice and collaboration, while being useful for continuous professional development and lifelong learning. The advantages of using OERs, highlighted by Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and United Nations Educational, Scientifical and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2016), are the fact that these can be repurposed by educators to adapt them to a specific context; they can also enhance lifelong learning opportunities by providing ease of access to leaners, irrespective of time or place. Jung, Sasaki and Latchem (2016), add the lowered costs associated to using OERs, the share of best practice for collaboration between institutions or countries (with gains in time for educators, as it makes it unnecessary to reinvent the wheel), increased access for diverse and non-traditional learners, also breaking geographical barriers. With such advantages, it is easy to see why the adoption of OERs is viewed as crucial to provide lifelong education opportunities within many sectors, including healthcare. Ease of access is a crucial point in increasing social justice and inclusivity in accessing such resources.

The Covid-19 pandemic posed a crucial moment for the use of OERs across the globe and in various settings, at a time where physical classrooms were impossible to use and urgent measures were needed to spread valuable knowledge. For the healthcare sector for example, a wide range of free open access online materials was made available to all frontline healthcare staff and students (regardless of workplace or university). Some examples of important online materials included e-learning modules dedicated to teaching correct procedures for putting on and removing personal protective equipment used by healthcare workers caring for patients with Covid-19. The aim of such materials was to increase knowledge around Covid-19, treatments and infection control measures, particularly on websites such as E-learning for Healthcare, an initiative from Health Education England (HEE) whose purpose is to ensure quality in training and education (HEE, n.d.).

Despite its importance and the increase in knowledge such resources provided, it is important to note that being “open access” does not mean such resources are OERs. For resources to be considered OERs, they must be made available under an open license, such as The Creative Commons License (COL and UNESCO, 2016), so that they can be retained, reused, revised, remixed or re-distributed by others (Van Allen and Katz, 2020), in a culture of collaboration and inclusivity for teachers and learners. If such permissions are not in place, then even “open access” materials are bound by copyright laws to prevent distribution and repurpose, such as the materials made available on E-learning for Healthcare.

As a practice development nurse working in a critical care unit of a teaching hospital, I believe in the many potential advantages of using OERs to support staff in their lifelong journey of professional development. Despite this and my short journey through the education world, I confess that the term OER was quite foreign to me until I started undertaking this module, and while I intend to use such resources in my future practice, I have never used them before. Such feelings are not unusual in the education world. Van Allen and Katz (2020) mentioned many educators are still unfamiliar with OERs which prevents their widespread use. The multitude of repositories and distribution channels for OERs, confusing process to obtain them, unclear licensing and uncertainty of adequacy of contents are further factors for under-usage of such resources pointed by Jung, Sasaki and Latchem (2016). Factors associated with educators are not the only ones preventing the use of OERs. Institutional factors, such as support for creating, using and distributing OERs is needed to comply with the principle of universal access to knowledge and build on the already existing knowledge by saving educators the time to create new contents, thus contributing to improvements and innovation (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), 2007). Kurelovic (2016) describes other important limitations to using OERs which are cultural and language barriers. After observing that a large number of OERs available in popular repositories are in English language, this author pointed out that their adaptation and use for different languages or cultural contexts would require organizational resources, time, ICT skills or even access to special software, which might not be a possibility for some institutions. The University of Maryland Global Campus (2020) highlighted other important limitations linked to the use of OERs, such as being shared in static formats (difficulty in modifying and adapting such resources) and sustainability issues (lack of incentive for creators to update their materials and keep them available). The first point may result in the need of having to use expensive software, inaccessible to certain institutions, while the second may cause the materials to go outdated or unavailable; both points can be linked to institutional circumstances that may affect the rate of usage of OERs.

A paper by Lapum et al (2019) described a project where OERs were created in a partnership involving educators and students, with benefits in quality and advancements in nursing education, featuring open pedagogical approaches. Similar outcomes have been shared by Keating et al (2019), who also highlighted that the shortage of nursing staff around the world has an impact in nurse education and access to evidence-based study materials, thus proposing OERs to be a feasible solution in supporting an over-stretched education force. Petrovic et al (2023) further advocates for the use of OERs in distance education courses for example, which could help resolve shortages of nurses.

Part of my activities as an educator in one of the country´s largest Trust, is attending regular meetings with educators for other departments and giving contributions and views on educational activities being carried around the Trust. I believe that sharing educational resources with other fellow educators would be beneficial as it would help develop and improve the ways in which we support staff, particularly an over-stretched workforce. In a healthcare system where staff is often asked to provide care to patients under other specialty of care (for example redeployed staff during Covid-19), it is important to share resources within the education community and rearrange them to face specific needs and contexts. The challenges previously mentioned, such as the formatting of such materials, licences in place or lack of adherence of educators or support from the organization might prevent this from happening.

The involvement of students in the production of OERs can also present advantages to their own learning and development process. Describing a project involving co-creation of OERs by faculty and students, Verkuyl et al (2018) mention the transformational experiences for both parties, as well as a resulting expanded understanding for students of distinct career opportunities and professional prospects beyond direct patient care. Having seen all the potential and positive contributions of OERs for both students and educators, I will be better equipped to use them in my practice. As an educator facing the many challenges and pressures of current healthcare system, I see the use of OERs as something that might facilitate the learning for both educators and students in an ever-changing sector, with benefits that go beyond providing better care to our patients, but also increment professional satisfaction and inclusivity in all staff and students. For the students I teach in particular, those completing their specialty studies in Intensive Care Nursing might particularly benefit from enrolling in projects for co-creation of OERs, as it would be a unique opportunity to share their own experience and bring innovations to a specific aspect of nursing care, as well as broaden their career perspectives.

It is important to highlight that the adoption of open education practices goes beyond accessing and using OERs. Ehlers and Conole (2010) argue that in open education practices there is a shift of paradigm to one where knowledge is freely available and learners are co-creators of knowledge, assessing, modifying and sharing resources – open educational practices are a call for innovation with a modified pedagogical approach. The use of OERs is a step towards open education practices and it should not be feared by educators, but rather used to build upon each other’s experience leading to improved quality in nursing education (Lapum et al, 2019).

As a conclusion, the use of OERs have important advantages, especially in the face of the current healthcare crisis. However, it is important to note that certain limitations to their use still prevent the full potential of a truly open sharing culture. This limitation in use is due to several factors, such as lack of knowledge from educators or lack of trust in such materials, not to mention the multiplicity of sources and at times, confusing licencing practices or organizational factors. I must admit I used to share that same lack of knowledge of such resources or licencing practices for repurposing them to particular contexts. However, I intend to make use of these adequately and when possible, as well as participate in projects where such resources are created and shared at my current workplace in the future.

In the subject of openness, would like to publish this essay on the course blog (“EDM 122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice” blog) under one of the Creative Commons licences. The chosen license will be CC BY-NC-SA. According to Creative Commons (2019), this licence allows for distribution, adaptation, remix and build on the materials as long as the creator is given credit and adaptations are shared under the same licencing terms, not allowing for commercial uses. I believe this is a fair licence to use, as it protects authoring rights, at the same time allowing for a build-up of knowledge and ideas in a fair way to future users as it needs to be shared under the same terms and in a non-commercial way.

References

Blessinger, P. Bliss, T.J. (2016) “Open education. International perspectives in higher education”, Open Book Publishers: Cambridge. Available [online] at: https://books.openedition.org/obp/3539#:~:text=Open%20education%2C%20which%20began%20in%20earnest%20in%20the,part%20of%20a%20wider%20effort%20to%20democratize%20education (accessed on: 17.12.2022)

Creative Commons (2019) “About CC licenses”, Available [online] at: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ (accessed on 09.01.2023)

Cronin, C. (2017) “Open education, open questions”, EDUCAUSE review 52, no.6. Available [online] at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/10/open-education-open-questions (accessed on: 13.12.2022)

Ehlers, U.D. Conole, G.C. (2010) “Open educational practices: unleashing the power of OER”, UNESCO Workshop on OER, Namibia, 2010. Available [online] at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306285861_Open_Educational_Practices_Unleashing_the_power_of_OER (accessed on: 13.12.2022)

Health Education England (n.d.) “Our purpose as part of the NHS, is to work with partners to plan, recruit, educate and train the health workforce.” Available [online] at: https://www.hee.nhs.uk/about (accessed on 07.01.2023)

Hersh, W. (2020) “Open educational resources (OERs) in health informatics” in Berner E.S. (ed) Informatics Education in Healthcare, Birmingham: Springer, pp 277-285. Available [online] at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-53813-2_20 (accessed on: 17.12.2022)

Jung, I. Sasaki, T. Latchem, C. (2016) “A framework for assessing fitness for purpose in open educational resources”, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 13:3. Available [online] at: https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-016-0002-5 (accessed on: 07.01.2023)

Keating, S. Berland, A. Capone, K. Chickering, M.J. (2019) “Establishing global nursing education equity by developing open access resources”, Nursing Educator, 45:2. Available [online] at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32106148/ (accessed on 07.01.2023)

Kurelovic, E. K. (2016) “Advantages and limitations of usage of open educational resources in small countries”, International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 2:1. Available [online] at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1105180.pdf (accessed on 16.01.2023)

Lapum, J. St-Amant, O. Verkuyl, M. Garcia, W. Tan, A. Freeman, W. Savicevic, N. (2019) “Designing open-access, educational resources”, Quality Advancement in Nursing Education, 5:2. Available [online] at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336583044_Designing_open_access_educational_resources_Developper_des_ressources_educatives_en_libre_acces (accessed on: 07.01.2023)

Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (2007) “Giving Knowledge for free. The emergence of open educational resources.” OECD Publishing: Paris. Available [online] at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/giving-knowledge-for-free_9789264032125-en;jsessionid=lSjRwtOGeMpCoriHFYtgI4TtHfcIkzNGTWJJcdrl.ip-10-240-5-25 (accessed on: 17.12.2022)

Ossiannilsson, E. (2019) “OER and OEP for access, equity, equality, quality, inclusiveness, and empowering lifelong learning”, International Journal of Open Educational Resources, 1:2. Available [online] at: file:///C:/Users/Filipa/Downloads/25058-oer-and-oep-for-access-equity-equality-quality-inclusiveness-and-empowering-lifelong-learning.pdf (accessed on: 07.01.2023)

Petrovic, K. Perry, B. Walsh, P. (2023) “Aligning nursing ethics with critical and open pedagogy in nursing education: a literature review”, Nurse Educator, 48:1. Available [online] at: https://journals.lww.com/nurseeducatoronline/Fulltext/2023/01000/Aligning_Nursing_Ethics_With_Critical_and_Open.19.aspx (accessed on: 09.01.2023)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Commonwealth of Learning (COL). (2016) “Introduction: Open educational resources: policy, costs and transformation” in Miao, F. Mishra, S. and Mcgreal, R. (eds) Open educational resources: policy, cost and transformation, France, pp 1-13. Available [online] at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000244365 (accessed on 18.12.2022)

University of Maryland Global Campus (2020) “Pros and Cons of using OERs for Instruction”. Available [online] at: https://libguides.umgc.edu/c.php?g=23404&p=138771 (accessed on: 16.01.2023)

Van Allen, J. Katz, S. (2020) “Teaching with OER during pandemics and beyond”, Journal of Multicultural Education, 14:3/4. Available [online] at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JME-04-2020-0027/full/pdf?title=teaching-with-oer-during-pandemics-and-beyond (accessed on 07.01.2023)

Verkuyl, M. Lapum, J. St-Amant, O. Tan, A. Garcia, W. (2018) “Engaging nursing students in the creation of open educational resources”, Nurse Education Today, 71. Available [online] at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026069171830635X (accessed on 08.01.2023)

Nurse Education: encompassing open educational practice

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Sarah Wiggins

This essay is by Sarah Wiggins who is a nurse educator and recently completed the module EDM122. She has licensed her essay under CC-BY and writes…

In recent years technology has developed and grown with advanced methods of education visible. There is global recognition that open education has been used in strategising education and teaching opportunities. This has paved the way to create pioneering changes that have proved to be effective within healthcare and education (UNESCO, 2019).

The scope of Open education encompasses the use of open access, open technology, open licensing and Open Education Resources. UNESCO (2019) defined Open Educational Resources (OER) as “learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others”.

An objective of Open Educational practice is demonstrated by making learning accessible and available to all by minimising the limitations of access to material. This provides an opportunity for teachers and students to develop by collaborating, building and sharing knowledge. The development and move towards OER has been driven by the need for inclusivity whereby distance education methods facilitate lifelong learning and the growing needs of the market.

As a registered nurse educator, lifelong learning is essential to maintaining high standards of care delivery (DOH, 1999). My perception of lifelong learning, the delivery of teaching and educational motivation has changed significantly in recent years. This is mostly related to the Covid-19 Pandemic where globally, changes had to be made. Education had to continue and within my role I had to find new and innovative ways to improve. Access to nursing education was of upmost importance and in light of this I understood that working collaboratively with learners and taking an open pedagogical approach would be appropriate in the evolution of change. (Petrovic et al, 2023). My use of open education practices has increased in recent years, hence the desire to reflect on this topic and not digital literacy. For the purpose of this assignment, I will focus on open education resources, open pedagogy and open technologies as these are appropriate to my style of teaching.

Open Education Resources

In nurse education open educational resources (OER) are widely used particularly within my role. This has become a revolution in the way teaching can be delivered in the 21^st century.

The accessibility of OER makes it particularly useful as it is available to all staff by and can be accessed worldwide. The digital library contains educational materials which I have used within my role to support my teaching and provide education. The resources that I have used include journals, videos, pictures and open books. The educational materials I have accessed are released under Creative Commons (CC) licenses which allows the user permission under copyright law.

I deliver education to nurses and healthcare support workers under the umbrella term the Fundamentals of care. The methodology and educational resources I use in teaching vary slightly as I teach in house simulation and also use blended learning for other subjects. Generally, my teaching is delivered by a powerpoint presentation. The educational material I have used has come from open books and the latest evidence based practice. In particular subjects I have used pictures and videos to enrich my teaching practice and the learning experience of my nursing colleagues. For example, I have recently created an e-learning module about Mouth Care and I have included a short video which highlights the significance of providing oral care to patients and demonstrates the impact poor oral care can have on an organisation. The video was released under CC-BY and the creator of the video acknowledged allowing the credits for the author to be attributed. Using this method supports Wiley et al (2018) proposal of CC that the video can be retained and reused.

The e-learning module is available to all staff and can be accessed via a digital platform (Moodle) used in Barts Health NHS Trust (OECD, 2011). The benefits of using educational digital videos are recognised in a study by Rodríguez-Almagro et al (2021) who advocate that students can link the theory to practice, enabling the students to develop a better understanding of the subject. Another advantage I found is that I could adjust the content of the module to tailor to the needs of the target group (Weller, 2021).

Active teaching methodologies have changed and a method that is used widely in education have been introduced by the use of technology such as mobile phones. As my career in education progressed, combined with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, changes were made to adapt to the current climate. The use of enhanced technology was paramount to ensure healthcare professionals maintained their educational and professional development (Rodriguez et al, 2020). I have supported the use of mobile phones as students are able to log into a classroom using a Cat QR code where the attendance is recorded centrally. Staff were able to continue accessing resources that were designed specifically for purpose. The advantages of this are such that healthcare workers could download an App onto their mobile phone and use for educational purposes, patient care and access to various healthcare related systems. However, I had to ensure that open resources that were provided were safe to use and had a recognised CC license. The disadvantages of using OER for educational resources are the quality and safety assurance of the provider. Some apps may not give details of the producer and therefore prove to be unreliable (Ventola, 2014). An App that I encourage staff to use is IRESUS as I know it is produced by the Resuscitation Council and is a reliable source of open education with a CC license.

Moreover, equality and diversity are central to the pedagogy of an inclusive educational system. An inclusive approach embraced by Higher Education England (2010, P4) supported a larger diversity of students to access education. Within the NHS in the United Kingdom, and in Barts Health, diversity and inclusion are of paramount importance. The workforce consists of staff from varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds and this needs to be taking into account when planning and designing a curriculum. Barts Health welcome international healthcare professionals from countries such as the Philippines and India. The use of OERs such as YouTube videos are particularly beneficial when teaching the Fundamentals of care. Bed baths are a fundamental aspect of care and who delivers this care this differs somewhat internationally. In the UK, bed baths are provided by the healthcare professionals. In international countries personal care is provided by the family. Collaborative working, sharing and embedding OER into the design of teaching will not only provide the international nurses with a cultural competence, it is accessible and available to all (Breslin et al 2017; Cronin, 2017)

Open technologies

Wiley (2018) supports the notion that open pedagogy is connected to open educational resources which can be used to support learning and the open sharing of teaching practices to improve education and training at all levels. This highlights further how this practice demonstrates inclusivity as it is available to those at an institutional level, universities, professionals and individuals as a whole. The term “open” signifies this as the OERs are released under an open license which grant permission for everyone to contribute. This is reinforced by Wiley’s recommended 5Rs activities that are: “retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute”.

In everyday practice and working collaboratively with my team, we are always looking at ways to improve the delivery of teaching by using open technology. This derives from the reworkings that were made during the Covid 19 pandemic where classroom learning reduced and was replaced with blended learning. Skulmowski and Rey (2020) argue that the pandemic sped up the use of digital platforms and recognised that this will initiate change for the future. Those changes are visible today whereby nurses and other health professionals use mobile phones and laptops to gain access to educational material. The resources desired determined which hosting platform would be used. Twitter was commonly used and one of which my line manager favours. Twitter allows the user to showcase ideas for others to see or as a way to gain ideas. It encourages open communication and sharing of ideas with other staff within healthcare that I might not necessarily see every day. If I search further using a hashtag I can search different platforms and gain further information. I have used Twitter to share information on topics about mouth care and falls prevention. I have learnt to ensure that I use creative commons licensing when redistributing on a blog or other platform.

Open pedagogy

Clinton-Lisell (2021) define open pedagogy as practices that make changes to learning and teaching accessible by using content creation through an open license. However, there are many definitions and conceptions of open pedagogy that have encouraged my research on this. It is argued that open pedagogical practices have been proven to have a positive impact on a student’s learning. This is evidenced by students showing increased engagement, motivation and self-directed learning (Wiley et al, 2017; Dermody, 2019; Tillinghast, 2020). With this evidence in mind, in practice I need to determine what is open about open pedagogy and how do I conceptualise this? The word ‘open’ could mean such as open access, open teaching, science, the right to access and use according to Pomerantz and Peek (2016). My interpretation of this is aligned with Cronin (2017) conceptualisation that students can access education and resources free. Due to the movement of OER students are now able to contribute to open textbooks and can help to create a curriculum by sharing what they feel is necessary to meet their learning objectives.

An idea I would particularly like to try would be open pedagogy notebook based on the Fundamentals of care. The goal of the notebook would be based on the learning objectives of underpinning knowledge of the Fundamentals of care. My nursing colleagues could create a piece of work that would be used by healthcare professionals and the general public. The notebook could be divided into a few small chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of care. Each nursing colleague could contribute to a chapter each based on their knowledge. A peer review shared amongst each other, possibly by each chapter, would enable the writer to gain a different perspective and give feedback. After a final review the book could be published. Advantages of this style of education are that learners are involved in making an educational change. Involving the learners will help to increase their critical thinking skills and encourage a collaborative style of learning. It will enhance their communication skills, boost their confidence, develop a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of care and empower them as learners. As an educator, I would need to ensure that have been taught about copyright, ensuring that they use Creative commons licenses that they are comfortable with.

To conclude, the changes bestowed upon us as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have been unfound. The present and the future have been dictated by the movement of open educational practice. This has proven to have had a clear impact in nurse education and will continue to support the lifelong learning goals that a nursing career requires from you. Working through this module, has given me great insight into the cultural inclusion that open education practices permits, allowing access to all and new ways to actively involve learners in their own education. On reflection, I have found this module to be beneficial to me as an educator. It has given me scope to think of innovative and new ways to embed education encompassing open pedagogical practices, educational resources and technology. I would like to develop my skills using Creative Commons licensing and explore this further with learners. This is an objective I would consider for continued professional development in my nursing career.

References

Breslin, E. et al. (2018) The changing face of academic nursing: Nurturing diversity, inclusivity, and equity. Journal of Professional Nursing. 34(2), pp.103-109. Available at: (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S8755722317303022) [accessed 28.01.23].
Creative Commons (2017) About the licenses. Available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ [accessed 28.01.2023].
Cronin, C. (2017) Openness and praxis: Exploring the use of open educational practices in higher education.The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5), pp.15–34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096 [accessed 28.01.2023].
Department of Health (1999) Making a difference-Strengthening the nursing, midwifery and health visiting contribution to health and health care. DOH, London.
Dermody, R. (2019) Open pedagogy for teaching structures. In Brause, C., Clouston, P.L. & Darling, N. (Eds.). Building technology educator’s society: (art. 3).University of Massachusetts. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7275/s9xd-h436 [accessed 29.01.2023].
Kurelovic, E. (2016) Advantages and Limitations of Usage of Open Educational Resources in Small Countries. Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1105180.pdf [accessed 21.01.23].
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2007) Annual report. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/38528123.pdf [accessed 21.01.2023].
Petrovic, K et al (2023) Aligning Nursing Ethics with critical and open pedagogy in nursing education: A literature review. Nurse Educator. Available online: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35900936/ [accessed 15.02.2023].
Resuscitation Council UK. (2021) iResus: Guidelines on the go. Available at: https://www.resus.org.uk/library/iresus accessed [15.02.2023].
Rodríguez-Almagro, J. et al. (2021) The Impact on Nursing Students of Creating Audiovisual Material through Digital Storytelling as a Teaching Method. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33467398/ [accessed 21.01.2023].
Romero-Rodríguez, J-M. et al. (2010) Mobile Learning in Higher Education: Structural Equation Model for Good Teaching Practices. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9094244 [accessed 27.01.23].
Skulmowski, A. and Rey, G.D. (2020) COVID-19 as an accelerator for digitalization at a German university: Establishing hybrid campuses in times of crisis. Behav. Emerg. Technol. 2, pp. 212–216. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7283701/ [accessed 29.01.2023].
Tillinghast, B. (2020) Developing an open educational resource and exploring OER-enabled pedagogy in higher education.IAFOR Journal of Education: Technology in Education, 8(2), pp.159–174. Available at: https://doi.org/10.22492/ije.8.2.09 [accessed 25.01.2023].
UNESCO (2019) Open Educational resources. Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources [accessed 15.02.2023].
Ventola, C.L. (2014) Mobile devices and apps for health care professionals: uses and benefits. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4029126/ [accessed 27.01.23].
Weller, M. (2021) Open educational resources offer promise for more equitable teaching and learning. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/open-educational-resources-offer-promise-for-more-equitable-teaching-and-learning [accessed 21.01.23].
Wiley, D. et al. (2017) A preliminary exploration of the relationships between student-created OER, sustainability, and students’ success. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning,18(4), pp. 61–69. Available at: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i4.3022 [accessed 25.01.2023].
Wiley, D. and Hilton, J. (2018) Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy. The international Review of Research in open and Distributed learning. 19 (4) Available at: https://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3601 [accessed 21.01.23].

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons attribution Licence CC-BY

Open Access in health practice: Is it a necessity or a luxury?

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Emerson Castillo

This post is written by Emerson Castillo, who completed the module EDM122 in October 2022-February 2023. He is a nurse educator and he chose to licence his work under a CC-BY NC Licence. Emerson writes:

Since the turn of the century, the open access movement—in which research articles are made publicly accessible online rather than published in journals that require substantial subscription fees—has risen significantly (Ratcliffe, 2014). Nonetheless, according to a review by Piwowar et al. in 2018, only 28% of scholarly papers, are currently open access, this means numerous academic knowledge is still unavailable to the public without a paid individual or institutional subscription. This signifies that designing new clinical guidelines and protocols is still challenging for clinicians as they have restricted resources for related literature. In addition, this also affects clinicians’ capacities including myself as a clinical practice educator to conduct further and in-depth research studies.

This essay explores open access in health education and how can this impact clinical practice among healthcare providers while fostering safer and quality care for all.

“opening the door” by laurabillings is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

What is Open Access?

Open access (OA) refers to a set of guiding principles and a variety of methods that allow for the free online distribution of research outputs (Suber, 2015). It is a term under open practice, which is a publication and distribution approach that facilitates scientific research literature—freely and unrestrictedly accessible to the public online. Likewise, the results of academic research are made available to an unprecedented number of researchers through open access, which democratizes information access while promoting innovation and discovery. Wagner (2022) stated that “when there are no financial, legal, or technical barriers to accessing a publication—that is when anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search for and search within the information, use it in education, or use it in any other way that is permitted by the agreements—that publication is said to be open access (Wagner, 2022).

Most academic publications are only accessible to those who pay a subscription fee or who are members of an organization that does. Open Access makes research findings broadly accessible through digital technology. There are two ways to make work accessible: either by publishing in a journal that instantly makes the work freely available online or by depositing a copy of the published work in a repository (Kingsley, 2015). In a nutshell, free-to-read and free-to-reuse are the two elements of open access (Open Society Foundations, 2018).

The world’s response to Open Access

Open access accelerated dramatically in December 2001 when an open society foundation sponsored a meeting in Budapest, Hungary where the statement of principles on open access to research literature developed (Open Society Foundation, 2018). However, two following initiatives inspired by the Budapest Open Access Initiative—the Bethesda Statement from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Berlin Declaration from the Max Planck Society—broadened and strengthened the basis of support for open access (Open Society Foundation, 2018). To apply the open access approach, scholarly academics, libraries, students, patient advocates, and small companies, among others, have organized their members and led the initiative (Suber, 2015).

Additionally, in April 2006, the European Commission urged: “Research funding agencies… should establish a European policy mandating published articles arising from EC-funded research to be available after a given period in open access archives…” Furthermore, the WHO judges that “universal access to publicly funded research, including research data, is fundamental to tackling the public health challenges of the 21st century”. With this, the organization mandated that all works written or financed by the organization submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals after January 1, 2021, must first be published in an open-access journal or on an open-access platform (World Health Organization, 2021).

In the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) also addressed this widely concerning issue regarding open access. In 2021, the NIHR released the Open Access Publish Policy stating that all publications submitted for peer review after June 1, 2022, should comply with the four principles. Articles must be free and accessible to everyone, with no barriers to re-use and dissemination, freely discoverable and if necessary, NIHR will settle payment to allow immediate open access (National Institute for Health and Care Research, 2021).

Sadly, as the world extensively attempts to move forward in advancing open access, some low-socioeconomic countries still have limited access to recent studies and educational resources. Contrarily, the Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL) collaborates with libraries all around the globe to supply developing and transitional nations’ citizens with access to digital information. Its primary goal is to negotiate, support, and enable the widespread accessibility of scholarly electronic content by library users from the education and research sectors, professional communities, governmental organizations, and civil society (Kupryte, Segbert-Elbert and Bernal, 2005).

Benefits of Open Access to clinicians and patients

Nowadays, in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, it is straightforward for clinicians to access newly published scientific studies. As I have noted earlier, most academic search engines like science.gov, PUBMED, and CINAHL are readily available to use for most clinicians. Furthermore, academic institutions also provide free access to various research databases. Some institutions push further by providing free training on how to maximize the use of these databases and efficiently search for useful and relevant studies to your research.

Conducting research studies is a fundamental role for clinicians and health leaders. Likewise, as a clinical practice educator, I am accountable for guaranteeing that clinical practice is aligned with standards established on recently completed studies. Presently, I am leading a study focusing on pre-operative assessment of bariatric patients and I am arranging to apply open access to it once it’s ready for publishing as the Royal Society stated that authors “who choose open access are likely to benefit from increased dissemination.” This implies that if I apply the principles of open access to my study, my research may potentially have high citation rates, thus, I will personally gain and benefit from it as a clinician and academe. Further, the Nuffield Department of Medicine – Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health (2003) specified that open access could benefit clinical practitioners as they can apply findings of research to clinical practice that improves patient care and medical management and could influence the creation of new policies and procedures in the healthcare setting.

Overall, open access benefits patients by permitting clinicians to extend their knowledge and understanding of recent clinical trials. Remarkably, it allows all clinical practitioners to identify any new research gaps (Yoong et al., 2022).

Barriers to Open Access

Although there are many advantages to open-access publishing, most authors choose their publications based on the reputation of the journal. Due to false impressions of quality, open-access publications are at a disadvantage (Shah, 2017). In addition, a journal’s reputation in research and medicine is determined by its impact factor ranking. As a result, the reputation and worth of individual papers are frequently assessed using the journal’s impact factor (Wageningen University & Research, 2021). This is an unnecessary risk for an author because a research study may potentially be judged based on the open-access journal they disseminated it with. This can be deceiving for clinicians and the public since the quality and reliability of a study depends on which company published it and not the actual outcome and findings of the study. This may put patients and the public at risk as clinicians deliver medical treatments based on recent findings.

Open Access and Clinical Practice

We can all agree that the public’s social and health needs dramatically changed since Florence Nightingale founded nursing in the 1850s. These changes vary from clinical to social needs, for example, improvement in infection control and management and more complex medical conditions brought by globalization. The importance of open access in healthcare lies in providing a constructive way of solving problems and enhancing standards of care through research studies. Open access makes medical evidence widely disseminated and freely accessible to everyone, including academic researchers, medical professionals, policymakers, and laypeople (Barbour, 2006). This evidence can influence the laws and practices that affect public health.

Before the introduction of the open access model, nearly all scholarly study peer-reviewed articles were published in print journals with subscription costs that might be prohibitively expensive, even though writers received no compensation for their contributions. In addition, only well-funded university libraries, particularly in industrialized countries, had access to these magazines for the public. This implies that healthcare providers working in any remote region of a third-world country, for example, often could not access complete articles regarding the results of the latest medical research on the treatment and management of certain diseases.

Presently, on top of my research study, I am also formulating clinical guidelines for assessing patients with complex medical histories and clinical needs in Preoperative Assessment Unit. Thankfully, most of the resources nowadays are easily accessible using my NHS account in contradiction to what my colleagues experiencing in the Philippines.

I can remember a time when a friend of mine was writing his dissertation roughly 10 years ago. He was studying in a low-end school, consequently, his access to the latest medical literature was extremely limited. When I had a conversation with him to see how he was doing with his paper, he disappointedly mentioned that he spends almost 500 USD to acquire access to different studies. According to him, roughly 50% of his online purchases were insignificant in his research focus and was not able to use them at all. Regrettably, this access does not have a return policy. I think this is unnecessary especially if a clinician is researching to improve health practice or advance medical treatment. A question came into my mind, is it fair for researchers and clinicians to spend money in conducting studies to address the needs of the public and society?

Another scenario came to my attention when a colleague approached me a few months ago and asked about the importance of open access in nursing. I briefly discussed that open access is a way to communicate scholarly work and to be used and re-used. Thus, open access simply suggests free and readily accessible research studies that can be used as a basis for improving clinical practice or as a foundation for further investigation or study, therefore, affecting nursing practice. Moreover, I utilized the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019 to highlight its significance because open access allowed for the free exchange of scientific knowledge, which has been incredibly valuable for modern-day scientific study. Researchers from all over the world have been positively impacted by easy access to scientific data and literature in terms of understanding the virus’ characteristics and key underlying mechanisms. This understanding has enabled pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines and other treatments to prevent people from contracting the disease or minimizing the symptoms brought by the coronavirus (Bose, 2022) regardless of the call to suspend intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines (Krishtel and Malpani, 2021). On May 5, 2021, the United States startled the globe by announcing its support for a World Trade Organization (WTO) proposition that would temporarily suspend intellectual property rights on covid-19 vaccinations. This denotes that successful negotiation of an intellectual property waiver would guarantee that producers could not restrict access to raw materials and finished goods for covid-19 technology worldwide (Krishtel and Malpani, 2021). On contrary, some open-accessed research does not support the use of vaccination in tackling the pandemic. As reported by Peter Doshi (2020), Associate Editor at The BMJ today, “vaccines are being hailed as the solution to the covid-19 pandemic, but the vaccine trials currently underway are not designed to tell us if they will save lives”. This is the power of open access as it provides a scientific understanding of how we deal with different medical situations, and it provides facts about the edge and drawbacks of a specific medical treatment e.g., vaccination and other medications. Without these previous studies regarding coronavirus or acute respiratory distress syndrome, we might still be waiting for vaccines as you read this. We gather and analyze data from previous studies as a basis for developing a piece of new knowledge.

Conclusion

Open access is like opening a door for new discoveries as it allows clinicians to gain new knowledge and understanding of the complex world of human health. It is important in advancing research studies that influence the management and treatment of progressing clinical needs of the patients and the public. During the discussion, I discussed several advantages and disadvantages of open-accessed research studies. With this, I believe open access is a necessity in health practice. However, clinicians and health leaders must be keen and critical in assessing the reliability and credibility of all research studies we are exploring as they can either positively affect the public and patients or put them in danger. In a nutshell, open access is advantageous in improving clinical practice and competencies among healthcare providers when used with high caution.

References:

Barbour, V. (2006). The impact of open access upon public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 84(5), pp.339–339. doi:10.2471/blt.06.032409.

Bose, P. (2022). How Will Open Access Research Help Tackle Future Pandemics? [online] News Medical Life Sciences. Available at: https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-will-Open-Access-Research-Help-Tackle-Future-Pandemics.aspx [Accessed 10 Jan. 2023].

Doshi, P. (2020). Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us. BMJ, [online] 371(8265). doi:10.1136/bmj.m4037.

Doyle, G. and McCutcheon, J. (2015). Clinical procedures for safer patient care. [online] Victoria, B.C.: BCcampus, p.1. Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/clinicalskills/ [Accessed 5 Jan. 2023].

European Commission (2006). Scientific publication: Policy on Open Access. [online] commission.europa.eu. Available at: https://commission.europa.eu/research-and-innovation_en [Accessed 6 Jan. 2023].

Kingsley, D. (2015). Open Access. [online] osc.cam.ac.uk. Available at: https://osc.cam.ac.uk/open-access [Accessed 24 Jan. 2023].

Krishtel, P. and Malpani, R. (2021). Suspend intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines. BMJ, [online] 373(8296), p.n1344. doi:10.1136/bmj.n1344.

Kupryte, R., Segbert-Elbert, M. and Bernal, I. (2005). The eIFL.net Initiative: Access and Management of Electronic Resources by Library Consortia in Developing and Transition Countries. Serials Review, [online] 31(4), pp.256–260. doi:10.1016/j.serrev.2005.09.001.

Masnick, M. (2022). Huge News: Biden Administration Announces All Publicly Funded Research Should Be Available For Free To The Public. [online] Techdirt. Available at: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/26/huge-news-biden-administration-announces-all-publicly-funded-research-should-be-available-for-free-to-the-public/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2023].

‌National Institute for Health and Care Research (2021). NIHR Open Access publication policy – for publications submitted on or after 1 June 2022. [online] www.nihr.ac.uk. Available at: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/nihr-open-access-publication-policy-for-publications-submitted-on-or-after-1-june-2022/28999 [Accessed 8 Jan. 2023].

Nuffield Department of Medicine – Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health (2003). Benefits of Open Access. [online] Nuffield Department of Medicine. Available at: https://www.tropicalmedicine.ox.ac.uk/sops/ndm-cghr-open-access-guide/benefits-of-open-access [Accessed 24 Jan. 2023].

Open Society Foundation (2018). Your Taxes Fund This Research. Shouldn’t You Have Access to It? [online] Opensocietyfoundations.org. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access [Accessed 20 Jan. 2023].

Open Society Foundations (2018). What Is ‘Open Access’? [online] Opensocietyfoundations.org. Available at: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-open-access [Accessed 7 Jan. 2023].

‌Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J.P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., Farley, A., West, J. and Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, [online] 6(1), p.e4375. doi:10.7717/peerj.4375.

Ratcliffe, R. (2014). What’s the biggest challenge facing open access? [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/oct/27/-sp-whats-the-biggest-challenge-facing-open-access [Accessed 30 Jan. 2023].

Shah, D.T. (2017). Open Access Publishing: Pros, Cons, and Current Threats. Marshall Journal of Medicine, 3(3). doi:10.18590/mjm.2017.vol3.iss3.1.

Suber, P. (2015). Peter Suber, Open Access Overview (definition, introduction). [online] Earlham.edu. Available at: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm [Accessed 20 Jan. 2023].

Wagner, K. (2022). LibGuides: Scholarly Communication: What is Open Access Publishing? [online] guides.monmouth.edu. Available at: https://guides.monmouth.edu/c.php?g=1180268&p=8629436 [Accessed 31 Jan. 2023].

Wageningen University & Research (2021). Open Access: pros and cons. [online] Wageningen University & Research. Available at: https://www.wur.nl/en/library/researchers/open-access/open-access-pros-and-cons.htm [Accessed 29 Jan. 2023].

Yoong, S.L., Turon, H., Grady, A., Hodder, R. and Wolfenden, L. (2022). The benefits of data sharing and ensuring open sources of systematic review data. Journal of Public Health, 44(4). doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdac031.

Open textbooks, Covid-19 and the cost of living

Posted on February 2, 2023 by Kathryn

Photo by Mikołaj on Unsplash

This is a guest post by Kathryn Drumm, written as part of her final assessment for EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practice 2022/23. Kathryn writes…

I was initially inspired to look the current use of open textbooks, how the pandemic accelerated their use, especially as a reaction to the changes in the prices of e-book licences supplied by major publishers, how they can help ease the effects on students of the cost of living crisis. Once I looked further into the area of open textbooks, and their relationship to other OERs (Open Educational Resources) I considered whether their use could also help to change how students create assessments.

In the spirit of openness, I wanted to see if I could research and write this essay using only resources that were openly available. I restricted my sources to those I could access via internet searches without going behind any paywalls. I used Google scholar and followed embedded links within references in journal articles. City Library’s website and catalogue is openly available, unlike some universities which only restrict access to their catalogue to registered users. It is also possible to add filters to restrict results to fully online and open access resources. When accessing the resources, I selected the option which directed me to a downloadable PDF or open access site, rather than accessing them via a journal which required me to sign in with an institutional login. I didn’t repeat the searches with the open access filter removed, and so I have no sense of whether I have been barred from accessing important sources. However, I may repeat the searches at a later date to compare the number and quality of resources returned.

The lockdowns of 2020 lead to universities closing their doors and, as with most of academia, pivoting to an online model. At City, the library sites were closed to students until a limited opening in July 2020. (City Library, 2020a) Instead, students were directed to online resources (City Library, 2020b).

As Anderson and McCauley (2022) note in their account of the #ebooksos movement, academic publishers initially responded to the crisis by making electronic books and journals available at no cost (Jisc, 2020). However, librarians soon noted that as the pandemic went on, this free access was withdrawn and in many cases, prices increased by 500%. (Fazackerley, 2021) Anderson and McCauley also noted the discrepancy between the cost of hard copy and e-book version of the same work, the e-book version beings as much as 4,000% more expensive. In what may be viewed as another form of openness, librarians collaborated online to share details of the usually confidential contracts, to expose the price rises and to lobby public bodies.

Having worked in the library, I was aware of the complex licensing arrangements that can govern access to e-books. There may be a limit on the number of times a book can be viewed or how many users can view it concurrently. It was a regular experience to be contacted by students who had had their access to an e-book terminated once the agreed number of views was reached, or for students to have to wait while another classmate used the book. Access to journals is often bundled and the terms of contracts can be changed with little or no warning.

While the physical constraints of the pandemic may not remain, many of the financial constraints on universities and students remain and may be increasing.The last Student Income and Expenditure Survey reported students spending around £500 per year on course materials. (Department of Education, 2018) In more recent commercial surveys, UK students report spending between £17 (Brown, 2022) and £35 (NatWest, 2022) a month on books and other course materials. As a survey commissioned by Universities UK found that two thirds of students were concerned about managing living costs, and that this may influence some to drop out of their studies (Universities UK, 2022) one could argue that this highlights how the idea of openness has always been tied to social justice and to opening education to all.

The start of the open access movement is often dated back to the early 2000s with the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, and the Bethesda Statement of Open Access Publishing (Mering & Hove 2020). It is interesting to note that much as the current move towards open textbooks was caused by the Covid crisis, the original OA movement was triggered by a series of crises in the cost to universities of accessing journals.

Open access publishing falls under the broader umbrella term of Open Educational Resources, defined by UNESCO “learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.” (UNESCO no date) Others have used the Five Rs definition by David Wiley of retain, reuse, revise, remix and redistribute. (Wiley, 2014)

However, there are still barriers to the uptake of open textbooks as OERS. Anderson (2013) notes the reluctance by some to include open access publishing in the same category as open learning objects, online videos, etc.

When viewing open textbooks through the prism of the five Rs of OERs, we may consider that using them to replace expensive commercially published e-books does not fully exploit their potential. Could revising and remixing the content of open textbooks create resources more closely aligned to individual courses. Harrison et all (2022) lament that the full potential of open textbooks has yet to be embraced and that they are still, “presented as a relatively static body of information, with the apparent intent that they be used in teaching in a manner similar to the traditional textbook.” They instead propose that educators and students co-create open textbooks. This would also incorporate another aspect of open education, by allowing for the content to be presented via multiple voices and viewpoints. In this way, students would also increase their digital literacy skills by having to assess the existing content within the textbook, and the content that they aim to add.

In my own role, the sessions that I run which introduce staff to Moodle, our virtual learning environment, emphasise the importance of abiding by copyright legislation when sharing resources (journal articles, book extracts, images) and working with the library to develop a reading list for students. Likewise, our online guidance on includes advice on using OERs and shares links of sources of OERs. However it does not contain guidance on how staff can make their own resources available as OERs, or revise them to suit their students. Educators know where their students need additional clarification and an open licence allows them to adapt the resource to support their specific students’ needs (Van Allen and Katz 2020) or can update them to keep them relevant. (Rolfe and Pitt, 2018 )

This leads also to the idea that open textbooks and other OERs could be adapted and revised by students as a means of assessment. After all, the current essay is most often a synthesis of previously published texts, with ideas and quotations remixed and reused by students. Could students create their own OERs, adapted from existing resources as an assessment? With the recent interest in the rise of AI generated essays and text, could this be combined with OERs to encourage student to learn how to adapt, improve and share existing texts?

The move towards authentic assessment as espoused by Boud and Falchikov (2006) proposes that students should be creating work in a way that mirrors the “real world”, whether we view that as the world of work or beyond. If we recognise that in future students will be working collaboratively, working with AI generated content and with openly available resources, then assessments which prepare them for this, and which build further the library of OERs may be the way forward. And what better way to demonstrate this than requiring that all such assignments are openly published on a blog under a creative commons licence which allows it to be further adapted and shared?

Licence

This blog is licensed under:
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

References

Anderson, T. 2013, “Open Access Scholarly Publications as OER”, International review of research in open and distance learning, vol. 14, no. 2. Available at: https://doaj.org/article/06b258b6ed5a46128b063b8f5a2157ad (accessed 01/02/2023)

Anderson, Y. & McCauley, C. (2022) ‘How the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated an e-book crisis and the #ebooksos campaign for reform’, Insights the UKSG journal, vol. 35. Available at https://doaj.org/article/7f6aa60fe8c04e17a21095ba410dccb3 (Accessed 25/01/2023)

Brown, L. (2022) Student Money Survey 2022 – Results, Save The Student!, Available at: https://www.savethestudent.org/money/surveys/student-money-survey-2022-results.html#spend (Accessed 31/01/2023)

Boud, D. & Falchikov, N. 2006, “Aligning assessment with long-term learning”, Assessment and evaluation in higher education, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 399-413. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255632613_Aligning_Assessment_with_Long-Term_Learning (accessed 01/02/2023)

City, University of London Library (2020a) Limited Library Services on campus, Available at: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/library/2020/07/15/limited-library-services-on-campus/ (Accessed 01/02/23)

City, University of London Library (2020b) Accessing law e-books Available at: https://blogs.city.ac.uk/library/2020/03/17/accessing-law-e-books/ (Accessed 01/02/23)

Department For Education (2018) Student income and expenditure survey 2014 to 2015, Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/693184/Student_income_and_expenditure_survey_2014_to_2015.pdf (Accessed 30/01/2023)

Fazackerley, A. (2021) ‘’Price gouging from Covid’: student ebooks costing up to 500% more than in print’ The Guardian, 29 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/29/price-gouging-from-covid-student-ebooks-costing-up-to-500-more-than-in-print (Accessed 15/01/2023)

Harrison, M., Paskevicius, M., Devries, I., & Morgan, T. (2022). ‘Crowdsourcing the (Un)Textbook: Rethinking and Future Thinking the Role of the Textbook in Open Pedagogy.’ The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Journal. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6cda/c495c879b9f7002334fabbf8f388cb247279.pdf (Accessed 01/02/2023)

Jisc (2020) Sector pulls together to deliver unprecedented amount of e-textbooks to minimise impact of COVID-19. Available at: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/sector-pulls-together-to-deliver-unprecedented-amount-of-e-textbooks-01-apr-2020 (Accessed 31/01/2023)

Mering, M. & Hoeve, C.D. 2020, “A Brief History to the Future of Open Access”, Serials review, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 300-304. Available at: https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=c7881165-08cd-406f-9373-7fc77c74dd37%40redis (accessed 01/02/2023)

NatWest (2022) Student Living Index, Available at: https://www.natwest.com/content/dam/natwest/personal/life-moments/documents/NatWest_Student_Living_Index_Survey_2022.pdf (Accessed 29/01/2023)

Rimmer, W. 2020, “Responding to the Coronavirus with Open Educational Resources”, International Journal of TESOL Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 17-31. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/430c/5b894742f9fa50631aa66a65bb0a20d8bf48.pdf Accessed 01/02/2023

Rolfe, V. and Pitt, B., 2018. ‘Open textbooks – an untapped opportunity for universities, colleges and schools.’ Insights, 31, p.30. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.427

UNESCO (no date) Open Educational Resources Available at: https://www.unesco.org/en/open-educational-resources?hub=785 Accessed 01/02/2022

Universities UK (2022) Don’t overlook students in cost of living crisis, say university leaders Available at: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/creating-voice-our-members/media-releases/dont-overlook-students-cost-living (Accessed 31/01/2023)

Van Allen, J. and Katz, S. (2020), “Teaching with OER during pandemics and beyond”, Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. 14 No. 3/4, pp. 209-218. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-04-2020-0027

Wiley, D (2014) The Access Compromise and the 5th R Available at: https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221 accessed 01/02/2023

Webinar 2: Open Educational Practices with Lorna Campbell and Catherine Cronin

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Jane Secker

Lorna Campbell. CC-BY-SA-4.0, Mike Peel, Wikimedia Commons

Catherine Cronin

I’m delighted to announce my next webinar, on Tuesday 3rd November at 11am GMT. If you are not taking this module and wish to join the webinar then please register using this form. In this interactive session, Lorna Campbell and Catherine Cronin will explore interpretations of Open Education Practice and share recent examples arising in response to COVID-19. Various aspects of OEP will be explored, e.g., OEP to build community, OEP for teaching, OEP for authentic assessment, and OEP and policy. To conclude the session, Catherine and Lorna will invite participants to collaborate and explore potential applications of OEP in their own contexts.

Lorna is a learning technology service manager at the University of Edinburgh’s Open Educational Resources Service. She has a longstanding commitment to supporting open knowledge and open education, and blogs about openness, knowledge equity and digital labour at Open World http://lornamcampbell.org/ Lorna is also a Trustee of Wikimedia UK and the Association for Learning Technology, and an active member of the #femedtech network. You can find Lorna on twitter at @lornamcampbell.

Meanwhile Catherine Cronin is Strategic Education Developer at the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education where her work focuses on digital and open education in the Irish HE sector. Other work includes writing and editing (e.g.,Open at the margins: Critical perspectives on open education) and collaborating on equity-focused open education projects including FemEdTech and Equity Unbound. You can find Catherine at @catherinecronin and http://catherinecronin.net/.

Slides and recording from Catherine Cronin now available

Posted on January 11, 2019 by Jane Secker

The slides and recording from today’s webinar on critical digital literacies, data literacies and open practice, given by Catherine Cronin are now available. I was really thrilled that Catherine agreed to give our final webinar in the series, because of how important her work on open educational practices has been. Catherine and I have a lot of shared interests and she is going to be Co-Chair of the OER19 Conference, which is taking place in Galway Ireland in April. I will be seeing her then, as I have had a paper accepted to discuss my experiences of running this module, and I am delighted that three of my webinar presenters, Chris, Dave and Lorna are hoping to join me to share their reflections.

The slides, a recording and a set of resources from Catherine are available. Thank you to everyone who joined the recording. We did have a couple of technical issues, with Catherine not being able to hear me, so we used the chat box. It just goes to show that there is no such thing as digital competence, even for those of us who think we are fairly good at this stuff! And Catherine’s advice at the end of our chat with me, was you just have to keep dancing! I hope you’ve all enjoyed these webinars and this one is a real treat! Thank you to all my webinar presenters – there is now a full list of them on the webinar page.

EDM122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice

Part of City, University of London's MA in Academic Practice

Tag Archives: open education

Impact of Open Educational Resources in Healthcare Technology Teaching Practices

Openness in IP Law Education: A cross-disciplinary approach?

Experiences of using Open Educational Resources in journalism teaching and research

Heading to the European Conference on Information Literacy

Impact of open education resources in nursing education

Nurse Education: encompassing open educational practice

Open Access in health practice: Is it a necessity or a luxury?

Open textbooks, Covid-19 and the cost of living

Licence

References

Webinar 2: Open Educational Practices with Lorna Campbell and Catherine Cronin

Slides and recording from Catherine Cronin now available