As Iiyosh and Kumar argue 'the key tenet of open education is that education can be improved by making educational assets visible and accessible and by harnessing the collective wisdom of a community of practice and reflection' (Iiyosh and Kumar, 2008: 10, emphasis added). Open Education it has been argued not only creates avenues for a) engaging educators around the world and b) offering additional resources for classroom students; but also, c) as support for independent learners, auto‐didacts and self‐learners. Participation, whether as an educator or casual learner is often framed as an opportunity for experimenting and gaining information, digital, networking and media literacy skills, through, and within, the field of curricular design and instruction. It is too framed as an opportunity for developing a supportive dialogue for the representation of pedagogies and pedagogical knowledge. In a recent discussion between Stephen Downes and David Wiley – both advocates, scholars and practitioners in OER – what was suggested was that: Institutions are invited to explore the effectiveness and viability of open solutions to address large‐scale educational reform. Teacher training and faculty development efforts are areas of particular interest, along with opportunities for continuous education. […] ‘if open educational resources are to represent a rich tapestry of the ways in which we manifest ourselves – the ways in which we immerse ourselves in multiple creativities – they too offer an inviting, lower‐ risk and lower‐cost platform for being experimental and innovative in the field of education' (paraphrased from the Wiley‐Downes discussion at the OpenEd preconference, Alevizou, 2009).
Indeed a body of literature has emerged from research into OERs that come from conventional universities and points towards these directions (Petrides and Jimes, 2006; Petrides et al., 2008; Kanchanaraksa et al., 2009; Schuwer and Mulder, 2009). McAndrew et al. (2009) note that the OpenLearn initiative has provided new means of working with both formal partnerships and to build also less formal partnerships and collaborations. It has also helped towards examining and improving organizational structures and processes, as well as pedagogical philosophies among educators that shared their materials in an OER form. Another strand in the literature points to informal learning communities forming around open educational resources (Bourbules, 2007; Ala‐Mutka, 2009). Burbules focuses on what he describes as 'self‐educating communities' groups engaged in formal, informal, or non‐formal teaching and learning activities amongst themselves. His primary interest is with online self‐educating communities, using the web as an educational medium. He offers a typology of the kinds of online networks of ‘improvement’ and co‐education. He also discusses the internal practices and norms that allow these networks to act successfully as self‐educating communities, and points to the areas in which these practices produce tensions and contradictions. While tensions between informal environments and given and measured tasks (such as accreditation) need to be recognized, establishing presence in informal spaces helps institutions to get visibility. It also enables institutions to connect with prospective students and self‐learners that have the potential to contribute to developing pedagogical innovations coming from people from within institutions and external communities (Gurley and Lane, 2009). Community, creative participation and collaboration in both formal and informal contexts are central to the effectiveness and sustainability of OER.
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