Open fishbowl

Tamara Heck
University of Southern Queensland
@tamaraheck

Neil Martin
University of Southern Queensland

Adrian Stagg
University of Southern Queensland
@OpenKuroko

Catherine Wattiaux
University of Southern Queensland

Amelia Dowe
University of Southern Queensland

Catch this session

Tuesday 5 December, 3.45pm – 4.45pm
Stream 3
Room L206

In this session, the facilitators will be using sli.do. The event code is: OEP17

Abstract

Whilst 2017 is internationally celebrated as the Year of Open, the fishbowl discussion aims at critically discuss the current state of the art of openness in higher education. We concede that open educational practice, including for example the use, creation and sharing of open educational resources, is neither widely understood, nor widely engaged within Australia. Reasons are that research is mostly focusing on open educational resources, not on overall practices. The latter includes investigations in practical issues applying open practices. As holistic solutions have yet to mature – regarding for example staff development, organisational policy and commitment, as well as business models – the community is still reluctant in engaging in open practices.

Our core questions we want to discuss with the audience are:

1. What does an Australian higher education sector that embraces OEP look like? and
2. What are the key factors that act as barriers to widespread adoption of open educational practices in Australia?

We refer to five major barriers that we think hinder and partly lock off the success of openness in higher education, which are lack of recognition in policies, value proposition, institutional prestige, competitiveness as well as guidelines. The open fishbowl concept aims at discussing those barriers together with the audience, but as well allows participants to come up with their own opinions and perceptions about current openness processes and developments.

About the authors

Tamara Heck

Tamara Heck is a research fellow working in the Digital Life Lab at the University of Southern Queensland. She is currently researching openness in science and education. One of her recent studies conducted with an inter-disciplinary team involved a survey on open science in higher education and asked over 200 participants on their open teaching and learning practices as well as on their usage of open collaborative tools. Further research investigates in questions on how researchers and academics perceive open practices in their work, how openness impacts research outputs and how it influences research impacts.

Neil Martin

Neil Martin is the Senior Digital Innovator in the Digital Life Lab at the University of Southern Queensland. His doctoral thesis based in psychology, examined the optimal design of open online courses using motivational principles articulated in self-determination theory. He has nearly 20 years of experience working in higher education in Australia and the UK and has held roles as a web developer, web services manager, and learning technologist. His current research interests examine how digital technology can support wellbeing and flourishing from a positive psychology perspective.

Adrian Stagg

Adrian Stagg is currently the Manager (Open Educational Practice) for the University of Southern Queensland. His career has included over 14 years in both public and academic libraries, as well as positions as a Learning Technologist and eLearning Designer. Adrian holds a Master of Applied Science (Library and Information Management). His interest in Open Educational Practice has prompted the commencement of a PhD at the University of Tasmania focusing on the practitioner experience in the reuse of Open Educational Resources. His research areas include the ecology of open educational practice and higher education policy as it relates to and supports, open educational initiatives.

Catherine Wattiaux

Catherine Wattiaux is the Manager of the Library copyright services at the University of Southern Queensland. She has 17 years in academic and scholarly libraries and R&D services. Since her initial thesis on Selective Dissemination of Information, she has developed an interest in knowledge management, data management, and open access datasets. Her work in copyright has led her to increase her knowledge in Open Educational Resources and current scholarly publishing practices. Her research area is in the identification and use of Open Educational Resources for higher education as well as the data management of above mentioned resources.

Amelia Dowe

Amelia Dowe is the Learning Advisor for Engineering, Built Environment and IT disciplines at USQ. She is currently involved in an Open Educational Practice grant to develop an online program to support students on the Autism Spectrum as they transition to University. With an academic background in Applied Linguistics and Disability, her research interests focus on equity and diversity in Higher Education.