Open educational practices

Open educational practices (OEP) is the use of Open educational Resources for teaching and learning in order to innovate the learning process (Ehlers 2010). They are represented in teaching techniques that draw upon open technologies and high-quality open educational resources (OER) in order to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning. They may involve students participating in online, peer production communities within activities intended to support learning or more broadly, any context where access to educational opportunity through freely available online content and services is the norm. Such activities may include (but are not limited to ), the creation, use and repurposing of open educational resources and their adaptation to the contextual setting. OEP can also include the open sharing of teaching practices and aim 'to raise the quality of education and training and innovate educational practices on an institutional, professional and individual level'. The OEP community includes policy makers, managers/ administrators of organisations, educational professionals and learners. OEP are also viewed as the next phase in OER development that continues to transform 21st century learning and learners.A database or repository of open educational resources is not open educational practice (Ehlers 2011). OER have a lifecycle of creation, use, and management. Open educational practices aim to take the focus beyond building further access to OER and consider how in practice, such resources support education and promote quality and innovation in teaching and learning. They focus on reproduction/understanding, connecting information, application, competence and responsibility rather than the availability of good resources.topicscategorieselementsAdopting OEP can lead to opportunities for collaborative learning through the affordances of Web 2.0 tools. In this context, open also refers to the learning environment where learner's set their own objectives rather than being restricted by those set externally (a closed environment).The Open Educational Quality (OPAL) Initiative define Open Educational Practices (OEP) as 'the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to raise the quality of education and training and innovate educational practices on institutional, professional and individual level'.There are many challenges to the adoption of open educational practices. Certain aspects like technology have received greater attention than others but all of the factors below inhibit widespread use of open educational practices: In search for the Open Educator: Proposal of a definition and a framework to increase Openness adoption among university educators.