Table 1
A Typology of OEP.
| Category of OEP | Examples | Addresses economic, cultural, political and/or pedagogical issues | Content or Process centric (primary focus) | Teacher- or Learnercentric (primary focus) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OER-enabled teacher-centric | Use, adapt or create OER for teaching. MOOCs on platforms such as EdX, Coursera | Economic and pedagogical; may have cultural or political effects (see Hodgkinson-Williams & Trotter 2018). Teachers may be disempowered if centrally designed by institution staff | Content | Teacher |
| OER-enabled student-centric | Student-created textbooks and OER | Pedagogical and economic; may not necessarily address cultural or political issues unless learners are explicitly asked to include content from marginalized groups or are themselves from such groups | Process which produces content | Learner |
| Renewable or non-disposable assignments: when students produce assignments that have value/use beyond the classroom (e.g, student-created quiz questions, op ed pieces, instructional videos, etc.). | When assignments have value beyond the classroom, often shared as OER | Pedagogical | Process but produces content | Either/both |
| Learner-created assignment/assessments | DS106, students creating quiz questions | Pedagogical mainly | Process | Learner |
| Open syllabus, open teaching process, open courses: this is when a teacher’s syllabus is open publicly for other teachers to view or comment on, but may also entail a syllabus where students are able to comment or modify the contents | Connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs), and open connected courses, e.g. NetNarr, Equity Unbound, DigPINS,CCK08, CLMOOC, rhizo14, rhizo15 | Pedagogical mainly, unless explicit social justice orientation (e.g. Equity Unbound) | Mostly process, although some may include more content (e.g. Equity Unbound) | Either/both |
| Public work/scholarship e.g. blogging (learners and teachers/educators), video creation | Domain of One’s Own (DoOO), NOBA Project Student Video Award | Pedagogical mainly but without necessarily addressing social justice for marginalized populations for whom this may be negative | Process (which eventually produces content) | Either/both |
| Public networking/scholarship (learners and teachers/educators) | Twitter chats, Twitter slow chats and activities, collaborative annotation e.g. Marginal Syllabus, Virtually Connecting, online learning communities in general | Pedagogical mainly unless has an explicit social justice approach such as Marginal Syllabus and Virtually Connecting. The latter two address economic, cultural and political dimensions of social justice | Process | Either/both |
| Collaborative knowledge creation | Wikipedia editing (see Univ. Edinburgh Wikimedian in Residence Project resources, 500 Women Scientists, crowdsourced syllabi | Mainly pedagogical but topics can be intended to redress injustice (e.g. feminist edit-a-thons of Wikipedia; crowdsourced Black Lives Matter syllabus) | Content & process because the process of editing and collaboration is often emphasized rather than just the product. | Learner |
Table 2
Considering Process-focused OEP from a Social Justice Perspective.
| OEP | Contexts for which it may be neutral or negative | Contexts for which it may be ameliorative | Contexts for which it may be transformative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student-created OER/content | Negative if content available publicly or openly is dominated by one perspective Negative if exploiting student labor Neutral if highly structured and teacher-directed Negative if without student agency | Ameliorative if content created or adapted to increase representation of diverse identities and marginalized groups | Transformative if marginalized students have power of decision-making over content, process and epistemological frameworks |
| Renewable assignments (e.g. student-created quiz questions, op ed pieces, instructional videos, etc.); may co-occur with student-created OER/content | Negative if without student agency, if teacher-centric instructions, and/or if reproduces hegemonic knowledge Negative if students are coerced into leaving this digital footprint, or if at-risk students put at further risk by working openly Negative if students not appropriately informed on how to engage in open practice and its risks | Ameliorative if introduces previously scarce cultural knowledge (with appropriate permission) into open spaces | Transformative if students from marginalized groups fully involved in decision-making of what and how this will happen |
| Open syllabus (challenges student-teacher hierarchy) | Negative/neutral if only students from dominant cultural backgrounds participate in modifying the syllabus | Ameliorative if students’ changes are their own choices, but not necessarily challenging hierarchy or promoting justice | Transformative if challenges power in classroom not just between teacher and students, but among students of different backgrounds, such that students of marginalized backgrounds are able to make decisions and modifications |
| Content-centric MOOCs (e.g. those on most MOOC platforms) Connectivist, process-centric MOOCs (e.g. CLMOOC, rhizo14, rhizo15 and original cMOOCs CCK08 & CCK11) Open connected courses (e.g. Equity Unbound, NetNarr, DigPINS) | Negative for those without minimal digital literacies and internet access, or for those who do not speak English (language of the majority of MOOCs) Neutral for privileged groups who receive additional learning for free | Economic ameliorative value for those who cannot access this kind of learning but have good infrastructure Cultural ameliorative value when content is OER and can be adapted or translated | Transformative when marginalized groups design the content and processes |
| Public scholarship by students (e.g. Domain of One’s Own) | Negative for those without minimal digital literacies and internet access Negative for people who cannot afford to pay for domain after graduation Negative for those whose public online presence can make them more vulnerable (e.g. political surveillance, personal safety, witness protection) Negative if students are coerced into leaving this digital footprint | Ameliorative if website owner has some control over what they place online vs if using proprietary software (also control over their data) Ameliorative for groups whose knowledge is often not found online and public scholarship gives them voice | Transformative if marginalized groups make decisions on how, what and where, and challenge the hegemony of what counts as academic knowledge |
| Public scholarship by/for educators (e.g. blogging, tweeting, Open Faculty Patchbook, Open Pedagogy Notebook) | Negative without minimal digital literacies and internet access, and more difficult before communities are formed Neutral if blogging or tweeting without being part of a supportive community | Ameliorative by addressing economic injustice and making scholarship generally accessible to populations who would not be able to afford them otherwise | Transformative by challenging structural academic gatekeeping in more traditional scholarly venues which may prevent certain scholars or ideas from getting published (discipline context is important here) – additional considerations: may delay publication if urgent work, does not provide avenues for interaction among scholars |
| Virtually Connecting | Neutral for people who are shy or don’t have bandwidth to join conversations (but can watch and benefit later) Negative for people who do not have internet access at all Neutral for people for whom synchronicity won’t work (Note: neutral because time zones differ so it’s not always a disadvantage and sessions will almost always work for two broad time zones) | Ameliorative when non-dominant groups participate in sessions in silent ways (so continue to listen to dominant) Ameliorative when conversations repeat the conference’s main line of thinking without challenging it Ameliorative when dominant voices are amplified and other participants don’t get room to speak or challenge Ameliorative as it reduces carbon footprint for some who are able to learn at conferences with less travel | Transformative when non-dominant virtual participants (e.g. Global South, POC, contingent academics) participate in the conversation as equal partners (especially if this later gets mentioned in the conference offline) Transformative when conversations center marginal voices or challenge the dominant discourse, and especially when decision-making is done by marginalized groups. |
| Wikipedia editing | Negative if insufficiently prepared learners are exposed to edit wars and online abuse | Ameliorative if content is created or adapted to increase representation of diverse identities and marginalized groups | Transformative if more representation in leadership (not just content) and if epistemology is challenged, i.e. what counts as credible sources? |
| Collaborative annotation (e.g. Marginal Syllabus) | Neutral if annotating dominant canonical texts, and those annotating are privileged groups Negative if it opens room for abuse or harassment of authors when annotating their texts, or abuse in comments around texts | Ameliorative if content chosen with a social justice intent or represents a variety of perspectives including marginalized groups and/or in different languages Economically ameliorative as it provides a free way to participate in global academic conversations using low-bandwidth, asynchronous technology | Transformative if decision-making over which texts to annotate and process of annotation comes from or involves marginalized groups |