From 6-10 March, UTS hosted a suite of events for Open Education Week – a global celebration of the open education movement, promoting the benefits of open educational resources, open pedagogy and open policies. Embedding open education practices in learning and teaching can greatly aid UTS in increasing access, improving the quality of the learning experience, fostering collaboration, and promoting socially-just education. This is in line with the UTS 2027 strategy, where open education can contributes to lifetime of learning, personal learning experience, new ways of working, UTS’s international profile, and social change.
Our Day 1 panel discussion session featured Professor Kylie Readman (Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President, Education and Students), Professor Jill McKeough (Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Law) and Sally Scholfield (Director of Scholarly Services, UTS Library, who graciously shared their insights about open education.
I started the session by pointing to evidence from the literature about the impact of open education on institutional priorities. Students in a course using an open textbook are more likely to do better and less likely to withdraw (Clinton & Khan, 2019; Grewe & Davis, 2017). OER adoption supports access and affordability (e.g. some studies reported saving students an average of more than $116 per course) (Nyamweya, 2018).
Examining the cost and ethics of open education for equitable student success
Kylie discussed the dynamic nature of open education and how it is subject to both slow and rapid changes. Essentially, some aspects of open education take longer to adapt to new trends and advancements, while others quickly integrate new technologies and ideas.
Kylie also acknowledged the change of government’s position towards open education and its important role in advancing knowledge across borders. The Knowledge Equity Network’s is calling for universities to commit to providing at least 75% of published educational materials for free by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for quality and equitable education. This call emphasises the increasing importance of open education as a tool for promoting social justice and equity, as it seeks to make education more accessible and affordable to individuals from all backgrounds.
Despite the benefits of open education, Kylie raised important questions about the technical demands and the infrastructure costs, stating that the goal of open education is to increase access and lower costs for students.
One of the questions that universities might ask is, who is bearing the cost of managing the infrastructure? And the moral question, are we a university committed to social justice and equity, and inclusion? Are we a university that values knowledge, equity? Are we a university that wants our researchers to be able to share their knowledge gain through research, endeavor with the world in a way that increases that equity?
Kylie Readman
These questions show the barriers universities face in sharing knowledge and solutions that enable knowledge producers to have a direct impact on equitable education. At UTS, Kylie stressed the approach to social justice and inclusion supports open education, and the potential for a new ‘student success framework’ to support the integration of open educational practices in learning and teaching.
Open license is the way to protect content and rights
Sally shared updates on the UTS Open Access policy. When first developed, the policy focused on research outputs, particularly journal articles, and was updated last year to include open education and OERs.
Sally highlighted benefits including increased access, equity, and the ability to customise course material. She mentioned that a project group at the UTS Library is currently addressing uncertainties and questions that have arisen since the policy’s introduction.
Around the issues of copyright and intellectual property, Sally called for understanding the restrictions and using open content whenever possible.
Open access has the potential for thousands of downloads and an immediate and intimate digital connection with readers and scholars around the world. But, authors would also need to consider, do they want to publish through the traditional model with a publisher who may or may not share the author’s vision, and may be more interested in accessing the copyrights and making a profit through various reuse and sub-licensing of their work.
Sally Scholfield
She advocated that authors of educational materials use Creative Commons licenses to protect their content and rights, while also emphasising the need to ensure that authors own copyright in all material they make available.
Sally shared that her colleague, an expert in Sanskrit studies, made his textbook available through open access, and it received an impressive 78,000 downloads. In comparison, his previous two print textbooks, which were published by Oxford University Press, sold only 300 and 150 copies, respectively. This example highlights the potential impact of open access and the benefits it can bring to both the creators of educational materials and those who use them.
A harmonised approach to open access and the need for technology to support it
Jill discussed her team’s research on Australian universities’ policies around intellectual property and open access, as well as licensing fees and the legalities of academics’ contracts and employment. The research team called for a harmonised approach to open access, while acknowledging the need for supportive technology.
Open access requires not just policies, but also requires suitable technology to create and maintain the materials and [the research we have done] indicates that current infrastructure does not always cope with the demands that have been put on it.
Jill McKeough
Jill noted that Copyright Agency and Universities Australia have agreed on copyright fees until 2026, ending a long-running dispute. The agreement brings budgeting certainty for both universities and content creators whose content is copied and shared by universities under the education statutory licensing scheme. Appropriate policies are a paramount matter – and as Jill commented, they ensure that academic and scholarly work can be used to facilitate practices. UTS is on the front foot with good policies which will facilitate open educational practices.
Jill took us through an international view of copyright and open access policies where universities and governments cooperate to manage IP and make materials available to students at no cost. The Copyright briefing paper on the Hargreaves exceptions and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) both show positive actions for promoting open education.
Jill’s insights demonstrate the ongoing importance of this area of research. Her team’s work on harmonising policies and the legal aspects of IP ownership highlights the need for greater clarity and consistency in these policies across universities. By addressing these issues and promoting open access, universities can facilitate greater access to knowledge and contribute to the advancement of scholarship.
Watch the video
Feature image by opensourceway, CC BY-SA 2.0.