Often institutions focus on textbook cost and saving money for students as a reason to invest in open education. Opportunity and access are important missions, and OER help us to meet those missions by focusing on the value of saving students money. This very necessary part of OER initiatives causes many of us to focus on the adoption of OER- because the more adoptions we can pursue the greater cost savings to students. However, OER is about more than saving students money. Open education initiatives should also focus on intrinsic motivations toward education such as interest in classes and high-value learning experiences. Open practices are the key toward moving the institutional conversation beyond savings and adoptions to scaled and sustainable growth of pedagogies that value openness above the access to education. After all, access isn't the true goal of educational institutions; our goal is to graduates who think critically and engage responsibly with our communities and world. Open education should be bigger than saving students money so that they can afford to take more classes. Open education initiatives, at their best, should focus on the rights of open access, open licensing, and open practices to encourage the best learning experiences for a variety of students.
At Pierce College our efforts focus heavily on adoptions, but greater emphasis is being made on open practices that encourage leadership, faculty, and students to focus on the power of openness as a way of practicing education. This presentation will discuss the philosophy of open practices and how to grow them into the opportunity to improve institutional goals through focusing on the core principles of openness and institutional interest in improved student achievement.
