OE Global 2018

The presentation will discuss the concept of openness as a possibility to transform standard educational practices in higher education towards Open Educational Practices. The authors see the transformation of classroom teaching towards Open Educational Practices (OEP) as a challenge that can be addressed by raising awareness towards openness of all participants within teaching and learning settings in the formal context of higher education. We argue that the implementation and promotion of Open Educational Practices within higher education necessitates a debate that goes beyond a perceived current focus on learning materials (the production of OER) alone. A change of traditional role-relationships between teachers and learners and the emergence of an open learning culture, as a crucial element of this altered relationship, to us appears to be necessary so as to realise the idea of openness and OEP in formal learning contexts. First, we want to address this transformative process with its chances and challenges via a brief introduction of our understanding of open education and OEPs in higher education. Second, we want to introduce a current example of emerging open practices taken from the German context of Hamburg Open Online University (HOOU), a collaborative project of Hamburg’s six public HEIs, as well as the Ministry of Science, Research and Equality and the Multimedia Kontor Hamburg (MMKH). As a conclusion, we then provide an outlook on further steps that ought to be taken to encourage teachers and learners in higher education towards an implementation of open Education.