Welcome to Introduction to Open Education! Openness is a growing trend in all aspects of society, impacting software development, government, research, and teaching and learning. The trend is not without periodic setbacks, but overall, openness is reshaping how we connect and how we create as individuals and as a society.
This course provides an overview to how openness is impacting education. Open culture is participatory. For example, open source software is developed by both experts and novices, by programmers and users. To this end, we encourage you to view this course as an invitation. We have curated readings and created videos. What matters most, however, is your participation. Our vision of learning is one that is social and participative. Content that we provide is a starting point for you to create and connect with others in this course. If there are voices or resources missing, we encourage you to add them. Your participation can happen wherever you’re most comfortable: Twitter, your blog, or edX discussion forums.
There are no pre-requisites for this course. You should expect to spend about 3 to 5 hours each week working on this course.
Course Activities
To get started, we encourage you to participate in the following regular activities:
- Each week, we encourage you to create content. Blog posts, images, memes, videos, animated gifs - whatever. These artifacts will be in response to weekly readings and weekly content.
- Ongoing discussion: Each week, we’ll have ongoing discussion in edX forums, blog, social media (using the hashtag #OpenEdMOOC).
- Metacognitive reflection on processes. Mid-course, we ask you to engage in OER evangelism on your campus. Share your experiences in a reflective journal or reaction video.
- In week 5, we turn our attention to research. Specifically, what research does not yet exist that you need in order to achieve your open education evangelism goals?
- Toward the end of the course, we ask you to create an OER module - about 1 hour in length - incorporating exclusively open education resources. The modules can be on a topic of your interest and should include video, text, images, and suggested interactions for learners. Share this module with others in the course.
New to EdX?
If you are new to the Edx platform, please take some time to go through the DemoX Course to become familiar with the EdX system. To get started with the course at any time, click on the "Course" tab at the top of the page.
Share Your Blog
All course participants are welcome to add their work to the course Learner Activity Hub. To have your work added, it first must be shared in a public blog. Then fill out the form on this page to have your blog added to the Learner Activity Hub. You can use either a blog dedicated solely to this course, or use an existing blog and create either a category or tag with the name “OpenEdMOOC” (you might want to start off with a test blog post using that tag or category before filling out this form).
Meet the Instructors
If you have done so already, you can begin the course and meet the instructors by watching this video (also available in Week 1):
Instructor and TA Roles
This course will utilize several teacher's assistants (TAs) to monitor the forums and twitter hashtag. They will try to respond to concerns and questions as they can. Due to the large number of participants enrolled, they may not be able to get to each question immediately. Please be patient and also see if other participants might be able to help. The TAs will bring all issues that the instructors need to know to their attention. The instructors will also participate in the forums and Twitter discussion as they can.
Getting Started
To get help with the course, click the Discussion tab and post a question to the Help forum. To get help with a technical problem, click Help to send a message to edX Student Support.
Be sure to introduce yourself in the Introductions forum in Week 1.
Grading Policy
For learners that signed up to receive the official course certificate, you will need to complete all course activities in order to earn the certificate. This will involve:
- Completing and sharing each weekly course activity (create content and share)
6 weekly activities at 5% each, for 36% of the total grade - Complete the Engage in OER Evangelism activity and share your experience
32% of the total grade - Create and share an OER Module
32% of the total grade
Rubrics for the first three are attached to the assignment for each one. You must submit the artifact you want graded to the official grading area in each unit in order to receive a grade - even if you also chose to share those on your blog, twitter, or discussion forum. Please note that a link to your blog post will work fine for submissions.
For the participation grade, you will receive full credit if you respond substantially to at least two other participants on either their blog, the discussion forum, or Twitter. Less than two responses, or extremely short responses, will result in a loss of points on your participation grade.
All assignments to be graded are due on Sunday at 11:00 PM UTC the week that they are assigned:
- Week 1 Assignments: Sunday, October 8, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
- Week 2 Assignments: Sunday, October 15, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
- Week 3 Assignments: Sunday, October 22, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
- Week 4 Assignments: Sunday, October 29, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
- Week 5 Assignments: Sunday, November 5, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
- Week 6 Assignments: Sunday, November 12, 2017 @ 11:00 PM UTC.
If you are seeking certification, you will need to score a grade of 70% of more to pass this course and receive a certificate.
Academic Policy
As this is a course on open education, you will be using content created and shared by others. You will be expected to give credit when ever you do so, even if using anonymous resources. However, you will still be expected to perform your own original work around these OER resources. Feel free to be inspired by other participants and resources, but make sure that you are doing your own work if you are working towards a certificate. Any direct copying, plagiarism, or cheating of any kind on any assignments is subject to an automatic "0" in the course, for those that are seeking certificates.
Discussion Forum Etiquette / Code of Conduct
All OpenEdMOOC participants are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Instructors and participants will enforce this code throughout the course. We are expecting cooperation from all participants to help ensuring a safe environment for everybody.
Our course is dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, or religion (or lack thereof). We do not tolerate harassment of participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any venue, including discussion boards, blogs, Twitter and other online media. Course participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the course at the discretion of the instructors.
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the instructors or other participants may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the course.
If you are being harassed yourself, or notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact an instructor or TA immediately.
Instructors will be happy to help participants assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the course. We value your participation.