Is UniPR ready for Open Education and… MOOP?

Abstract

Open education, fostered by developments in ICT over the last three decades, is recognized to be a potentially transforming factor, but has not led to the expected deep revolution in teaching practices in many Universities. In spite of Open Educational Resources (OER) being available online, and of the Massive Open Online Courses phenomenon currently receiving a great deal of attention, not much evidence is available, in academic institutions in Italy, of investigation into the perceptions of those, the teachers, who could transform opportunities into practice. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ perceptions about their readiness, in a pedagogical and technological perspective, to open up education by OER, adopting Open Educational Practices and teaching in MOOCs, in a view to enhancing students’ learning, and about them having the necessary competences. The research consists in a qualitative case study conducted at the Research Centre UniPR Co-Lab of the University of Parma; data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documents analysis, and constant comparative analysis was employed. Four main categories matching the research objectives were identified and discussed: open approach — rather than open content for learning enhancement; readiness gap to open up education in a pedagogical and technological perspective; teacher’s strategy and perceived role in relation to learning enhancement by open approaches; perceived challenges and opportunities to foster open approaches. The research shows that open practices by OER and MOOCs are not realized: in spite of teachers showing a potentially open approach to learning, knowledge and competence gaps are perceived under the technological and most of all the pedagogical points of view, together with specific needs for strategies and for a re-designed support. The study offers methodological implications and recommendations for an integrated way to face the readiness gap and raises new questions as a starting point for further research.