Open Courses

The OER Hub team has extensive expertise in authoring and developing open online courses. The following courses have all been produced by members of the Hub and represent an ideal personal and staff development suite of courses in understanding different aspects of open practice. These courses are open entry and can be studied at any time

Open Research 

In autumn 2014 the OER Hub launched our facilitated course Open Research in collaboration with Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU). The four week course focused exploring the nature and practice of open research, the ethics of researching in the open, dissemination and reflecting in the open. The course was awarded an Open University RCUK funded Public Engagement with Research Catalyst Engaging Research award in February 2015.

A second iteration of the course ran between September 2015 – October 2015. The course content was repurposed in a face-to-face context during open access week in Mexico and the course has been used by participants from across the world. A stand-alone version of the course which incorporates participant contributions and group activities was published as an open textbook on Pressbooks mid-November 2016.

Becoming an Open Educator 

Becoming an Open Educator is an open badged course developed collaboratively as part of the Scottish Funding Council funded Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project. The course focuses on how free and open might change your approach to learning and teaching and is aimed at educators, administrators and practitioners.  You can read more about the course’s development. The course was formally launched in September 2016 and the lead author was Beck Pitt. In March 2017 the course was awarded an “Honorable Mention” in the Course/OCW/MOOC category of the OE Consortium’s Open Education Awards for Excellence 2017.

The Digital Scholar 

Based on Martin Weller’s 2011 book The Digital Scholar which examines the nature of digital scholarship and what it means for learning and teaching in the 21st century, material was reversioned, updated and released in September 2016 as a BOC (badged open course). You can participate in the eight week course The Digital Scholar on The Open University’s OpenLearn platform.

Learning to (Re)Use Open Educational Resources  

Focused on educator use of open educational resources (OER) and how to find, use and reuse OER, this four week course was developed as part of the ERASMUS + funded ExplOERer project. Learning to Re(Use) Open Educational Resources is available on The Open University’s OpenLearn Works platform. 

The course is also available in English, Swedish and Polish via Peer 2 Peer University’s (P2PU) Course in a Box platform. Learning to (Re)Use… was awarded an OE Consortium Open MOOC Award in April 2016. The course’s lead author was Bea de los Arcos.

Digital Skills, Digital Learning / Learning with MOOC for Professional Development 

Both iterations of this self-paced course, which was co-developed as part of the ERASMUS+ funded BizMOOC project, focused on encouraging learners to appreciate their own skills, how to study effectively with MOOC, develop a critical approach to online learning and develop a range of digital skills and practices. Both Digital Skills, Digital Learning and Learning with MOOC for Professional Development are available on OpenLearn Create.

Both iterations of the course were developed by Bea de los Arcos.

Image credits: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Marcus Quigmire is licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Digital Scholar image via OpenLearn and is licensed CC BY-NC-SA.