Plenary Speech at RESCON 2023, PGIS, University of Peradeniya, 04.11.2023

1. OPEN SCIENCE:
The Next Frontier in
Opening up Educational Practices
Shironica P. Karunanayaka
Senior Professor in Educational Technology
The Open University of Sri Lanka

2. Overview
• Openness in Education
• Open Educational Practices
• Open Science
• Sharing OEP Initiatives
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3. Openness in Education…
…may be viewed through many lenses in terms of
ensuring accessibility, equity, and inclusivity in
educational opportunities for everyone.
Value Principle:
“Education is a Common Good.”
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4. Open
Education
OER
OEP
OPENNESS IN EDUCATION
Open
Data
Open
Licensing
Open
Science
Open-
Source
Software
Open
Pedagogy
Open
Access
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5. Open Educational Resources (OER)
➢ Through open licensing, OER enable free and
open access, reuse, re-purpose, redistribution,
and adaptation of resources to address different
contextual and learning needs.
➢ OER empower teachers and learners to become
more creative, innovative, and collaborative in
their educational practices.
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6. Open Educational Practices (OEP)
➢ OEP fundamentally relates to the application of
open practices in teaching, learning, and research.
➢ It comprise collaborative practices that include the
creation and sharing of OER, as well as participatory
pedagogical practices that encourage interaction
and co-creation of knowledge.
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7. Open Science
➢ ‘Open Science’ has emerged extending
the principles of openness to the
scientific process.
➢ It involves various movements aiming to
remove the barriers for sharing outputs,
resources, methods, or tools, at any
stage of the research process.
➢ It is about making science more
accessible, inclusive and equitable for
the benefit of all.
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Illustration: Lotta W Tomasson/VA CC BY-NC 2.0
https://v-a.se/eng/our-areas-of-interest/open-science/

8. Open Science is… (UNESCO Definition - 2021)
…an inclusive construct,
• that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual
scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone,
• to increase scientific collaborations and sharing of information for the benefits
of science and society, and
• to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and
communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.
It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly practices, including
basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences and the humanities.
https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science
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9. Open Science – Pillars
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By UNESCO.org CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130456946
Open Science builds on the
following key pillars:
▪ open scientific knowledge
▪ open science infrastructures,
science communication
▪ Open engagement of
societal actors
▪ open dialogue with other
knowledge systems
https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science

10. Open Science – Core Values & Guiding Principles
Core Values
• Quality and integrity
• Collective benefit
• Equity and fairness
• Diversity and
inclusiveness
Guiding Principles
• Transparency, scrutiny, critique and reproducibility
• Equality of opportunities
• Responsibility, respect and accountability
• Collaboration, participation and inclusion
• Flexibility
• Sustainability
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https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science

11. UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science
Areas for Action:
✓ Promoting a common understanding of open science and its benefits and
challenges, as well as diverse paths to open science
✓ Developing and enabling a policy environment for open science
✓ Investing in open science infrastructures and services
✓ Investing in human resources, training, education, digital literacy and capacity
building
✓ Fostering a culture of open science and aligning incentives
✓ Promoting innovative approaches for open science across the scientific process
✓ Promoting cooperation in the context of open science to reduce digital,
technological, and knowledge gaps
https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science
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12. Opening up Educational Practices
via Open Science
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➢ The rationale behind open science is that scientific knowledge is
a product of social collaboration, and its ownership belongs to
the community.
➢ The idea that scientific outputs generated by public research are
a public good that everyone should be able to use freely and
openly, is aligned with the core value principle of openness in
education: “Education is a common good.”

13. ➢ Implementing OEP in such a way to promote a culture of
collaborative practices essentially requires a ‘change’ in
practitioners’ mindsets towards a more open, participatory,
creative, and sharing culture.
➢ Enacting shifts in practitioners’ mindsets and actions towards
creative, innovative, and scholarly practices of openness can be
realized through systematic design, development, and
implementation of meaningful capacity development
interventions involving innovative pedagogical designs and
advancing digital technologies.
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14. OEP Initiatives @ OUSL
Our experiences in implementing capacity building interventions to
enhance shifting mindsets of practitioners towards OEP:
2012/2013: OER for Science Education (OUSL)
2013/2014: Integration of ICT and OER into Teacher Education Programmes (COL)
2014/2015: OER-based eLearning (CEMCA)
2015/2017: Impacts of Integrating OER in Teacher Education (ROER4D)
2017/2019: CPDMOOCs on the Adoption of OER and OEP (CEMCA)
2019/2022: C-DELTA – Digital Education Practices (COL)
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15. OER FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION
OER
- School Teachers (Science) -
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16. INTEGRATION OF ICT AND OER INTO TEACHER EDUCATION
First OER Book (2014)
OER
- Faculty of Education -
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17. OER-BASED E-LEARNING
OER
- All Faculties of OUSL -
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18. IMPACT STUDY ON INTEGRATION
OF OER IN TEACHER EDUCATION
http://roer4d.org/sp10-6
Second OER Book (2016)
OEP
- School Teachers -
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19. CPD MOOCS ON OER & OEP
Scenario-based videos
First MOOCs at OUSL (2017)
UOW Seminar - Shironica P. Karunanayaka - 04.10.2023 19
OEP
- International Participants -

20. Digital Education Practices
- School Teachers -
C-DELTA
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21. FROM OER TO OEP
• Integrating OER into Educational Practice
• OER-based eLearning
OEP
• OER Policy
• Enacting “Change”
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22. ▪ Questionnaires
▪ Concept maps
▪ Observations
▪ Focus groups
▪ Self-reflections
Analysing
current thinking
and practices of
practitioners
Designing
experiences to
enhance
adoption of OER
and OEP
Practitioners’ and
researchers’
reflections to
enhance solution
implementation
Iterative cycles
of capacity
development,
monitoring and
reviewing
Analysis Design Solutions Testing & Refinement Reflection
▪ Reflective stories
▪ Weblogs
▪ Research
publications
▪ An Intervention
▪ Interactive
workshops
▪ Online
environment
▪ Capacity
development
▪ Data collection
▪ Reviewing &
evaluation
DBR
DESIGN-BASED RESEARCH (DBR) APPROACH
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23. KEY OUTPUTS – EDITED BOOKS (OER)
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24. KEY OUTPUTS - WEBLOGS
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25. OEP
Sharing…
https://oepousl.wordpress.com/
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26. THANK YOU!
https://shironicakarunanayaka.wordpress.com/
"The future is open" by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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