Open educational practices (OEP) and open pedagogy are components of open education that move beyond resources to address pedagogical approaches and the relationships between teachers and learners (Cronin, 2017). It entails educational practices and strategies that promote openness, collaboration, and sharing in the creation and dissemination of educational resources and knowledge.

Here are some key aspects of open educational practice:

• Use of open educational resources (OER): OEP often involves the use of OER, which are freely accessible and openly licensed educational materials. These materials can include textbooks, lecture notes, videos, interactive simulations, and more. The open licenses associated with OER typically allow users to adapt, modify, and redistribute the resources, fostering a culture of openness and sharing.
• Collaboration and sharing: OEP encourages educators, students, and institutions to collaborate in the creation, adaptation, and sharing of educational content and practices. This collaborative approach can extend beyond the boundaries of individual classrooms or institutions and may involve global networks of educators and learners.
• Inclusivity: OEP aims to make education more inclusive by reducing barriers to access and participation. By using open resources and technologies, OEP can help address issues related to the high cost of textbooks and course materials, thereby widening access to education for diverse learners.
• Pedagogical innovation: OEP often involves innovative teaching and learning methods that leverage digital technologies and open resources. Educators may explore new ways of engaging students, such as flipped classrooms, online discussions, and collaborative projects.
• Transparency and accountability: OEP emphasizes transparency in educational practices. Educators who engage in OEP may openly share their teaching methods, materials, and assessment strategies, allowing for peer review and continuous improvement.
• Lifelong learning: OEP is not limited to traditional educational settings. It supports lifelong learning by providing resources and opportunities for self-directed learning, professional development, and skill enhancement.
• Global reach: OEP has the potential to reach a global audience. Openly shared resources and practices can benefit learners and educators worldwide, transcending geographic boundaries.
• Legal and ethical considerations: OEP advocates for the ethical and responsible use of open licenses and proper attribution when using and sharing open educational resources.

References

Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 18(5), 15–34. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096 

These are some key practices associated with open education:

1. Use of open educational resources

Use open educational resources for your course material and provide students with the opportunity to engage with resources that are:

• Creative - ask students to create new​ resources or revise/remix existing ​resources
• Authentic - facilitate the creation of learning resources that have value ​beyond a learning opportunity
• Public - invite students to publicly share their new​ or adapted resources
• Renewable - invite students to assign open licenses to their new​ or adapted resources

2. Engagement with students as creators of knowledge, not just consumers

• Textbooks created by students 
• Student curated and edited textbooks 
• Student created ancillary materials for textbooks such as study guides​
• Student created and curated multimedia added textbooks such as blogs, videos, quizzes​
• Wikimedia editing

Examples of students creating course content:

• Engineering students creating an open online textbook
• Forestry students creating open conservation case studies 
• Physics students creating course learning resources 
• Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice students creating, publishing, and sharing zines.  
• Law students publicly analyzing issues and blogging
• Women in STEM Wikipedia Biographies project led by Rebecca Barnes

3. Engagement with students as assessors

Ask students to develop assessments for their peers. The benefits include:

1. Questions slowly improved over the course of the semester
2. The experience of serving as peer reviewers can be useful to students when constructing their own questions
3. Including a students' best questions in exams can motivate students to complete tasks

4. Use of non-disposable assignments

Renewable, or non-disposable, assignments add value to the world beyond one learning experience - they relate to real world contexts.

See the articles below for a further discussion of non-disposable assignments:

• A Conceptual Framework for Non-Disposable Assignments: Inspiring Implementation, Innovation, and Research
• Non-disposable assignments in Intro to Philosophy
• What is Open Pedagogy?

Watch this webinar, hosted by the Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group, which reports on research conducted at three Australian case study sites to map an ecology of open practice, and to explore the values, motivations, and affordances of the university that influence practitioners. You can find more webinars hosted by The Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group on their dedicated YouTube playlist.

Exploring open educational practice in Australia: An ecological perspective (56:34 mins) by OEPSIG is licensed under CC-BY 3.0

There is a vast array of resources for educators wanting to incorporate open educational practices in their teaching.

These are just a small sample of the openly-licensed resources available to educators:

Websites

Webinars, Podcasts and Talks

Blogs

Books

Open Data

Provide students with open data to dismantle, reanalyse, re-graph, and critically analyse.​ Some open data sources include: