Openness in teaching and learning provides all learners with equitable opportunities for continuous learning. The key advantage of open educational resources is that they remain available throughout the learning process, thereby supporting deep learning. When educational resources are openly shared online, they can be collaboratively developed and further improved.
At Tampere Universities, we take a holistic approach to open education to support pedagogical development, promote accessibility and foster collaboration across learning communities.
Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are digital teaching, learning and research materials designed for educational purposes. OER are either freely accessible to all or made available under an open licence, which grants users permission not only to access the resources at no cost but also to use, adapt and redistribute them. OER comprise a wide range of materials, including courses, videos, books, articles and sets of assignments, and they can exist in any format and on any medium.
Open Educational Practices
Openness in teaching and learning extends beyond the use of open educational resources to include the sharing of educational practices. Open Educational Practices (OEP) make learning and teaching transparent, shareable and adaptable. In addition to educational resources, it is possible to share the process of selecting course content as well as, curricula, lesson plans, coursework, assessment matrices and expected learning outcomes. In open education, pedagogy plays a central role. A key principle guiding both the design of teaching and the assessment of student learning is constructive alignment, which means that all the components of teaching are aligned to support deep learning. OEP also enable co-development among different experts.
Why choose open education?
Open learning and teaching promote educational equity, accessibility and lifelong learning by providing everyone with the opportunity to learn, regardless of time, place or background. For teaching staff, openness offers practical ways to develop teaching, share pedagogically sound practices and reduce the duplication of effort through the use of open educational resources and open educational practices. From the perspective of Tampere Universities, open learning increases the visibility and impact of teaching, promotes collaboration, and supports responsible and sustainable practices within the framework of open science. Openness goes beyond learning materials and represents a broader approach to thinking, working and the collaborative development of teaching.
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Find out more about Open Educational Resources and Open Educational Practices as well as the reasons for promoting open education and developing open educational resources. The page Why choose open education? features inspiring examples of open education and OER.