Open Educational Practices

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are activities wherein students and/or teachers engage in open collaboration outside a traditional classroom. This typically means engaging in commons-based peer production, using collaborative Internet sites (such as wikis, blogs, photo sharing sites).

The en:Cape Town Open Education Declaration of 2007 discusses OEP:

1. Educators and learners: First, we encourage educators and learners to actively participate in the emerging open education movement. Participating includes: creating, using, adapting and improving open educational resources; embracing educational practices built around collaboration, discovery and the creation of knowledge; and inviting peers and colleagues to get involved. Creating and using open resources should be considered integral to education and should be supported and rewarded accordingly.

Examples of OEP

• The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, a 2010–11 project that guided students and professors in writing articles in Wikipedia.
• AVO (Open Networks for Learning), a Finnish national project using Wikibooks and Wikiversity.

Further reading

• Composing free and open online educational resources (Wikiversity)
• Center for Open Learning and Teaching (COLT)'s page on Open Educational Practices
• User generated content: a new way to mix the role of teacher and student
• OPAL report: Shifting focus to Open Educational Practices