Serving Social Justice and Pedagogical Innovation Through Open Educational Practices

This March 30, 2017 presentation by Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani was sponsored by the KU Libraries' Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright. Dr. Jhangiani is the University Teaching Fellow in Open Studies and a Psychology Instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Jhangiani serves as the Senior Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellow with BCcampus, an Associate Editor of Psychology Learning and Teaching, and a faculty workshop facilitator with the Open Textbook Network. You can find him online at @thatpsychprof or thatpsychprof.comHigher education promises to be a vehicle for economic and social mobility; however, this promise increasingly goes begging as our institutions are often structured to reinforce existing social inequalities. Open Educational Practices (OEP) encompass both the creation, adaptation, and adoption of open educational resources (OER) as well as the design of renewable assignments where students are empowered as co-creators of knowledge. More broadly, OEP embrace a collaborative, transparent, flexible, and learner-centered approach to education. This presentation will make a case for why the shift away from traditional (closed) practices is not only desirable but inevitable, and how OEP support the modern university’s mission by serving both social justice and pedagogical innovation.