Discovering 'openness' at UQ

Staff and students at The University of Queensland are being given the opportunity to have their say on ‘openness’, through the UQ Open Scholarship (OS) survey being launched this week.

UQ is one of the first in Australia to address the idea of ‘openness’ or ‘open learning’, which is when teaching and learning content is displayed more broadly both within and outside the university.

Leading tertiary education providers in the US and the UK are generating the discussion around open access to university materials with Harvard, Tufts and the British Open University converting to an ‘Open CourseWare’ (OCW) model.

Over 200 universities around the world, including less well-funded institutions such as the African Virtual University, have adopted this open-learning model.

The UQ campus-wide research is designed to investigate ‘openness’ at the University and gain an understanding of staff and students’ beliefs and attitudes towards an "Open UQ".

UQ’s Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology (CEIT), in partnership with the Teaching and Educational Development Institute (TEDI) and the Library, will begin conducting interviews, group sessions, discussions and surveys with members of the University over the coming weeks.

CEIT researcher Professor Roland Sussex said the initiative would allow staff and students to decide how they wish to position their work in relation to open and non-open practice.

“These issues have only recently become more visible in Australia,” he said.

“In a context where universities are looking to their commercial position, OS can appear a problematic approach.

“However, we hope to explore, with members of UQ, how the two may profitably co-exist.”

Overall, the research team expects to sample a total of 6000 individuals over three weeks.

“Survey data are being collected over from a wide sample of UQ’s population and interviews are being held to develop richer pictures of the present, the possible future, of ‘openness’ at UQ,” Professor Sussex said.

“The result will be reports and discussion documents, which will be distributed around the university for discussion and policy exploration,” he said.

"Open UQ" has the support from the Vice-Chancellor, and is funded through the office of Professor Debbie Terry, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic).

Professor Terry said the OS research proposal would present an overview of a new and timely initiative for UQ.

“UQ has already established a commitment to 'openness' by placing some teaching and learning content on iTunes,” she said.

“However, through this investigation we aim to uncover more about the realities and opportunities of OS and take a leadership role in opening this issue to public discussion.”

More information is available at the CEIT website (http://ceit.uq.edu.au/).

Media: Roly Sussex (3365 1624 or sussex@uq.edu.au) or Caroline Bird (UQ Communications; 07 3365 1931 or c.bird1@uq.edu.au)