Shinta Hernandez

Question #5: What do you think is the biggest benefit of Open Education and what do you think is missing?

The largest benefit of Open Education is the communities of practice that have been established nationally and worldwide. We have organizations such as the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER). We have the Open Educational Global Consortium (OEGlobal). We also have Achieving the Dream (ATD) and there are plenty more out there. Really all of these organizations are wholly committed to advancing Open Education and can provide the resources or the networking that I think is needed to help all of us progress in this space. If institutions, for instance, need support or if individual faculty or staff members need support, they can turn to these institutions or organizations for guidance on how to effectively and efficiently incorporate Open Education into their everyday work lives.

But what I believe is missing in Open Education or where I believe we can still improve is we can develop more accurate assessments. Because Open Education is a very broad framework and there are so many components to Open Education, I think it can prove a bit challenging to assess the magnitude of the impact of Open Education or Open Pedagogy or even individual Open Educational Resources. When we assess or measure impact we can ask: is student success truly a function of the affordability and accessibility of OER or is it more of a function of the inclusive component of Open Education or can student success be attributed to another element of Open Education. There are just so many questions out there and that’s what makes assessments challenging but that’s where I believe we need to further engage.