A reflection to capture a few brief thoughts & snapshots of lived experiences dancing with open educational practices as a researcher and teacher educator.
From the time I started my own doctoral journey in 1995, a great deal of my research and teaching has taken place in the open, for anybody with an internet connection to see. Sharing my own work openly and my open education pedagogy with students reflects a deeply held commitment to knowledge building in community and democratizing knowledge. Researching, teaching and academic publishing in the open has also reflected my commitment to the horizon and disrupting the status quo, interrogating practices that are past their best by date, and ensuring that the underrepresented in the academy - in this case, a female, then mother in EdTech, were more visible and their voices heard.
As a doctoral student, a professor in computer science invited us to publish all of our coursework on a website. One course based task was to go to 12 public events during the term, and write a short review of that event and what we learned from the speaker or the workshop. My supervisor engaged me in his internet research project, which, among other methods involved an online survey. I carried that method forward into my doctoral research, and used an online survey with faculty on how they were adopting technology for teaching, research and administrative tasks. Engaging in online research methodology requires that one become aware of the ever evolving process and procedures with Internet Research Ethics; this line of inquiry led to a co-authored article in CJHE (open access of course!) with a doctoral student (Warrell & Jacobsen, 2014) on the policy gap for ethical practice in online research settings.
Connected to my open educational practices and experiences as doctoral student, I chose to publish my doctoral dissertation on my personal website (archived PhD) so it would be more discoverable and accessible than the lovely hardcover blue book sitting on a shelf. Openly sharing my dissertation online, while not very exotic today, given the plethora of digital repositories full of theses & dissertations, was a bit unusual in 1998 when few dissertations were OA. According to Google Scholar, Jacobsen (1998) has been cited every year since going online, so my goal of making this research more discoverable and accessible has been met (159 citations and counting). An added benefit of an open access dissertation have been the connections with a global community of researchers who shared an interest in this line of inquiry. The PRISM version indicates 795 downloads and 137 page views, so the benefits of dropping your dissertation into a digital repository includes painless tracking of statistical information, country views and item views by month.
Research and Thinking in the Open
I started this GirlProf blog in 2008, well after many EdTech bloggers took flight. That summer, I was teaching an EdTech Doctoral Seminar, and I figured I better extend upon my use of wikis and websites by modelling blogging as a way to share ideas in the open. My initial goal for the blog was to increase transparency and engage in myth-busting about a female professor trying to balance life in and beyond the academy. In my first post in July 2008, I aim to disrupt the myth that teaching only a few hours per week gives professors plenty of "free" time. As I had time, I added to the blog and branched off into other forms of academic mom stories and myth-busting, like republishing a 7-year old letter to a columnist in which I argue that technology increases versus decreases interest in literacy and reading: An EdTech View on Literacy and Harry Potter. Or the one about how academic moms never stop, even when nursing a new baby. There are a few dozen posts on powerful learning using technology (kids and tech 2009, texting in class 2010, and new cultures for learning 2011).
Teaching in the Open
Along with teaching on-campus, I have taught online throughout my career. The first course I taught online was in 1995, and it was an EdTech seminar. In my teaching with both undergraduate and graduate students, I have always tended to include an assignment or two that involves online sharing, from student created blogs, podcasts, wikis, VR spaces, microblogging and twitter chats, and various types of co-created or individually created websites. For many years, I was privileged to teach an Inquiry and Technology seminar in which student teachers posted all of their work in the open, and engaged in peer review of each other's work. I co-created the EdD in Educational Technology, and we welcomed our first cohort in 2008. An assignment with a great deal of impact was the Doctoral Pathfinder, in which I invited students to curate an open access collection of experts, journals, conferences & resources related to their research problem and questions. Students valued their own pathfinders as a way to keep track and grow their academic and professional networks and open educational practices, and gained much from the access to each other's pathfinders. While many of my open educational practices have evolved & matured over the years, I have also continued to innovate and expand my open educational practices. In the past few years, I have been working with a team of scholars who have supported masters students in publishing their Ethics and Educational Technology research in the open using Pressbooks (2020, 2021).
Academic Publishing in the Open
As a doctoral student, I was involved in creating and launching an open access leadership journal (IEJLL). As a new assistant professor, I worked with two undergraduate students to launch an open access journal for student scholarship (EGallery). Later, as an Associate professor I worked as an Advisory Editor with a talented group of graduate students who launched a peer reviewed journal for new scholars in education (CJNSE). As the Editor of CJLT from 2005-2010, I led the transition from dual-medium to fully open access. In my V35(1) Editorial, I capture a brief history of the journal from newsletter in 1972, to journal and then open access.
To be continued
