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This was the first edition of Startup in Residence EdTech
From more and high-quality responses to course evaluations to monitoring students’ academic writing skills. Since October 2022, startups and higher
16 March 2023
This article was written by: Mira Buist-Zhuk, Hans Beldhuis, Susanne Täuber (University of Groningen) &
Robert Schuwer (captain of the Educational Resources zone).
One of the issues for achieving sustainable adoption of open educational resources (OER) is how to recognise and reward (R&R) activities in the field of open education, more specifically, using OER in an educational setting (known as Open Educational Practices). These OER-focused R&R activities may well be part of the broader Recognition & Rewards reform already happening in Dutch Higher Education.
To support this endeavour, the Towards digital (open) educational resources zone has collected examples of R&R of Open Educational Practices. These examples include good practices, frameworks and focal points. This blog post describes the methodology used and presents the findings which may serve as an inspiration for those who are involved in setting up R&R activities and informing relevant policies in their institution.
The R&R developments in the educational domain of higher education institutions have been primarily studied in the United States context. Through our research, we have identified two key findings. Firstly, the examined R&R practices are relatively new, with the earliest results dating back only five years. Secondly, for the successful implementation of R&R of Open Educational Practices, a combination of several activities and initiatives at a given institution is required.
To organise these findings, we have grouped the identified instruments for Recognition & Rewards for working with OER and Open Educational Practices into three categories:
After reviewing the literature, it became evident that in addition to actual practical tools and protocols, favourable conditions (e.g., clear vision statements and policies) are crucial for the successful implementation of Recognition and Rewards for OER and Open Educational Practices.
Each result is briefly described in below table, with a reference to the corresponding source.
Authors | Country | Outcomes regarding use of instrument | Type of instrument |
Coolidge et al. (2022) | USA, Canada | Describes an advisory model to help guide faculty as they attempt to include their OER work in their tenure and promotion portfolios. It connects the three primary tasks for faculty: Research, Teaching, Service into one advisory model. The model uses six types of contributions (Adopt, Adapt, Create, Improve Learning, Community, Research), each subdivided into clearly described activities and the necessary evidence. The model is adaptable to suit local circumstances . | Criteria for promotion |
Elder (2021) | USA | Overview containing four chapters:
| Criteria for promotion Policy Change management |
Elder et al. (2021) | USA | Contains a communication strategy: Talking points and stakeholders; What they can do for you; When to contact. | Change management |
Elder et al. (2021) | USA | Contains a list of examples of Open Educational Practices in Tenure & Promotion policies. It also describes how OER fit into the three major Tenure & Promotion categories identified: Research, Education and Services. | Policy |
Elder et al. (2021) | USA | Specifies activities on Open Education into Tenure & Promotion categories: What you’ve done and Evidence to present. | Criteria for promotion |
Gallant et al. (2022) | USA | Advisory Model for Open Education in Tenure & Promotion Processes. The model is intended to guide faculty as they attempt to include their work with OER in their tenure and promotion portfolios. | Policy |
Gallant et al. (2022) | USA | Clear Examples of the type of Contribution, supported by Evidence, yes/no options for Potential Categories (Research, Teaching, Success, Service). | Criteria for promotion |
Graham (2018) | UK Sweden Singapore Peru Malaysia Australia Netherlands | A framework providing: – A structured pathway to guide career progression on the basis of the academic’s contribution to university teaching and learning; – An evidence base through which to evaluate and demonstrate the academic’s teaching achievement during appointment, professional development and annual appraisal. | Change management Policy Criteria for Promotion
|
Graham (2019) |
| Describes strategies for the following: – Fitting Open Education into existing Tenure & Promotion Requirements; – Advocating for including OER explicitly in institutional or departmental Tenure & Promotion guidelines. These strategies are conditional to have Recognition & Rewards with inclusion of Open Educational Practices. | Change management Policy Criteria for Promotion |
Skidmore et al. (2019) | World | Opinions about the policy context in which Recognition & Rewards should fit. Policies are a significant area of opportunity in removing barriers to engaging with Open Educational Practices. | Policy |
University of British Columbia (2022) | USA, Canada | Scan of North American Higher Education institutions for their Open Educational Practices. Describes motives and barriers for adoption of these practices and the role of Recognition & Rewards to overcome the barriers. | Policy |
University of Massachusetts Amherst (2022) | USA | Detailed description of the Tenure & Promotion process in terms of tasks, responsibilities and authorities. | Policy |
University of Miami (2023) | USA | Example of a program teachers have to follow for promotion purposes. | Criteria for promotion |
Van Dijk et al. (2020) | Netherlands | Description of a teacher expertise framework that is a prerequisite to have Recognition & Rewards assessments. | Policy Criteria for promotion |
For the purposes of identifying and mapping the evidence in terms of Recognition & Rewards activities in the field of OER, we employed the rapid review method[1]. In order to collect a comprehensive set of relevant articles for the literature review section, we searched through several large databases and platforms with relevant publications, such as ERIC, ProQuest Education, DOAJ, APA PsycInfo, Web of Science and Scopus. These searches were conducted between 19 and 21 October 2022, and supplementary hand searches across grey literature were conducted on 23 October 2022 and 11 January 2023.
The identified databases were searched using the following keywords and queries: (open education OR open educational resources OR open educational practices OR OER) AND (recognition and rewards OR continuous professional development OR HR OR promotion OR tenure OR tenure track) AND (higher education OR university).
The search results were downloaded into the EndNote and Zotero reference management programs and the duplicates were removed. The total number of retrieved references amounted to 176. After excluding 26 duplicates, the final number of references was reduced to 150.
The inclusion or exclusion decision was based on the information in the title and abstract and its relevance to our search queries. Scholarly publications without an English-speaking abstract, those not accessible digitally or irrelevant to the higher education context were excluded from the review. The types of sources included in the review span scholarly articles, reports, university policy documents, white papers, blogs, etc.
Using the established criteria, we organised the remaining 150 references alphabetically – first by title, then also by author. Due to time constraints, we selected 66 sources for full-text assessment. Of those, 11 met both our selection criteria and the review goal and were further analysed with regard to identifying instruments for Recognition & Rewards for working with OER and Open Educational Practices. The results of this analysis are organised into three categories and presented in the tables above.
We plan to extend the analysis to all sources in the forthcoming period. If you notice any important publications that are not included in this overview, please reach out to us with your suggestions. To do so, approach author h.j.a.beldhuis@rug.nl.
[1] See Dobbins (2017) and Garritty et al. (2021) for guidance on rapid review method protocols.
Header photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash.
Coolidge, A., McKinney, A., & Shenoy, D. (n.d.). Tenure and promotion. DOERS3. Retrieved 20 November 2022 from https://www.doers3.org/tenure-and-promotion.html
van Dijk, E.E., van Tartwijk, J., van der Schaaf, M.F. & Kluijtmans, M. (2022). What makes an expert university teacher? A systematic review and synthesis of frameworks for teacher expertise in higher education. Educational Research Review, 31, 100365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2020.100365
Dobbins, M. (2017). Rapid Review Guidebook. Hamilton, ON: National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. Retrieved from https://www.nccmt.ca/tools/rapid-review-guidebook
Elder, A. K. (2021). Getting OER into Promotion and Tenure Documents. Open Education in Promotion, Tenure, and Faculty Development. Retrieved 8 November 2022, from https://oept.pubpub.org/pub/ko3xdyo3
Elder, A. K., Gruber, A. M., Burnett, M., & Koch, T. (2021). Open Education in Promotion, Tenure & Faculty Development. Open Education in Promotion, Tenure, and Faculty Development. Retrieved 8 November 2022, from https://oept.pubpub.org/pub/1xl1zqxs
Gallant, J. & Tijerina, T. (2022). Advisory Model for Open Education in Promotion and Tenure Processes. By Affordable Learning Georgia. Retrieved 23 October, 2022, from https://alg.manifoldapp.org/projects/t-p-guidelines
Garritty, C., Gartlehner, G., Nussbaumer-Streit, B., King, V. J., Hamel, C., Kamel, C., Affengruber, L., & Stevens, A. (2021). Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group offers evidence-informed guidance to conduct rapid reviews. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 130, 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.10.007
Graham, R. (2018). The Career Framework for University Teaching. Retrieved 15 December 2022, from https://teachingframework.com/
Graham, R. (2019). Improving University Reward for Teaching A Roadmap for Change. Retrieved 15 December 2022, from https://www.rhgraham.org/resources/Roadmap-for-change-web-version.pdf
Skidmore, J., & Provida, M. (2019). A Place for Policy: The Role of Policy in Supporting Open Educational Resources and Practices at Ontario’s Colleges and Universities. eCampusOntario. Retrieved 8 November 2022, from https://www.ecampusontario.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-07-skimore-oe-policy-report.pdf
University of Miami (2023). OER: Adopt program. Miami University. Retrieved 19 January 2023, from https://miamioh.edu/academic-affairs/teaching/open-educ-res/oer-adopt/index.html
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (2022). Provost Annual Promotion and Tenure Memo. Retrieved 23 October, 2022, from https://www.umass.edu/provost/resources/all-resources/academic-personnel/reappointment-promotion-and-tenure
University of British Columbia (2022). Guide to Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure Procedures at UBC. Retrieved 15 December 2022, from https://hr.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/documents/SAC%20Guide.pdf
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