Openness and innovation in online higher education : A historical review of the two discourses

Lee, Kyungmee (2020) Openness and innovation in online higher education : A historical review of the two discourses. Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning. ISSN 0268-0513

[thumbnail of 2019_OpenLearning_Openness and innovation in online higher education_LEE_Open Version]
Text (2019_OpenLearning_Openness and innovation in online higher education_LEE_Open Version)
2019_OpenLearning_Openness_and_innovation_in_online_higher_education_LEE_Open_Version.pdf - Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.

Download (571kB)

Abstract

This article tackles a critical question of “to what extent can online higher education (HE) be open and innovative at the same time?” To provide a more comprehensive answer to the question, the author takes up a notion of discourse and situates the analysis in a specific online HE setting: Athabasca University (AU). In this article, the author first unpacks how the openness and innovation discourses originally emerged in AU throughout its early years and how the original conceptualization of the two and their relationships have shifted in the more recent years. The results demonstrate that there has been an increasing level of discontinuity between the conceptualization of openness and innovation as independent principles and the operationalization of the two as competing principles in course design practices in AU. Being fully open to diverse student groups and being technologically innovative by integrating a state-of-the-art technology cannot be achieved in a single online course. In addition, being pedagogically innovative by increasing interactivity among students while maintaining the same level of flexibility provided by the independent study model seems very challenging. This article also discusses the institutional conditions that make teaching-oriented innovation more difficult to be achieved.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning
Additional Information:
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Open Learning on 14/01/2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02680513.2020.1713737
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3304
Subjects:
?? distance educationopen universitylearning designerdiscourse analysistext analysisfoucaulteducation ??
ID Code:
139413
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
05 Dec 2019 13:30
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
31 Aug 2024 00:07