This contribution provides first insights into a phenomenographic PhD research project in the area of open informal cross-institutional collaborative professional development of higher education practitioners. This is an emerging area of interest and practice within academic development that creates opportunities to break free from exclusively institutional academic development provision for staff teaching or supporting learning, and open up and connect the development landscape. Such offerings create new opportunities for informal collaboration with colleagues both internally and in other institutions and countries to create shared provision. This brings together a wider range of practitioners as learners aiming to enrich their development experiences, practices and potentially transform the way programmes are designed and offered.
There is a call for more openness and cross-institutional initiatives among HEIs with an emphasis on the opportunities that shared, collaborative and open initiatives bring. It is widely championed by some that working together creates opportunities for sector-wide sustained growth and innovation (The Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2008; HEFCE, 2011; The Wales Open Education Declaration of Intent, 2013; The Scottish Open Education Declaration 2015, 2015; NMC Higher Education Horizon Report, 2015). Often, however, these are framed as formal collaborations and consortia. This research focuses on informal grass-roots collaborations among practitioners.
Phenomenography is used as a methodology for this research and provided a vehicle for in-depth exploration of the variation of experiences as described and interpreted by participants in this study as a collective (Marton, 1981). Preliminary findings linked to the phenomenographic analysis based on 22 semi-structured interviews are shared and discussed. In particular, those findings linked to cross-cultural learning and development related opportunities and challenges. The interviews were conducted with participants in two openly-licensed courses of postgraduate modules in the area of academic development that have been opened-up, Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL132) and Creativity for Learning in Higher Education (#creativeHE).
This presentation is made possible with the support of the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN): http://go-gn.net/
