Open Education features in OU-led Special Journal Collection

The Open University’s Global Open Educational Resource Graduate Network (GO-GN), a funded project which connects a global community of researchers in open education, has led on a special collection of articles on open practice.

This special collection, published in the widely respected Journal of Interactive Media in Education, has been authored by GO-GN members to share current examples of open research and the impact on the open education community. The articles, which are representative of the wide geographical breadth of the network, include conventional research papers, case studies, joint-submissions and narrative accounts of open educational practice in a global context.

Discussing the special collection, Professor Martin Weller, Director of GO-GN at the OU’s Institute of Educational Technology, stated, “This collection demonstrates the maturity and diversity of the network by gathering together eleven separate articles. The content of these articles addresses a range of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practice (OEP) related issues.”

The GO-GN network has been a funded project within The Open University's Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS) since 2015. Since then, the network has grown in global reach, volume of doctoral PhD researchers who contribute, and resources available to researchers, supporting the aim of the network; to widen awareness of open education in global contexts where researchers may not have access to OER experts in their region, but also where OER may have the greatest impact.

The Journal of Interactive Media in Education collection provides an opportunity for members to showcase their work, gain feedback and demonstrate the value of the network. The GO-GN team also offered to act as mentors on request for any authors who wished to work up their contributions.

The special collection is freely available on the Journal of Interactive Media in Education website, with further OU-led open educational resources available.