OERlabs Openbook/Communication between understanding and comprehension (Design Principles)

The cornerstones of communication

The start of projects at universities is always tied to a process - at first it requires preparatory work (e.g. finding cooperation partners, formulating ideas and drafting applications) until it can be incorporated into the administrative apparatus via the bureaucratic part, in order to actually find its place in practice afterwards. Of course, all these steps do not happen on their own, but require the active support of employees as well as university actors.

The OERlabs project tried to shake up the structures of internal university communication from the very beginning. The project represented in some way an expert role in the OER issue, as in both cases there was no active and broad work with OER in teacher training. Thus, a certain thematic authenticity was inherent in all our work, which became particularly visible through the active dissemination of open project material and open practices in the project work. However, the other side of the coin should definitely be mentioned here, because it also turned out that this intrinsic expert role does not give the project any automatic leverage to start discussions or to change practices and attitudes. (see MSD Methods and Marketing) This meant that, especially in the MSD process, communication structures had to be prepared and laid by us in order to be able to find an appropriate working environment. This manifested itself on the one hand in methodical projects during the MSD (see Methodical Procedure = Breaking Hierarchies), and on the other hand in direct communication with stakeholders (e.g. invitations via phone call).

Here one can ask how a sensitization project like OERlabs can get (interested) people on board to participate in a development process. Is it possible that longer preparatory work will be necessary, e.g. the OER regular's table at the TUK? Does the introduction succeed by focusing on a personal contact, with the help of events to get to know the stakeholders or 1-to-1 meetings? Or do you establish communication structures with the help of already existing thematic focuses, such as discussions and questions on copyright or taking on an advisory function? And finally, how does one approach the topic of openness in a university context, possibly at the level of students (see OER-Seminars)?

Integration of an external community into internal work processes

Although the OER community in German-speaking countries has undergone constant development, it could nevertheless be described as family-like. But this is also one of the strengths of this community, because relationships have been established and cultivated over a longer period of time through other (OER) projects, (OER) events or through social media. Accordingly, it is not difficult to get opinions and support in such projects. However, working with the community in such a project is not advantageous. Of course, this is not about the broad OER community in the sense of a sharing culture of CC material such as images, graphics and designs, which was used for various material, but about the creation of appropriate communication structures on the topic.

It is easily possible to talk about challenges and possible solutions with people working in similar OER development projects, because the same objective already provides an incentive for communication and collaboration. However, an essential goal is to build up an UzK or TUK internal OER community. Here people must first be shown what it basically is about before one receives a commitment to cooperation. However, this is only possible with appropriate personnel and time resources, which are limited in some cases. The aim cannot therefore be to involve the external OER community more, but to build up or strengthen the internal structures of the university accordingly.

External communication of the project work

As already mentioned at the beginning, communication in this case is a double-edged sword. For despite weakened communication with the external community and the simultaneous focus of successful internal communication, an "open" project nevertheless requires the visualization of one's own work (or one's own communication). In order to be relevant in both a practical and a scientific context, it is advantageous to bring project results into the community early and permanently. This succeeds on the one hand in the form of scientific publications, on the other hand on a fundamental level through the publication of various formats such as blog posts, podcast episodes, presentations or other material. So as soon as a project sets itself the goal of "openness", this openness must be actively integrated into the work process at all levels. This is because in this development work one can only become credible if, in addition to scientific reflection and support, communication and methodology are communicated as openly as possible to the outside world.