Page - 118 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

8 EmpoweringUniversityEducators… 125 touchesuponall aspects of educators’work: learningdesign, for example, through sharingcoursedesignideaswithfellowteachersandwithstudents, teachingcontent, byusingandallowing the reuseofOER,andpedagogical approaches, for instance, by fosteringparticipation of non-enrolled students andof other stakeholders in the learningprocess (Nascimbeni&Burgos,2016). While in formal educational contexts the changeprocess towards open andnet- worked learning is happening at a relatively slowpace (OECD, 2016), in informal learningsettingscollaborationandopennessareoftenthenorm.Think, forexample, of apersonopenly sharing avideoona specific theme (frommusic to carpentry to physics) toexplainaconcept toacommunity.Thissimpleact, translatedintoformal learning settings such aswithin a university course, is fully in linewith Conole’s fiveprinciplesofopenlearning:collaborationandsharingofinformation,connected communication about learning and teaching, collectivity to grow knowledge and resources, critique for the promotion of scholarship and serendipitous innovation (Conole, 2013). Successful collaborative and open learning is indeed the key to build active learning environments, encouraging students to give and receive feed- backandtoevaluateeachother’s learning,andcanhavea tremendous impactonthe developmentof twenty-first-century skills suchas intercultural communicationand critical thinking (Dede,2010). 8.3 CompetenceFrameworks forOpenandNetworked Teaching AdaptingtheworkofStacey(2013)andReynolds(2015),wecanascertainthreekey characteristics that open and networked educators should have. First, they should nurture learners’ connections and dialogues for the purpose of sharing ideas and solving problems, considering their classroom as a learning network where each link represents a possibility for new learning. Second, educators should be able to work in the open, engaging learners in a collaborative process of knowledge co-creation and open sharing, instead of just letting themuse a pre-defined set of learningresources.Third,theyshouldconsiderlearnersasautonomousagentswithin the learningprocess, allowing themtooperate independentlyand learnat theirown pace, in theirowndirection, andusing theirownconnections. Thetransitionprocessofeducatorsalongtheselinesentailsnotonlychangingthe wayteachersdesigntheircourses,licensetheirmaterials,supportknowledgecreation among students, but also supporting a reflection on their professional identity, and is thereforeanextremelychallengingprocess.The introductionofcollaborativeand openpracticesbrings infactamajorcultural shiftwithineducators’self-perception, related to the need of rethinking and reshaping the roles played by teachers and students within the learning process and the underpinning knowledge production process (Rivoltella&Rossi, 2012).Thisprocess ismademorecomplexby the fact that in general terms educators do not feel competent in implementing innovative