Keynote Lecture:
Academics within the same departments have always shared teaching materials but a cultural change is taking place in universities, with academics using the internet to share their research (Open Access) and teaching and learning resources (OER: Open Educational Resources) more widely. This spirit of collaborative working is increasing, and potentially opens up higher education, giving both students and teachers greater access and flexibility. Education for all has taken on a new meaning in the digital age and the true rationale of Openness is one of reclaiming original academic practice and collaboration; consequently the move towards openness extends beyond resources and includes increasingly also Open Educational Practices, or just Open Education. To change academic culture and to encourage open educational practices requires much more than technological changes. It requires an understanding of the challenges facing the educational community today and how OERs can help them achieve their goals particularly in research led teaching and learning. This author has been involved in awareness-raising of OER, by running workshops, presenting at conferences, and organizing several UKOER programme- and institution-wide events. The focus is on building communities of users and contributors to ensure sustainability and to develop standards of best practice. This presentation will develop themes introduced in a recent publication, “Open access and online teaching materials for digital humanities’ (Warwick et al eds. (2012) Digital Humanities in Practice Facet). It will also locate these ideas within the sphere of teaching and research in Classics drawing on the experiences of the Digital Classicist (http://www.digitalclassicist.org/), Stoa Consortium (http://www.stoa.org/) and other open initiatives in Classical Studies.