Nursing in the Open: #OEGlobal Reflections

As I sit in my room in Delft after the most amazing conference experience a newcomer to open education could imagine, I am left with a lasting hope for the possibilities open education can have for nursing education in Ontario.

@NurseKillam – would be very interested in how nursing practitioner-educators view OER in terms of quality. I've had conversations with folk in this discipline who have lots of concerns over accuracy, and some risks. https://t.co/svpNozVrDO

— Adrian Stagg (@OpenKuroko) April 26, 2018

Ever since I became aware of open education through eCampusOntario’s Extend institute I have been looking for other nurses who share the passion for openness that I discovered. It has been difficult for me to find open educational resources specific to the needs of my students. Challenges faced by nurse educators in the literature include concerns over the workload associated with finding them and questions about their quality (Elf, Ossiannilsson, Neljeso, & Jansson, 2015). This finding is reflective of my own experience and echoes the concerns of various presenters at the conference, some of which specifically named nursing as a discipline with a paucity of open resources.

Look. Another nursing educator! #OEGlobal18 #OEOntario #OEGFellows pic.twitter.com/q19Kh9uoj0

— Laura Killam (@NurseKillam) April 25, 2018

Through the OE Global conference, I have not only been connected with other open nurse educators, I have discovered what is possible when nurses break down institutional barriers and work openly together. Every nursing program in Ontario needs to prepare students to meet the same standards of practice and write the same licensing exam. These commonalities made it possible for nurse educators in the Netherlands to begin producing an amazing process for sharing resources. In the Netherlands, with financial support from their government, nurse educators have developed a process for collaboration, sharing teaching materials and improving the overall quality of education delivered to their students (Koopman, Cabo, & Versantvoort, 2018).

17 Dutch nursing Universities worked together! We can do this in Ontario! We can follow their process to make it easy. They used a quality model and peer review! Perfect. #OEGlobal18 #OEOntario #OEGFellows

— Laura Killam (@NurseKillam) April 25, 2018

I am looking forward to when their peer review process is finalized and translated into English so Nurses in Onratio can model this approach. Dorine and her colleagues are an inspiration to open nurse educators like me who dream of a day that we are able to truly break down institutional barriers in Ontario and empower each other to deliver the best quality of education we can to our students.

Best take away from the conference so far: connecting with @dorinedocent – An Open nurse educator!! #OEGlobal18 #OEOntario #OEFellows

— Laura Killam (@NurseKillam) April 25, 2018

Final note: 

If you missed the conference, please check out the keynote presentations at this link https://conference.oeconsortium.org/2018/live/ 

I also invite you to join the conversation with me on Twitter, subscribe to this blog (see the bottom left of this page), and connect with me in person or over the Internet and find out more about the possibilities embedded in openness.