Making a difference—inclusive learning and teaching in higher education through open educational resources

Abstract

Recently there has been growing concern about the ways in which professional values such as “acknowledging diversity and promoting equality of opportunity” (Higher Education Academy (HEA), 2006 Higher Education Academy (HEA). (2006). UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education. York: Author. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/rewardandrecog/ProfessionalStandardsFramework.pdf [Google Scholar], p. 4) have been understood and evidenced in higher education. In this article, we outline how the Learning to Teach Inclusively open educational resource (OER) is addressing this concern by facilitating understanding of the concepts and principles underpinning these professional values. We outline a set of principles for inclusive practice and show how they underpin not only the content of this resource, but also its design, development, and embedding. We argue that while these principles were derived from research in face-to-face teaching, they are just as relevant and applicable to learning, teaching, and curriculum design in distance learning and virtual contexts. Finally, we outline three models for embedding the OER and propose a model for embedding inclusive practice through OER across HE.