The benefits of creating open educational resources as assessment in an online education course

Abstract

This paper reports preliminary findings of a pilot project at an Australian regional university where students in an online multicultural education course created open educational resources as an assessment task. Designed as action research, the project transposed early years educators’ concerns about professional learning and resources into an assessment task. Students created resources in response to the task, and these resources were collated into an open educational resource. Based on a range of project data, the paper presents preliminary findings that show the assessment task had many benefits for students including increased engagement, practical learnings and pride in sharing their work. The paper concludes with implications for practice and suggestions for related research.