This book covers original research on the implementation of open educational practices through the use of open educational resources at the university level. The emphasis on open education in this book is on contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning specifically within a South African milieu. The envisaged chapters cover conceptual and review research and empirical work focussing on open educational practices and the use of renewable assessments. The work starts off with an overview of an institutional-wide open education project that prompted the research followed by research on open education in terms of various modules in the health science, music education, law, philosophy, dietetics, anthropology, French language learning, journalism and political science. There is a clear gap in the literature on open education in terms of open educational practices, specifically in terms of contextualising resources, supporting student agency and fostering self-directed learning in a South African context. Despite the existence of some general works on open education in terms of policy, social justice and open textbooks, this book will be unique in exploring the intersections of openness, specifically with contextualisation, student agency and self-directedness.

"This book offers insightful reflections on academic development practices. The contributors engage the reader painstakingly in the dynamics of professional learning and effective teaching. This volume facilitates the examination of the need for reflection that leads to professional maturity. All educational institutions seek teachers who continuously search for effective strategies in improving student success. The contributors uncover a variety of approaches as they evince proven suggestions. The chapters are refreshing and edifying. This book is essential for all teachers, lecturers and trainers who want to improve their teaching practice immensely". Professor Vuyisile T. Msila Researcher at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa.

Every day, learners use and reuse open, digital resources for learning. Reusing Open Resources offers a vision of the potential of these open, online resources to support learning. The book follows on from Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to E-learning. At that time focus was on the creation, release and reuse of digital learning resources modeled on educational materials. Since then the open release of resources and data has become mainstream, rather than specialist, changing societal expectations around resource reuse. Social and professional learning networks are now routine places for the exchange of online knowledge resources that are shared, manipulated and reused in new ways, opening opportunities for new models of business, research and learning. The goal of this book is to extend the debate of how open, online resources might support learning across diverse contexts. Twenty-four distinguished experts from nine countries distributed across Europe and North America contribute empirical evidence and ideas. Collectively they provide a vision of the potential of open, online resources to support learning across everyday contexts of education, work and life.

In a modern and fast-evolving technological world, precarity has become more notable. Digital transformation has ushered in an era of ‘datafication’, profoundly impacting societies and individuals in such a way that there are emerging complexities and potential vulnerabilities in our interactions with technology. Thus, it is crucial that the Humanities subjects focus on human beings, their culture and values. This book focuses on the challenges and opportunities experienced in the Digital Humanities. The main thesis of this book is on Digital Humanities in precarious times, while also reporting on topics and research methods in a variety of Humanities subject fields. Digital Humanities is a dynamic multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that encompasses a wide array of disciplines, methodologies and approaches. It represents a fusion of computational methods with humanistic inquiry, leveraging technology to explore and analyse various facets of human culture, society and history. At its core, this field’s nature allows scholars from diverse backgrounds – including literature, history, linguistics, cultural studies and more – to collaborate and engage in innovative research projects that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. All the chapters in this book represent a scholarly discourse and provide original research, they are based on different methodologies ranging from an interdisciplinary approach, a philosophical desk study, case studies, qualitative studies and a semi-structured survey.

As the 21st century begins, we are faced with opportunities and challenges of available technology as well as pressured to create strategic and tactical plans for future technology. Worldwide, IT professionals are sharing and trading concepts and ideas for effective IT management, and this co-operation is what leads to solid IT management practices. This volume is a collection of papers that present IT management perspectives from professionals around the world. The papers seek to offer new ideas, refine old ones, and pose interesting scenarios to help the reader develop company-sensitive management strategies.