Presentation of Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl, Dublin City University, Ireland, for the Open Education Week's fifth-day webinar on "Researching openness – evidence-based approach " - 8 March 2019 Recordings of the discussion are available: https://eden-online.adobeconnect.com/ptwsj0d95afy/

2. Professor Mairéad Nic Giolla Mhichíl
@1mngm
mairead.nicgiollamhichil@dcu.ie
• Head of the Ideas Lab@National Institute of Digital Learning
in Dublin City University in Ireland
• MOOC based research in a series of Irish language and
culture MOOCs
• Sentiment Analysis of emotions
• Motivation and link to identify -
• Learning Design
• Unbundling and rebundling of higher education

3. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/irish-language

4. Presentation
• What are the today most relevant research challenges
on Open Education?
• Can Evidence-Based Research approach offer a new
and better perspective to the Open Education research?
• What kind of Evidence-Based research methodologies
are more appropriated to research on Open Education?

5. Q1- Challenges
• Sound well-designed research
• Ethical issues relating to data collection Selwyn (2014)
terms as “dataveillance”
– “if you're not paying for the product, you are the product”
– Ultimately with the business models of the major platforms
becoming increasingly commercial
• Will learners become the product?
• The influence of platforms on the type and how research can be
conducted
• Studies which maybe atheoretical and WEIRD (western,
educated, industrial, rich and democratic )

6. Q2- Evidence-Based Research New –
Better Perspectives
• Particularly in the case of interdisciplinary research in
Open Education
– Drawing from fields such as psychology, education and applied
linguistics and use theory
– Existing literatures have to offer and how our research can
complement that body of literature
• e.g. CALL research mainly in global languages, other languages in
various contexts

7. Q3- Methodologies
• Danger of over-reliance on particular methodologies
– Quantitative-orientation emphasising a particular type of
question, sometimes what can be readily measured and
perhaps less-rich understandings
– Qualitative interpretive approach using particular research
design inclusive of digital-aided analysis