civicOER

The project civicOER is both conceptually and operationally linked to the didactic concept of Service Learning. Within the project, Service Learning can be understood as an action-oriented learning and teaching strategy that combines professional and generic learning with civic engagement. In the scope of Service Learning, learning and teaching is serving public interest and demands to increase the expertise in terms of self-efficacy of learners in the context of real civic projects. Compared to voluntary work, Service Learning provides additional contents as well as a reflective practice in universities and/or schools.

Learners individually take civic responsibility by making direct contact with individual actors, collective groups of actors and (civic) institutions and creating charitable value in accordance with their respective needs. Therefore, joint project work is possible through civic engagement. In it, the idea of Service Learning is adapted in different phases and thus enables collaborative work: Together with civic partners, multi-perspectival solutions for problems can be developed; already existing design concepts can be realized together; it is also possible to increase quality assurance and sustainability of certain measures by working collaboratively in the manner of the Service Learning method.

Within this perception of Service Learning, the orientation towards the common good also relates to the university environment and respective university actors, by which students' initiatives fall in the scope of Service Learning processes that promote the non-profit idea, too: education, arts and culture, international understanding, preservation orders, nature and animal protection, sports and science.

civicOER wants to utilize the associated potentials to create and design educational resources (and secure them qualitatively) that serve the (civic) educational practice, endowed with CC-licenses (OER). At the same time, teachers and students should be included in the OER-related process of development.

For further information, the Ljubljana OER Action Plan 2017 is highly recommended.