Team Project

The aim of this course is to develop students’ capacity to work in interdisciplinary project teams, and to upgrade in practice their knowledge and skills needed for open education design.

Students will acquire the following competences:

 Ability to assess the adequacy of existing educational materials, identify gaps and prepare new open educational resources of good quality with the use of traditional and advanced ICT and in cooperation with field experts and teachers;

 Ability to find missing information and to develop specific expertise needed for OE design in a context, of a concrete project task;

 Ability of solving real interdisciplinary OE design problems in a team,

 Ability to present their project in a written form and orally, and to discuss about the project and OE topics with international audience.

Intended learning outcomes:
After the end of the course, students will have

• Knowledge about the complete process of developing OL – from OL demand, specification and development to implementation;

• Skills required for creative design of OL

• Knowledge about basic principles of project management, and know how to act as a responsible member of a team;

• Knowledge about group dynamics within the project team;

• Ability to communicate about open issues in an efficient and assertive way;

• Enhanced ability to critically evaluate their personal contribution to the results of the team.

Students are expected basic knowledge of open education, and didactical practices. Students should be able to use tools for computer-supported collaborative work, and should be prepared to work in teams.

During the course students will be solving a specific problem in the field of open education design. Through the practical work, students will learn about the principles of project man-agement and project group work. The problem will be complex enough to require an interdis-ciplinary approach and teamwork. Every year, a new project task will be carefully selected on the basis of real problems of open education and will require concrete solutions with practi-cal value.

Study process will consist of the following phases:

1 Introduction

• Presentation of course objectives
• Instructions for project work

2 Project set-up

• Project task presentation
• Project team organization

3 Content design

• OL Curriculum development
• Content selection

1. Detailed project work plan

• Project coordination and means of work
• The division of work
• Determination of the phases of the project
• Time Plan
• Discussion and Consultations

1. Teamwork

• OL development and coordination
• Regular (online) meetings with presentation of intermediate results
• Discussion and Consultations

6 Final report

• Preparation of a written report
• Preparing for a public presentation
• Consultations
• Public presentation

7 Final analysis of the project

• Critical evaluation of project results
• Evaluation of the workflow
• Summary of experience – Lessons learned

After the end of the course, students will have

• Knowledge about the complete process of developing OL – from OL demand, specification and development to implementation;

• Skills required for creative design of OL

• Knowledge about basic principles of project management, and know how to act as a responsible member of a team;

• Knowledge about group dynamics within the project team;

• Ability to communicate about open issues in an efficient and assertive way;

• Enhanced ability to critically evaluate their personal contribution to the results of the team.

To prepare for the project work:

• B. Prieto. Project Management Theory and the Management of Large Complex Projects, PM World Journal. Vol. IV, Issue VI – June 2015 E-version
• G.L. Richardson, B.M, Jackson. Project Management Theory and Practice, 3rd Edition, , Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, 2019, https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013784
• M. Huemann, R. Turner. The Handbook opf Project Management, 6th ed, Taylor and Francis, Sixth edition. | Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2024. DOI: 10.4324/9781003274179, E-version

Due to the nature of the subject other literature is not prescribed in advance. It is determined each year and for each group according to the contents of selected projects by mentors. Addition-al sources are found by students with a help of their mentors as a part of the study process.

• Monitoring of project developments and deliverables, including capabili-ties for project communication and management of group dynamics, with elements of peer- and self-evaluation (20 %) • Interim presentations (20 %) • Final presentation of project results with discussion (60 %)

Professor Dr. Ebba Ossiannilsson (Sweden) is an internationally recognised scholar, keynote speaker, researcher, and strategic adviser whose work has consistently anticipated, informed, and shaped major developments in higher education over the past three decades. During this time, she has been at the forefront of advancing quality enhancement; open, online, and distance education; lifelong learning; educational leadership; and, more recently, the ethical, trustworthy, human-centred integration of artificial intelligence. Her work is distinguished by its ability to bridge research, policy, and practice, contributing to educational innovation that is both academically rigorous and socially responsible.

She is Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; Associate Professor of Open Education Leadership at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia; and Founder of Ossiannilsson Quality in Open Online Learning Consultancy. Throughout her career, she has supported governments, universities, international organisations, and educational leaders to advance inclusive, sustainable, future-oriented educational transformation. She has collaborated extensively with UNESCO, the European Commission, the OECD, the International Council for Open and Distance Education, EDEN Digital Learning Europe, the International
Training Centre of the ILO, and numerous universities and international networks worldwide. She has published more than 300 scholarly works and has contributed to international research projects, policy development, quality frameworks, and capacity-building initiatives that have influenced educational policy and practice across the globe. Her work has gained particular recognition in China, where, by request, she has published in Distance Education China. She also contributes to research funded by the 2024 Youth Fund for Humanities and Social Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education of China, further strengthening her
international research collaborations.

More detailed information available at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebbaossiannilsson/

zbrana bibliografija / Selected bibliography:
Bozkurt, A., Gjelsvik, T., Adam, T., Asino, T. I., Atenas, J., Bali, M., Blomgren, C., Bond, M., Bonk, C. J.,
Brown, M., Burgos, D., Conrad, D., Costello, E., Cronin, C., Czerniewicz, L., Deepwell, M., Deimann, M.,
DeWaard, H. J., Dousay, T. A., Ebner, M., Farrow, R., Gil-Jaurena, I., Havemann, L., Inamorato, A., Irvine, V.,
Karunanayaka, S. P., Kerres, M., Lambert, S., Lee, K., Makoe, M., Marín, V. I., Mikroyannidis, A., Mishra, S.,
Naidu, S., Nascimbeni, F., Nichols, M., Olcott. Jr., D., Ossiannilsson, E., Otto, D., Padilla Rodriguez, B. C.,
Paskevicius, M., Roberts, V., Saleem, T., Schuwer, R., Sharma, R. C., Stewart, B., Stracke, C. M., Tait, A., Tlili,
A., Ubachs, G., Weidlich, J., Weller, M., Xiao, J., & Zawacki Richter, O. (2023). Openness in Education as a
Praxis: From Individual Testimonials to Collective Voices. Open Praxis, 15(2), pp. 76–112. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.15.2.574
Ossiannilsson, E. (2026). From Distance to Openness, from Access to Agency: The Evolution, Lessons, and
Futures of Open, Flexible, and Distance Learning for Inclusive, Scalable and Sustainable,
Education. Education@ETMA, 5(1), 29–45.
Ossiannilsson, E. (2024). Ecosystems for Online and Blended Learning to Promote Equity and Excellence. In:
Panda, S., Mishra, S., Misra, P.K. (eds) Case Studies on Blended Learning in Higher Education. Springer,
Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9388-4_2
Ossiannilsson, E. (2024). On the verge of a system transformation and the ecosystem of open
education. Education@ETMA June 2024 ISSN (Online) 2583-3928 Volume: 3 Issue 2: Article: 4
Ossiannilsson, E., Ulloa Cazarez, R. L., Goode, C., Mansour, C., & Martins, Gomes de Gusmão, C. (2024).
Artificial Intelligence Use to Empower the Implementation of OER and the UNESCO OER Recommendation.
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Ossiannilsson, E. (2023).Open educational resources (OER) and some of the United Nations sustainable
development goals. International Journal of Information and Learning Technology. ISSN: 2056-4880.
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Ossiannilsson, E. (2021). Toward a Quality Framework for Open Educational Resources (OER): Application
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