Using Open Educational Practices: Implications for Nursing Education

Background: This paper reports on our use of open educational practices (OEPs) with online students in nursing. Purpose: Our aim was to provide nurse educators with knowledge about (and examples of) OEPs they could use to enhance student learning and their career satisfaction. Method: Using collaborative autoethnography, we probed our open teaching strategies. With Swanson's middle-range theory of caring as a theoretical framework and thematic analysis of our data set (which included literature annotations, dialogic conversation transcripts, individual reflections, and course evaluations), we uncovered 5 themes relevant to nursing education. Results: The themes are student achievement of affective domain learning outcomes, our values as a blueprint for action, alignment of our OEPs and relational pedagogy, mutuality of the experience, and the ongoing process of learning to be an open educational practitioner. Conclusion: Using OEPs can help develop skilled and caring nurses.