About
About OSPRI
OSPRI is developing a robust curricular, co-curricular, pedagogical, and professional innovation ecosystem applying open source methodologies and principles to modes of teaching and learning, communicating, and creating within and beyond educational institutions.
What is OSPRI?
OSPRI (Open Source Pedagogy, Research + Innovation) is harnessing the power of open to transform education for the 21st century. Guided by open source principles and methodologies like open knowledge and access to information, collaboration and community, transparency and meritocracy, inclusion and diversity, and iterative creation and adaptability, OSPRI is designing an open learning ecosystem for a more open world.
Jointly housed in Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative with generous support from Red Hat, OSPRI develops student-centered, project-based, interdisciplinary, and cross-sector collaborative learning communities that empower students to be engaged agents of their learning and life pathways.
OSPRI is rooted in the open source values of open knowledge and access to information; OSPRI promotes open educational practices and the use and co-creation of open educational resources Open Educational Resources (OER). Focused on authentic, personalized learning, OSPRI’s learning environments and curricular designs underscore the open source principles of collaboration and transparency, inclusion and diversity, and iterative and agile creation. In addition to developing an open source curricular pathway, OSPRI’s 21st century open learning framework includes: collaborating with industry partners to create experiential, mentored learning; supporting student open source innovation project teams, hackathons, and challenges; presenting workshops on topics related to open pedagogy and open source culture and development processes; contributing to open access publications; and leading academic summits on making open the default position for teaching and learning, communicating, and creating within and beyond academia.
What is a 21st Century Open Learning Framework?
A 21st century open learning framework equips students with the ways of knowing, creating, communicating, and collaborating that are necessary to thrive in today’s complex world; it prepares students to understand, evaluate, and contribute to a shifting information landscape and empowers them to be resilient, reflective, and engaged agents of their learning, career, and life pathways.
21st century open learning employs pedagogical methodologies that place students at the center of learning designs and processes, and that integrate authentic and social learning practices into academic spaces.
The learning environment is rooted in the idea of the commons—a space of inclusivity and collaboration where knowledge belongs to everyone. Educators and students adopt, remix, and create open educational resources whenever such adoption, remixing, and creating aligns with student-centered learning outcomes.
21st Century Open Learning Framework: Critical + Creative Dispositions and Skills
Find and critically evaluate open-access information, including open datasets, across diverse sources, networks, and platforms
Integrate open-access information to produce and effectively contribute new knowledge across established and emerging modes of expression, discourse communities, and technologies
Skillfully integrate content and context to develop solutionsacross disciplines and sectors
Employ design thinking and agile entrepreneurial methodologies to initiate, develop, reflect upon, and implement hypotheses and projects
Effectively articulate vision, cultivate solution pathways, andcontribute to shared endeavors across disciplines and sectors with transparency, empathy, and adaptability
Identify and develop intellectual and personal goals andpassions, and assess, modify, and deepen these intellectual and personal pathways
21st Century Open Learning Framework: Learning Methodologies + Environment
Methodologies
- Student-Centered + Personalized
- Project-Based + Authentic
- Experiential + Social
Environment
- Open Knowledge + Access to Information
- Collaboration Transparency + Meritocracy
- Interdisciplinary + Cross-Sector
- Inclusion + Diversity
- Design-Based Thinking
Applied Research + Development
Cross-sector applied research teams engaging with open source culture, communities, tools, and technologies to help solve critical issues.
At OSPRI, we are designing and scaling an education model that ensures open access to knowledge and empowers learners to be engaged agents of their own learning and life pathways. This model will prepare learners for a culture that is rapidly shifting towards collaboration, sharing, and open exchange of ideas and service; we believe this model will enable a more participatory, reflective, and peaceful world.
Meet the Team
Aria F. Chernik, J.D., Ph.D.,
Aria F. Chernik, J.D., Ph.D.,
Aria has extensive experience teaching at the K12, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Her work focuses on integrating open source methodologies and principles to design education environments in which students are engaged agents of their own learning pathways and educators are active facilitators and mentors in the learning space.Her research is situated at the intersection of open knowledge, critical pedagogy and education innovation, networked communication and democratic form, and the phenomenology of collaboration and generosity.
Thomas Nechyba, PhD
Thomas Nechyba, PhD
Tom holds numerous positions including former director, Social Science Research Institute; professor, economics and public policy studies; theme leader, Bass Connections in Education and Human Development; and director, EcoTeach Center. Since the summer of 2012, Tom has taken SSRI into a new direction, encouraging social and behavioral scientists to come to the new space in Gross Hall to connect, collaborate and create. Tom’s research interests focus on public policy in relation to disadvantaged families, the functioning of local governments, and primary and secondary education.
Kathie Amato, MBA
Kathie Amato, MBA
Kathie Amato manages Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative education programs for the entire university, ensuring effective deployment of a world-class curriculum for teaching innovation and entrepreneurship at Duke. Kathie has an extensive background in higher education, marketing and publishing. The link which ties all of her experience together is a strong emphasis on entrepreneurship. Immediately prior to joining the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative, Kathie served as an associate dean at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, where she managed the creation and launch of a one-year master’s degree program.
Carter Zenke
Carter Zenke
Carter is a sophomore hoping to inspire the next generation of change-makers in computer science. Most recently, he crafted sustainable plans to improve after-school CS education in Durham, winning Duke’s Holton Prize for Education Innovation in the process. In addition to working on the OSPRI Bass Connections team, he is excited to teach civic-engagement and CS with Citizen Schools - a nation-wide after-school program. He is currently working with OSPRI to design open learning contexts modeled after Red Hat’s Co.Lab project.