GO-GN Member Research Special XIII |

Our next fantastic GO-GN member research special will take place on Tuesday 13 October 2026 at 15.00-17.00BST (UTC+1). Join us for another awesome line-up of speakers:

* 15.00-15.05: Welcome

* 15.05-15.30: Development and assessment of an OER-driven bibliotherapy programme using indigenous Nigerian stories to enhance self-awareness and emotional wellbeing in university students (Esther Jatto, University of Ibadan)

* 15.30-15.55: Navigating 'Openness' in Research Practices: Perspectives from Indonesian Stakeholders (Ria Ariani, TU Berlin)

* 15.55-16.05: Comfort break

* 16.05-16.30: Educational Digital Commons, mediation and stakeholders' perspectives: an approach based on uses and information practices (Bastian Donval, Le Mans Université)

* 16.30-16.55: Students' Perceptions of the Presence and Engagement in Open Entry, Online Courses: Implications for Open Practices and Pedagogical Design (Melissa Jakubec, University of Calgary)

* 16.55: Close

You can find out more about our speakers and their research below.

* Join the call via Zoom!

* Convert your timezone.

Development and assessment of an OER-driven bibliotherapy programme using indigenous Nigerian stories to enhance self-awareness and emotional wellbeing in university students (Esther Jatto, University of Ibadan)

University life in Nigeria exposes undergraduates to ongoing academic, financial, and social pressures during a period already marked by identity development and emotional fluctuations. Despite this, campus counselling services are often understaffed, and stigma still deters students from seeking help (Muhammed et al., 2024; Kukoyi et al., 2022). Bibliotherapy, which is the structured, guided use of literature to assist emotional processing and self-awareness, provides a low-cost, scalable complement to professional counselling services. However, Open Educational Resources (OER) offer a freely accessible means for distributing such materials across resource-limited institutions. This proposal outlines a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control-group study focused on developing and assessing an eight-week OER-based bibliotherapy intervention featuring Nigerian and broader African indigenous stories (Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa folktales, proverbs, and orature). These were selected and adapted for their thematic relevance to self-awareness, resilience, and emotional regulation. About 120 undergraduates from a Nigerian public university will be randomly assigned to either the intervention group or a waitlist control group. Measures of self-awareness and emotional wellbeing will be taken before the intervention, immediately afterward, and at four weeks post-intervention using validated self-report tools, complemented by reflective journals analysed thematically. The paper places the study within the contexts of bibliotherapy, OER, and indigenous-narrative therapy literature, identifies a clear research gap at their intersection, and presents expected findings, a framework for comparing results with previous research, and practical recommendations. This study aims to deliver a culturally grounded, openly licensed model that other African universities can adopt at no cost, helping to bridge gaps in students' mental health, support accessibility, and ensure cultural relevance in bibliotherapy.

Bio: Esther Oluwayemi Jatto is a Certified Librarian (CLN) and Library and Information Science lecturer with a Diploma (Statistics), B.Ed (Educational Management) from the University of Ibadan, MLIS (Library and Information Science) from Lead City University, and doctoral students in the Department of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of Ibadan. She is a seasoned librarian with over a decade of library experience, enabling her to effectively combine theory with practice in the classroom as a lecturer in the Department of Library and Information Science, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo.

Esther Jatto's research interests include E-learning, Information literacy, Open educational resources and ICT applications in library and information science. She is a member of some professional associations, including the Nigerian Library Association (NLA), the National Association of Library and Information Science Educators (NALISE), the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology (IASSIST), the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

Navigating 'Openness' in Research Practices: Perspectives from Indonesian Stakeholders (Ria Ariani, TU Berlin)

Open science has profoundly changed scientific practice by emphasizing accessibility and openness. As research funders and institutions increasingly require data sharing as a common standard in research practices, the ethical considerations must be examined especially in the field of qualitative research, where data is intrinsically relational, context-dependent, and frequently contains sensitive information. The study examines the ethical implications related to the social dynamics around open science in Indonesia as a local setting, which could contribute the implementation gaps of open science from low-resource environments. The study also aims to highlight the missing values of various stakeholders in Indonesia and how to identify the solutions. Drawing on a qualitative approach that incorporates stakeholder perspectives ranging from social scientists, governments/policymakers, and local communities, the study is attempting to show how culturally diverse environment lenses can shape to a non-hegemonic open science framework by recognizing local concerns and constraints of marginalized communities in order to contribute to inclusive science and research practices, which appears quite difficult considering the local and political conditions. This will help us to understand how open research practice is being implemented in Asia-Pacific areas, as well as how social actors are involved and entangled in uneven power relations.

Bio: Ria Ariani is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Knowledge Dynamics and Sustainability in the Technological Science - TU Berlin since 2023. She is doing her PhD under funding of the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), Ministry of Finance - Indonesia and investigates about the ethical dilemmas of open science and data sensitivity in Indonesia case study.

Previously, she led a project to develop a digital literacy index for special libraries in Indonesia for National Library of the Republic of Indonesia in 2022. She studied Library Science (B.Soc.) for her Bachelor's degree at Padjadjaran University and then continued her Master's degree in Digital Curation (M.A.) at Humbodlt-Universität zu Berlin and King's College London.

Educational Digital Commons, mediation and stakeholders' perspectives: an approach based on uses and information practices (Bastian Donval, Le Mans Université)

Abstract: Digital technologies have been a core component of successive French governments' education strategies, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to strengthen the resilience of the education system. Among the various policies implemented over the years, Open Educational Resources (OER) are increasingly regarded as a key component of France's sovereignty and the quality of its education system. Teachers are the main producers of these resources, alongside EdTech companies. In addition, the French Ministry of Education has implemented a software forge designed to serve both as an OER repository and as a commons-based peer production environment for volunteer teachers.

This PhD research pursues three main objectives:

The study is based on methodological triangulation, combining self-reported data from surveys and interviews with an analysis of institutional documentation on educational digital commons, as well as an examination of teachers' activity traces on the forge. The data will be analysed through the lens of Actor-Network Theory and the theoretical framework of commons-based peer production.

The current presentation will focus particularly on the first results obtained from the analysis of the primary dataset of activity traces collected from the forge.

Bio: I am starting my second year of PhD in information and communication sciences at Le Mans University, in France, and I am affiliated with the Nantes Centre for Educational Research. I also graduated from a master's degree in instructional design and digital technologies for education.

Students' Perceptions of the Presence and Engagement in Open Entry, Online Courses: Implications for Open Practices and Pedagogical Design (Melissa Jakubec, University of Calgary)

Open-entry, asynchronous courses prioritize access and flexibility, two hallmarks of open education. This session shares emerging doctoral research investigating undergraduate students' perceptions of pedagogical design strategies in open-entry courses at an open-access post-secondary institution in Canada. Despite growing demand for flexible post-secondary learning pathways, completion rates in these courses remain low (Martin & Borup, 2022). Furthermore, existing research provides limited insight into students' experiences and perspectives within asynchronous learning environments characterized by minimal instructor facilitation.

The study is grounded in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, in which learning emerges through the interaction of social, teaching, and cognitive presence (Garrison et al., 2000). This research positions the CoI framework as a pedagogical lens for examining open-entry, minimally facilitated learning environments that challenge the instructor-centered assumptions underlying more traditional applications of the framework. By incorporating learner presence (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010), the study highlights the critical roles of self-regulation, self-efficacy, and metacognition in independent learning contexts.

To address the challenge of low completion rates, this mixed-methods study will examine students' perceptions of social, teaching, cognitive, and learner presence, as well as their levels of engagement. Particular attention will be given to instructional design elements that either support or hinder engagement. Through thematic analyses, the study will explore how specific pedagogical design decisions influence students' perceptions of the CoI presences and their engagement in open-entry courses. The findings will inform evidence-based instructional design recommendations aimed at enhancing learner engagement, self-regulation, and course completion, thereby contributing to more equitable and sustainable open education practices.

References

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Martin, F., & Borup, J. (2022). Online learner engagement: Conceptual definitions, research themes, and supportive practices. In Educational Psychologist (Vol. 57, pp. 162-177). https://doi.org/10.1080/

Shea, P., & Bidjerano, T. (2010). Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. Computers & Education, 55(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2010.07.017

Bio: Melissa Jakubec is a Principal Instructional Designer at Thompson Rivers University - Open Learning. She is interested in evaluating the effectiveness of learning activities and exploring design and pedagogical models that break down the barriers and linear confines of the traditional learning management system. She has also served as departmental chair and Provost's Fellow, Blended and Innovative Learning.

Melissa is currently a doctoral student in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Her research interests lie in the exploring ways of enacting care and increasing student engagement in open entry, independent study courses. She is also curious about the strategies instructional designers employ to make pedagogical decisions when their environmental constraints conflict with their personal values as educators.

Image credits: GO-GN penguin images: Bryan Mathers of Visual Thinkery for GO-GN and licensed CC BY 4.0.