Shironica P. Karunanayaka

The Open University of Sri Lanka | OUSL · Faculty of Education

Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using indiv...

Why is Openness in Education important, and why is it critically needed at this moment? As manifested in our guiding question, the significance of Openness in Education and its immediate necessity form the heart of this collaborative editorial piece. This rather straightforward, yet nuanced query has sparked this collective endeavour by using indiv...

Open educational practices (OEP) is an umbrella term that includes the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER); pedagogical practices encouraging peer learning, collaborative knowledge creation, sharing, and empowerment of learners; and systemic and structural initiatives to support and embed openness. The underlying values of...

The increased use of digital learning environments augments the adoption of open practices in education which contributes to SDG4. The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled an accelerated move towards technology-enhanced learning, prompting educators to re-think and re-design learning environments grounded in innovative pedagogy and technology. In the cu...

Open educational practices (OEP) is an umbrella term that includes the creation, use, and reuse of open educational resources (OER); pedagogical practices encouraging peer learning, collaborative knowledge creation, sharing, and empowerment of learners; and systemic and structural initiatives to support and embed openness. The underlying values of...

The increased use of digital learning environments augments the adoption of open practices in education which contributes to SDG4. The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled an accelerated move towards technology-enhanced learning prompting educators to re-think and re-design learning environments grounded in innovative pedagogy and technology. In the cur...

Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA), an open and free online programme of the Commonwealth of Learning, provides a framework to foster digital education. The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented an intervention during 2020-2021 to promote digital education in Sri Lankan secondary schools, through the adoption...

Our daily lives have been transformed by mobile smart devices. Due to the sudden impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) on education, the importance of mobile devices for communicating with teachers and students has risen to a new level of prominence. The Web of Science and Scopus databases were used to conduct a systematic review of the research on...

The Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) programme provides a framework for fostering digital learning for lifelong learning by developing leaders who can influence others to use digital technology appropriately and effectively for learning. The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) implem...

Open Educational Resources (OER) integrated online courses provide a rich and a flexible learning environment to acquire knowledge and skills among undergraduates. A significant issue with OER-integrated online courses is the poorly addressed instructional design features. Instructionally rich online courses will have a greater impact on both teach...

Authentic assessment activities are those that afford learners opportunities to practice finding solutions to real-world issues and challenges, so that upon graduation they are able to apply these skills to issues and challenges they will face in their workplaces. When learners are able to do this successfully, they are judged as job ready. However...

This paper examines the appropriateness of using educational technologies toward increasing flexibility of learning in a global higher education in South Asia. The integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into education is widely perceived as an essential aspect of teaching and learning in contemporary society and therefore emb...

The Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) programme provides a framework for fostering digital learning for lifelong learning by developing leaders who can influence others to use digital technology appropriately and effectively for learning. The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) implem...

Digitisation has established itself as the change maker par excellence in business, science and society. Infrastructures, working methods and skills are at the forefront of many debates and increasingly determine the future viability of entire industries. We have obviously embraced the permanent change with increasing acceleration. But: Where is th...

'Critical questions for open educational practices' is a special issue of the journal Distance Education (41/2, 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cdie20/41/2). On 16 June 2020 an 'issue launch webinar' was hosted by ODLAA featuring the special issue editors and authors. The recording is available here: https://youtu.be/32O9eTRfRW4 The slides...

The adoption of open educational practices (OEP) requires a shift in our perceptions and practices about learning and teaching towards a more participatory, creative and a sharing culture. Such shifts are best achieved and sustained through carefully designed learning experiences that involve people in reflecting on authentic problems and situation...

Engineering is a field or discipline, practice, profession and art to cater to social needs. Always it works in the real world. Therefore, having hands-on experience and working with a group of people will contribute better solutions to society need. Higher education is the place where students get an opportunity to work with peers with similar int...

The Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) programme provides a framework for fostering digital education for lifelong learning by developing digital education leaders. The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka implemented an action research project to promote the adoption of C-DELTA among teachers...

Students’ learning patterns vary from person to person. Some students prefer to learn by seeing, hearing, reflecting, acting or reasoning logically while others prefer to learn by visualizing, drawing analogies and building mathematical models. Traditionally, Engineering education has focused on content-based or design-based approaches that allowed...

Engineering is the field or discipline, practice, profession and art to cater to social needs. Always it works in the real world. Therefore, having hands-on experience and working with a group of people will contribute better solutions to society need. Higher education is the place where students get an opportunity to work with the same kind of int...

Abstract The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented four MOOCs for the continuing professional development of practitioners on the adoption of OER and OEP. These CPDMOOCs adopted a scenario-based approach to learning within the social-constructivist pedagogy. Learners in this context were presented with real life situations that engaged them in...

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are increasing in popularity mostly because they offer free and open learning opportunities for large numbers of participants. A major feature of contemporary MOOCs is their use of videos to present subject matter content. Very often this appears very monotonous and uninspiring and is not very different from lect...

Access to relevant learning resources is an important aspect in ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all as outlined in the sustainable development goal 4 (SDG4). The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has identified the development of open educational resources (OER) as a potential answer to these...

There is growing interest in the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) in a variety of contexts. Continuing professional development (CPD) among practitioners in the effective adoption of OER and OEP is critical in this scenario. Massive open online courses (MOOCs), which also grew as part of the open edu...

While there is growing recognition and acceptance of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) in teaching and learning, designing for their integration remains very challenging for educators. Adopting OER and OEP in their profession requires significant changes in practitioners’ pedagogical thinking and practices, which...

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are increasing in popularity mostly because they offer free and open learning opportunities for large numbers of participants (Bates, 2015; Daniel, 2012; Downes, 2012). A major feature of most contemporary MOOCs is their use of videos to present subject matter content. Very often this appears as very monotonous a...

Much is said about the importance of reflective practice especially in the professions. Yet much of what happens as part of reflective practice in the professions such as teaching is most of the time left to chance. Reflective practice allows practitioners to see the link between theory and practice by thoughtfully considering their own experiences...

Much is said about the importance of reflective practice especially in the professions. Yet much of what happens as part of reflective practice in the professions such as teaching is most of the time left to chance. Reflective practice allows practitioners to see the link between theory and practice by thoughtfully considering their own experiences...

Purpose A critical attribute of open educational practices (OEP) is the pursuit of open scholarship which comprises the release of educational resources under an open licence scheme that permits no-cost access, use, reuse, adaptation, retention and redistribution to others. The degree of openness in relation to this attribute will depend on the co...

Presentation made at PCF8 Conference, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 27-30 November, 2016

Presentation made at PCF8 Conference, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 27-30 November, 2016

Presentation made at PCF8 Conference, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 27-30 November, 2016

Presentation made at PCF8 Conference, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 27-30 November, 2016

Much is said about the importance of reflective practice especially in the professions. Yet much of what happens as part of reflective practice in the professions such as teaching is most of the time left to chance. Reflective practice allows practitioners to see the link between theory and practice by thoughtfully considering their own experiences...

With the objective of providing direction in the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to increase access to and support quality teaching and learning in the school education system in Sri Lanka, an advocacy program was conducted leading to the development of draft OER policies for the Provincial Ministries of Education, representing the nine pro...

Presentation made at the Open University Research Sessions (OURS-2016), on 17th November, 2016, at OUSL.

Research Paper received Gold Medal for the ”Best Practice Award” at the AAOU-2016 Conference, held in Manila, Philippines, 26-29 October, 2016.

Purpose The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented a fully online professional development course on open educational resources-based e-learning (OEReL), which adopted a scenario-based learning (SBL) design within the constructivist pedagogy. It was designed to facilitate knowledge construction in a collaborative manner with the support of open...

Keynote Address delivered at ELDEC <http://www.slideshare.net/shka/eldec-keynote-presentationshironicakarunanayaka14march2016>

A poster presentation on OER-OEP initiatives at the Faculty of Education, OUSL displayed at the Fourth OEPS Forum4, held on March 9, 2016 at Stirling, UK. <https://oepscotland.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/oepsforum4_poster-karunanayaka_naidu_march2016.pdf>

Like any other educational resource, the integration of OER in teaching and learning requires careful thought and support for the teaching staff. The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka approached this challenge with the help of a professional development course on OER-based e-Learning. Modules in the course incorporated the us...

Presentation made at AAOU-2015 Conference.

Presentation made at ICDE World Conference-2015 held Sun City, South Africa.

It is arguable whether the huge investment made on ICT in the school sector of Sri Lanka has been fruitful in terms of the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the instructional process. Numerous reasons may account for poor teacher involvement while the review of literature has indicated that perspectives of teachers in this co...

E-Learning aims to improve the quality of learning through the use of modern information and communication technologies. Designing E-Learning course materials is the most critical task because its entire educational system depends on the way content is presented. For that reason the necessity of evaluating the web based E-Learning content is arisin...

The concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) is a major breakthrough in education, which promotes sharing, adaptation and contextualisation of course content. Promotion of using OER can be very cost effective, since development of new course content would be both expensive and time consuming. However, awareness raising and capacity building of t...

This paper discusses on 'How to improve supervisors support for completion of research dissertations'. This study was based on Master of Education students who were enrolled at the Open University of Sri Lanka.

This abstract is about 'Supervisors perceptions on students research dissertations of Master of Education Degree Programme of the Open University of Sri Lanka'.

This abstract is about' Identifying Students Perceptions and Improving Supervisors Support for Completion of Research Dissertations' of Master of Education Study Programme in the Open University of Sri Lanka.

The integration of information and communication technologies (ICTs) into education has provided opportunities for changes in teaching and learning by allowing greater flexibility, interactivity and accessibility. Hence, integration of ICTs into education demands acquisition of new competencies as well as changes in pedagogical beliefs. A case stud...

Online course delivery is rapidly growing among educational institutions all over the world, especially in Open and Distance Learning institutions. The frequent criticisms on distance education for having only limited interactions between teachers and students as opposed to traditional face to face teaching can be significantly minimized with the i...

Using online methods for learning is rapidly growing among higher education institutions all over the world, especially in Open and Distance Learning contexts. The Master of Arts in Teacher Education (International) Program of the Open University of Sri Lanka integrated collaborative online learning in the course, "The Teacher Educator as an Educat...

The communication revolution has stimulated teacher education institutions in many countries in the world to integrate modern technology such as the Internet into their programmes. However, just transferring traditional text-based materials to the web is often counterproductive. This paper focuses on the experiences of twelve Sri Lankan teacher edu...