Curating work-integrated learning: 'Taking care'of disciplinary heritage : local institutional contexts and wellbeing via the open educational resources movement

Work-integrated learning (WIL) has become commonplace in many higher education institutions across Australia. Similarly, there has been rapid integration of digital technologies for supporting teaching, learning and assessment in this domain. In the rush to address associated challenges within the sector – such as massification, limited placements, resourcing issues and staff turnover – the time to pause, take care of and meaningfully build upon WIL practices within this new digital context is often bypassed. This paper explores the role of the open educational resources (OER) movement for not only protecting and promoting the practices which practitioners care about in WIL – but also in shaping innovation that is mindful of local institutional contexts, disciplinary heritage and wellbeing. The notion of ‘curating work-integrated learning’ is introduced to critically reflect upon the OER movement via the lenses of multidimensionality, multimodality and mindfulness. Despite the quick turnover of technologies and shifts in the global educational market, there is a need for ‘slow innovation’ which invites a more ethical vision for shaping the
future of higher education in the digital age. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2016, 17(1), 1-8).