Reflecting Open Practices on Digital Infrastructures

The poster “Reflecting Open Practices on Digital Infrastructures” explores how digital infrastructures influence and shape open educational practices (OEP) in higher education. While Open Educational Resources (OER) have long been central to discussions around openness in education, the focus is shifting toward broader pedagogical practices of sharing, collaboration, and participation. Through an analysis of 37 digital services and platforms from German-speaking universities—including repositories, learning management systems, and video platforms—the study identifies core functions such as searching, organizing, delivering, and supporting user interaction. Although these infrastructures enable access and reuse of OER, they often fall short in fostering collaboration and communication among educators and learners. The research highlights that digital infrastructures do more than provide access to content—they shape epistemic and pedagogical practices. The poster calls for a more nuanced design of these systems to better support user needs and open educational values. It contributes to ongoing debates in open science by emphasizing the role of infrastructure in enabling truly open educational environments.