The concepts and ideas around a Domain of One’s Own (DoOO) are not yet widely known or implemented in Germany. While there is a fairly strong ethos of independence in parts of Germany’s OER and ed-tech communities, DoOO has not gained traction.

In this session, we will present a project that started in February 2020. The project’s aim is to provide easily accessible information about DoOO as well as ready-made materials for those who would like to implement DoOO in their teaching. After basic research, we started by recording podcast conversations that explore DoOO from different angles, covering a student’s perspective as well as technical, didactical and strategic aspects. Based on these conversations, our own experiences with DoOO and available materials, we are developing guidelines and checklists for different stakeholders. The project Domain of One’s Own is funded by the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW HH) as part of the Hamburg Open Online University (HOOU), a cooperation of several institutions of higher education in Hamburg.

One of the impulses for our project was Educause’s “7 Things You Should Know About a Domain of One’s Own”, which prompted the idea of producing similar materials tailored for the German Higher Ed landscape, while seminal projects at the University of Mary Washington and at Coventry University serve as important reference points. For the German discourse, discussions around digital literacies can provide a basis for starting the conversation about Domains.

In our pre-recorded conversation with Jim Groom, we share an insight into our experiences so far and talk about the challenges connected with advocating for a concept largely based on shifting control from teacher to student in a rather traditional higher education landscape like Germany. During the live session, we look forward to engaging with the communities around OER and DoOO by taking up questions and comments from the chat. With this session, we also hope to spark conversations around how to tackle more conservative spheres of higher education. Some of the questions that could be addressed are:

What can a conservative and largely publicly funded Higher Ed landscape gain from DoOO?

What kinds of reward structures, staffing structures, technological infrastructure and incentives are ideal for DoOO?

What kinds of success stories or good practices can you share about introducing DoOO?