Authentic Assessment
Linking up Student and Academic Voices: Reuniting Higher Education and the Public Sphere Through OER
La Trobe University
Dr Nikita Vanderbyl; Dr Katherine Ellinghaus; Dr Emma Robertson; Steven Chang; Clare O'Hanlon; and Nicole Gammie
Overview
This case study reflects on an open education practices (OEP) pilot project situated in a third-year history capstone course at La Trobe University: Making History: Communicating the Past (HIS3MHI). The project unites the voices of students and academics in showcasing Australian history for a general audience by using OER to publish multimodal student assessments. This generated a collection of historical writing that bridges the divide between the academic world and public history. We were inspired by projects implementing renewable assignments through student-generated OER (Fatayer & Tualaulelei, 2023).
An initial selection of student works were transformed into OER content, culminating in the first version of the open textbook Making Public Histories: Australian History Beyond the University (2023). We used an iterative publishing model to generate a second version combining chapters from professional historians (published 2024) with student work (published 2025) (See Table 1 for details).
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|
|
We designed this “living textbook” to explore diverse digital mediums, uphold the high ethical standards expected of professional historians, and to recognise the importance of reflection for learning. The OER acts as a first step towards truly renewable assignments, as exemplified by the Motivation and Emotion text featuring 1500 student works published in Wikiversity (Neill, 2024). Our pilot project models important principles: these include reflective practices on the ethical dimensions of historical inquiry, collaborative methodologies, inclusive historical narratives, and engaging a broad audience.
Looking ahead, we outline how our project has unlocked possibilities for deepening integration between OER development and authentic assessment, forging partnerships with history associations and community heritage organisations, enhancing student employability, and strengthening student engagement. We conclude with recommendations for fellow open practitioners who want to create student-generated OER and living texts.
Using this case study
This chapter provides an overview of how renewable assignments can be openly published as a ‘living textbook’. After reading this chapter:
- Academic staff will: Develop awareness of the benefits and process for facilitating quality student authentic assessments to be published as an OER.
- Library staff will: Learn strategies and techniques for working with students and academics to publish high quality student created content.
Origins
In 2021, the Open Education Program of La Trobe eBureau (an in-house online publishing initiative) sought expressions of interest in trialling student-generated OER initiatives. Dr Nikita Vanderbyl, Le