Disentangling Educational Curation: How Lecturers in Higher Education Handle Educational Resources

How lecturers in higher education handle, or curate, educational resources during course design, has become increasingly important with the growing amount of digitally available educational materials. Despite the recognition of curation in educational literature and the development of two conceptual models, there is a lack of empirical knowledge of lecturers' actual curational practices. Through 23 semi-structured interviews at a Dutch University of Applied Sciences, this study identified six categories of distinguishable but interconnected activities that constitute lecturers' curational behaviour, taking place within the context of course design. These activities are: searching for resources, assessing and selecting resources, creating and editing resources, structuring resources, sharing resources, and soliciting feedback. The findings suggest that lecturers underemphasize the construction of a narrative that relates the resources and are providing students with little didactical support when sharing the resources. This paper offers an empirical a foundation for educational curation and suggests directions for future research to inform lecturers’ course design practices and enhance support for lecturers in this critical task.