managing and disseminating open educational resources

Phil Barker, Heriot-Watt UniversityJISC CETIS Learning Technology Adviser

phil.barker@hw.ac.ukhttp://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/philb/

Managing and disseminating Open Educational Resources

Overview

What?

Who?

Why?

How?

What are OERs?

Who is releasing OERs?

Why do they do want to release them?

How do they do release them?

What are OERs?

Open: Easy to define (if dogmatic)

Educational Resources: Harder to pin down (because pragmatic)

Dogmatic definition of OPEN

“open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone”Capetown declaration on open education

http://www.capetowndeclaration.org

More dogmatic definition of OPEN

“open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone”Capetown declaration on open education

http://www.capetowndeclaration.org

So not ND

Even more dogmatic definition

“open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone”Capetown declaration on open education

http://www.capetowndeclaration.org

So not NC?

?

?

Define “Educational Resource”

Dogmatic definitions don’t work here

(courseware, learning objects, teaching resources, educational materials)

Santa’s Chair © Daniel R Blume, CC-BY-SAhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/drb62/1099880155/

Arts and industries chair © Darren and Brad, CC-BY-SAhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/ brad-darren/2329466605/

Bench © dcJohn CC-BY-SA http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcjohn/2946647/

from Two Bar Stools © Rennet Stowe CC-BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/2897079476

Tree Stump 2 © Ashish Joy CC-BY http://www.flickr.com/photos/myguitarzz/155124684/

Educational Resources

Something useful for teaching and learning?

Something designed with pedagogic intent?

Could be anything.

Educational Resources

Whole coursesLecture notesPresentation slidesLecture handoutsLecture recordingsAssignmentsTests or ExamsReading listsImagesVideosSimulationsText booksStudents’ work

screenshot taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

Who is involved in OER release?

Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

• MIT OCW was launched in ????

• MIT OCW has ??? Courses

Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

• MIT OCW was launched in 2001

• MIT OCW has 2000 Courses

Taken from Berkeley Webcast site © Berkeley university. http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

Taken from Stanford Engineering everywhere site © Stanford University. CC-BY http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=86cc8662-f6e4-43c3-a1be-b30d1d179743

Taken from Tufts OCW site © Tufts University. CC-BY-NC-SA http://ocw.tufts.edu/

Taken from Johns Hopkins OCW site © Johns Hopkins University. http://ocw.jhsph.edu/

New Jersey Institute of Technology OCW site © NJIT. http://ocw.njit.edu/

UMass, Boston OCW site © University of Massachusetts. http://ocw.umb.edu/

University of Michigan OCW site © University of Michigan. http://ocw.umich.edu/

Notre Dame OCW site © university of notre dame. CC:BY-NC-SA http://ocw.umich.edu/

UC Irvine OCW site © University of California, Irvine. http://ocw.uci.edu/

Utah OCW site © University Utah http://my.courses.utah.edu/course/category.php?id=3

USQ Australia OCW site © University of S Queensland. CC By-NC-SA http://ocw.usq.edu.au/

UCT Open Content site © University of Cape Town. http://opencontent.uct.ac.za/

Carlos III OCW site © Universidad Carlos III. CC BY-NC-SA http://ocw.uc3m.es/

OUNL OCW site © Open Univeriteit (NL). CC BY-NC-SA http://www.ou.nl/eCache/DEF/2/19/943.html

Farabi OCW site © International University of Iran. http://farabi.ac.ir/ocw/

Open University Israel OCW site © OU Israel. http://farabi.ac.ir/ocw/

Hokkaido University OCW site © Hokkaido University. http://ocw.hokudai.ac.jp/

Korea OCW © Korea University. CC BY-NC-ND http://ocw.korea.edu/ocw

University of Nottingham OCW © University of Nottingham. http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/

OpenLearn site © Open University. CC BY-NC-SA http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/

OpenSpires site © University of Oxford. http://openspires.nsms.ox.ac.uk/

Open Exeter Repository © University of Exeter. https://open.exeter.ac.uk/repository

LeedsMet Repository © Leeds Metropolitan University. http://repository.leedsmet.ac.uk/main/index_oer.php

http://repository.leedsmet.ac.uk/main/index_oer.php

Curve resource Centre © University of Coventry. http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/access/

University of Leicester Repository © University of leicester. http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/oer

So much for “big OER”,what about individuals?

Khan Academy © Salman Khan. http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy#p/p

Multimedia Training Videos © University of Westminster. http://www.multimediatrainingvideos.com/

brOME © M van Hoor / Bradford University. http://mvanhoor.co.uk/wordpressoer/?page_id=141

ChemFM © University of Lincoln. CC BY-NC-SA http://forensicchemistry.lincoln.ac.uk/

http://forensicchemistry.lincoln.ac.uk/http://forensicchemistry.lincoln.ac.uk/

Core Material © University of Liverpool. CC BY-NC-SA http://core.materials.ac.uk/

HumBox © University of Southampton. http://www.humbox.ac.uk/

OER/OCW Initiatives

HEFCE: UKOERAim: institutions to set up sustainable mechanisms for

making a significant amount of existing learning resources freely and openly available.

Extent: Phase 1, 2009-10 ~£5.7M; Phase 2, 2010-11 £5M.Phase 3, 2011-12 ~£5M

Why are they releasing OERs?

Why release OERs?

Sharing

Internally or Externally

• To Academics• To Students• To Others

• Potential students• Life long learners• Policy makers• The casually interested

Why release OERs?

Sharing

Internally or Externally

• To Academics• To Students• To Others

• Potential students• Life long learners• Policy makers• The casually interested

But why share?

Why release OERs

The objects of the University shall be to advance learning and knowledge by teaching and research particularly in Science, in Technology, and to enable students to obtain the advantages of liberal university education.

Heriot-Watt University charter

Loughborough University charter

OERs are good Marketing

Search engine optimization• OERs are “potentially compelling content, not like

research papers” (anon., to protect the guilty)

Course “tasters”• A reasonable estimate of recruitment influenced by

OpenLearn is the approximately 10,500 students since launch who have made use of OpenLearn before they register for a course at The OU in the same online session.

http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/4ii7jyi4jnx

OERs facilitate partnerships

Partnerships with local businessPartnerships with 3rd sectorPartnerships with other (overseas) institutions• Advertises presence• Answers the questions “what have you got?”

“what can we use?”• Provides access without stretching the VLE

OERs Might• Lead to better content

• Analogy with OSS• Share development effort• Many eyes see bugs more quickly

• Lead to better / more flexible practice • Open educational practice• Peer-to-peer learning• Massively open online courses

• Provide new approaches to resource management • Use of social sharing sites, YouTube, iTunesU, SlideShare• Reduce the authentication/authorisation burden

How are OERs Released?Summary of what we’ve covered so far:

• Licensing is important• All sorts of content types and formats

• Complex objects / related resources are normal

• All sorts of users• Learners as well as academics

• Exposure is important• On the web not in the repository

How are OERs Released?First catch your rabbit...• Collect or capture what is in use

• Collect slides, record lectures• Filter for IPR issues

• Typically institution will own copyright and other IPR

• Frequently 3rd party resources that have been licensed-in* will be and issue

(* best case scenario)

• Quality control• Include authors, title, consistent branding etc.

Hosting & Disseminating OERs

“Projects should deposit their content in ... least one ... openly accessible system or application with the ability to produce RSS and / or Atom feeds; for example an open institutional repository, an international or subject area open repository, an institutional website or blog, or a Web 2.0 service.”

UKOER programme Technical Requirementshttp://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/12/03/oer-2-technical-requirements/

See also “Then and Now” a summary of technical approaches of JISC programmes from 2002-2010

http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/04/16/then-and-now/

What projects did.

What projects did.MIT:• Many types of

resource• Targeted at learners• Bespoke web CMS• Arranged by

courses.

http://ocw.mit.edu/

What projects did.Oxford:• Podcast audio and

video recordings of lectures (expanding now)

• Drupal CMS• Arrange by series,

dept, people.• Disseminate to

iTunesU

http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/

What projects did.Nottingham:• Wide range of

course materials• EQUELLA

repository platform• Arrange by faculty,

tags, search.• Links in to other

services

http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/

What projects did.HumBox:• Wide range of

course materials• Audience:

academics & students

• ePrints+edShare repository platform

• Social profiles• Clone & adapt

http://humbox.ac.uk/

What projects did

• CETIS’s UKOER technical synthesis and summary http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/UKOER_synthesis

• One Standard to Rule Them All?: Descriptive Choices for Open Education http://www.slideshare.net/RJohnRobertson/one-standard-to-rule-them-all-descriptive-choices-for-open-education