Building a global teaching profile: Showcasing Open Educational

Resources at UCT

Michael Paskevicius, Michelle Willmers & Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

Teaching with Technology Mini Conference

18 November 2009University of Cape Town

Who are we?

• OER UCT Project at the Centre for Educational Technology at UCT

• Funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, building on a previous research project, OpeningScholarship

• OER UCT aims to:– Audit potential OER at UCT– Showcase the teaching of UCT academics– Create a directory listing the UCT collection of OER which

will go live from February 2010– Share lessons learned through a case study

What is OER?

Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials (usually digital) that are shared freely and openly for anyone to use and under some type of license to repurpose/ improve and redistribute.

What has enabled OER?

Change in Philosophy• The Open Source Software

movement led the way in showcasing the value of openness

and the ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly 2003)

• OER is based on the philosophical view of ‘knowledge as a

collective social product and the desirability of making it a social property’ (Prasad & Ambedkar cited in Downes 2007:1)

Emergence of Alternative Licenses

Copyright © Public domain

Creative Commons: Facilitating Sharing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3rksT1q4eg

Financial Models

• Donor funding – e.g. Hewlett Foundation• Marketing budget – e.g. Open University• Commission – e.g. MIT and Amazon• Endowment – e.g. Stanford Encyclopedia of

Philosophy• Membership – e.g. Sakai Consortium• Government – e.g. UK £7.8 million grant

Affordances of the Internet

OER is premised on the ‘simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that

technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular provides an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge’ (Hewlett Foundation)

Why now – institutionally?• Information Dissemination• Student Assistance• Supporting Alumni• Sharing Teaching Practices

and Ideas• Program, Department, and

Institutional Marketing

Why now – individually?

• Profile teaching and pedagogical idea sharing• Create record of teaching for teaching

portfolio• Foster connections between other colleagues,

departments and even other universities (especially cross-disciplinary studies)

• Increase impact of teaching materials• Extend use of teaching materials to high

school learners and life-long learners

http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/online-education/2008/01/10/a-new-physics-superstar.html

New Win User

Is this an example of a repository?

Building Profiles

• Top resources are identified by a natural selection process

• Best resources are chosen by the online community

• Opportunity to represent local knowledge on an international level

UCT Open Content

Kevin WilliamsHigher & Adult Education Studies & Development Unit (HAESDU)

Guide For Tutors In Disciplines In The Humanities And Social Sciences

Published: March 26, 2009

Format: PDFLink

UCT Open Content

Tony Carr, Shaheeda Jaffer & Jeanne SmutsCentre for Educational Technology (CET)

Facilitating Online

Published: May 6, 2009

Format: PDF + Companion website Link

UCT Open Content

Jean-Paul van BelleDepartment of Information Systems

NGO ICT and e-Readiness Self-Assessment Tool Discovering Information Systems Office XP for Business

Published: October 14, 2009

Format: PDF Ngo Guide: Link Office XP: Link Info Sys: Link

UCT Open Content

Ed RybickiMolecular and Cell Biology

Introduction to Molecular Virology

Published: 2007

Format: Website/HTML

Link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/courosa/2922421696/

http://veja.abril.com.br/imagem/professorantenado.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stylianosm/3706684606/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/langwitches/3460307056/

Open Scholar

Conclusion

‘Today, a confluence of events is creating the perfect storm for significantly advancing education. With a growing inventory of openly available educational tools and resources, and with an increasingly engaged and connected community, transformative opportunities for education abound.

The good news is that the emerging open education

movement in higher education and beyond is beginning to change the way educators use, share, and improve educational resources and knowledge by making them open and freely available.’ (Iiyoshi & Kumar 2008:2)

Questions for Reflection

• Are you already building your global profile? Care to share your experiences?

• What are your concerns regarding open scholarship?

• What support would you like UCT to provide?

OER UCT Links

• The OER UCT Project homepage http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/oer

• Read the OER UCT project blogblogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct

• Visit the OER UCT open Vula sitevula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct

References• Attwood, R (2009) Get it out in the open. Online: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?

storycode=408300 24 September • Bonk, C. (2009) The World is Open for a Reason-Make that 30 Reasons! elearn Magazine, July 2, 2009.

http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=85-1• Downes S (2007) Models for sustainable open educational resources. Interdisciplinary Journal of

Knowledge and Learning Objects 3: 29-44. • Downes, S. (2009) Open Education: Projects and Potential. ECOO Richmond Hill Presented on

November 12, 2009 http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?presentation=231• Iiyoshi, T & Kumar, MSV (Eds) (2008) Opening Up Education: The collective advancement of Education

through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

• O’Reilly, T (2003) The Architecture of Participation. Available online: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3017 (Checked 4 October 2009)

• Yuan, L, MacNeill, S and Kraan W (2008). Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education. JISC CETIS. Available at http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf [Accessed 4 February 2009].

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