Remixing OERs - Adapting for Purpose and Context

BRENDA MALLINSON

8th August 2015

Outline

Introduction

Motivation for Remixing OER

Significance of Remixing OER

Design & Development of the Remixed course

Pilot Implementation

Evaluation of Remix experience

Concluding Remarks

The ‘Openness’ Movement

Open Education Open Learning Open Online Courses – MOOCs - OpenupEd Open Educational Resources – OER Africa Open Licencing – Creative Commons Open Access Journals - DOAJ Open Source Software – OSS / FOSS

Introduction Challenges to Higher Ed Institutions in developing countries:

Increasing access

Maintaining quality

Possible solution: Use of supporting ICTs

Concern: may raise additional barriers, including Capacity of academic staff to facilitate online / blended learning

Mitigation: propagate efforts in capacity development

Purpose: adapt and enhance facilitation skills - from F2F to online

Two noteworthy resource provision initiatives in South Africa: Supporting Distance Learners: a Tutor’s Guide (Saide)

Facilitating Online (UCT)

Motivation for remixing the resources

Course A: Supporting Online Learners Course B: Facilitating Online

The Lifelong Distance Learner Arriving

Open Learning, Distance Education and eLearning

Conversing

Supporting Learning Facilitating

Asynchronous Communication Creating

Tutorials and Web-Conferencing Applying

Assignment to Support the Learning Process

Course Outlines (Units/Weeks)

1. What did we start with?

Motivation for remixing the resources

2. What did we want to achieve?

Contextualisation for wider African academic staff by:Provide essential elements of each original resourceWhile shortening the duration

Resulting in an attractive and ‘doable’ option for academics

Course A Course BNew: Course C

Significance OER remixing is still not widely practised

African academics need to be producers (not only consumers) of OER

OER adaption needs to move from funded projects to sustainable institutional integration

Continuum of Open Practice (Stagg, 2014)

OERs are not ‘free’, but require: Academic expertise and discretion

Quality assurance

Contextualisation

Design and development of the remixed online OER course

Establish veracity with respect to suppositions: Remixing OER courses with similar licensing is achievable

OER will be reused if they are contextually relevant

Design as Remix (Amiel, 2013) concerns allayed by: Context: Primary original materials were developed by African educators

License: Freedom to reuse, adapt and remix was granted

Task reduced to a regular learning design activity for online provision

Remixed Course C:Facilitating Online Learning

Schedule Tools / Technologies Resources

Pre course introduction

4x introductory activities Online Quiz (Survey)Discussion Forum (x2), Blog

Teaching in an Online Context (Anderson, 2008);Facilitating Online eBook 9Carr et al., 2009)

Week 1 5 x activitiesReflection

Discussion Forum (x2)Synchronous ChatOnline AssignmentWiki, Blog (x2)

Pre-course survey results;Sync vs Async. Ppt (Mallinson, 2014a)Guide to completing a wiki (Wentworth, 2014);

Week 2 5 x activitiesReflection

Discussion Forum (x4)Wiki, Blog, Live web conferencing

5 Stages of online participation (Salmon, 2003);Blackboard Collaborate access guide;Dimensions of online learning (Mallinson, 2014b)

Break week (catch up on reading, activities & engagement)

Week 3 4 x activitiesReflection

Discussion Forum (x3)Assignment – file upload, BlogLive web conferencing

Activity design templates (x2):Mallinson (2014c); and Salmon (2003);Approaches to teaching and learning (Witthaus, 2009)

Wrap up Evaluation; Closing reflection, Farewells

Online quiz (survey)Discussion Forum (x2), Video

Guidance on locating, exporting and displaying the open digital badge earned (Video) (Mallinson, 2014d)

Pilot Implementation

Email flyer to targeted groups – resulted in considerable interest

Moodle was used as commonly implemented by target groups

Cost considerations inhibited uptake initially Facilitators needed to model ‘good practice’ High level of mediation Completion acknowledged by digital badges & certificates Only 2/3 of participants attained the awards

Evaluation

The content, nature, and deployment environment of the OER is important as is its licensing for reuse.

Time to remix an OER should not be underestimated.

The final resource should be cohesive, coherent and suitable for context.

A full understanding of licenses and their implications is important.

The more open the technological standards and formats, the fewer barriers exist to remixing.

Process Remixed course

New and useful experience for participants.

Valued the experience of creating online activities and using synchronous tools.

Well-supported online.

Time challenges experienced.

Need more time to get to know the VLE

Facilitators recommendations:

Increase duration by 1 week.

Enhance the facilitators guide.

Add more pedagogy and technology elements (from course A).

Provide funded access.

Concluding Remarks

Sharing of lessons learned in the remix experience

Course revision to follow

Publication of revised course as an OER under CC license.

Example of remix for context

Encourage further remix examples by African institutions

Remixing OER with similar licenses is an achievable undertaking

OER will be reused if they are deemed to be contextually relevant

Take ownership of OER Adoption in Africa

Reflection

How does this relate to your institution/organisation?

With respect to opening up your own resources Reusing existing openly licenced resources Remixing OER to contextualise to your own

environment

Thank You

BRENDA MALLINSON

SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/brenda6

Full paper:

Mallinson and Krull (2015) "An OER Online Course Remixing Experience"

Open Praxis Vol 7 (3) July-Sept 2015.

Available: http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/195

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License.