[ieee 2009 international workshop on technology for education (t4e) - bangalore, india...

International Workshop on Technology for Education (T4E), Aug 4-6, 2009, Bangalore

A Case Study on Content Sharing by Leveraging Open Educational ResourcesFramework

ManishaEducation and Research

Infosys Technologies Ltd.Chandigarh, India

[email protected]

Tanmoy BandyopadhyayEducation and Research

Infosys Technologies Ltd.Chandigarh, India

[email protected]

Abstract - The article demonstrates how Open EducationalResources framework has been leveraged for sharingIndustry content in successfully enabling the transition ofengineering students from Academia to Corporate world.Effective methods, techniques and tools are adopted to put thisinto practice to address the challenges. The impact has beenmeasured and analyzed.

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I. INTRODUCTION

Organizations and Institutions are hosting openeducational resources (OER) for the benefit of learners.These benefits include creating new opportunities tointeract with the learner which is in addition to theasynchronous dissemination of the content, and reuse ofthe content.

OER primarily include full courses, course materials,tests, software, and any other tools, materials ortechniques used to support access to knowledge thatmainly reside in public domain [1]. When we look at themost well known initiatives in this area, MIT OpenCourseware [MIT] and NPTEL [NPTEL] have played asignificant role related to the availability of high qualityweb/video based content in different disciplines covering avast span of subjects including engineering, arts andscience [2]. These initiatives have further enhanced thestudent learning beyond what is available to them in theirinstitutes.

This paper demonstrates an OER implementation forstudents by providing not only the technical andbehavioral education content but also the supporting tools,mechanisms and processes needed for its effectiverendering and usage. A case describing thisimplementation, by way of Campus Connect Program[CC] - an industry academia partnership program atInfosys, is discussed here [3]. This paper demonstrates theimpact of the open educational resources on the learners,how the progress is tracked, how the trends have helped inadvancing the learnings and successes for both theorganizers and learners.

Campus Connect Program (CCP) aims at evolving amodel through which Industry, in this case Infosys, andengineering institutions can enhance the pool of highlycapable talent for growth requirements in InformationTechnology (IT) space. It is aimed at creating an effectivemeans of backward integration into the supply chain bygoing into the college campuses from where the ITindustry gets the people for its growth. The nation-wideprogram focuses on preparing “industry-ready IT pro-

fessionals” by aligning and enhancing the engineeringstudent skills with the needs of the industry. Currently, thepartnership is with over 450 engineering colleges in India.

II. OER FRAMEWORK

In general, an OER framework comprises ofeducational materials and other learning resourcessupported by relevant tools and well defined processes[4].

A. Learning content:

Course materials, supplementary modules, assignmentsand other learning materials.

B. Tools:

Learning management systems, content developmenttools to facilitate creation and maintenance of the learningcontent.

C. Processes

Implementation processes to take care ofestablishment, flow and maintenance of content.

In the subsequent sections, we discuss how differentaspects of the OER framework have been instantiated forthe design and implementation of Campus ConnectProgram in terms of learning content, tools andimplementation processes and systems.

III. LEARNING CONTENT

A. Digital courseware @ Portal

The Campus Connect portal maintains the developedcourseware in its digital form which is an OER availableas a free download for any interested learner. Thisexposed courseware has been used by over 50,000employees internally in the last 4 years. A typical coursematerial consists of outline of the course (high level andlow level design), course presentations and assignments.

B. Student project bank

A very rich set of programming projects formulatedand thoroughly reviewed by the production teams is alsomade available at the portal for free download. The projectartifacts include project specifications, requirementsdocuments, code review checklists and test plans. Theseprojects help students implement either a course project oras a final year project on near real life softwaredevelopment that gives an exposure to integrated learningenvironment.

C. Instructor on Desktop

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Another form of OER is a hard disk consisting ofrecorded sessions of educators on the courses whosecontent is available on the portal. It has proven to beextremely useful for the faculty members in developing adeep understanding of a particular subject.

D. Technology Journal @ portal

A monthly students journal containing manyinteresting and useful articles, from an Industryperspective, on technology, soft-skills and student essaywriting competitions.

E. Online Assessment Collection

In order to gauge the current capability of the students,online pretests are made available at the Campus ConnectPortal. The pretests consist of questions from a variety ofcore computer science subjects.

IV. TOOLS

The key tools being used to support the creation,delivery, usage and improvement of open learning contentincluding searching and organization of content etc. arementioned in brief below.

A. Campus Connect Portal

This is a role based system, i.e. entry depends onwhether a student or a faculty logs in, designed to providea Digital Collaboration Platform for Academia-IndustryInteraction on anytime, anywhere basis. The primarysections include

Student Project Bank for the pre-final / final yearstudents

Technology Journal for students Discussion Forum Learning Center – Technical and Soft-Skills

Courseware (Facilitator Manual and ParticipantManual)

Effective English Soft-skills Knowledge Bank Campus News/Events Integration with other portals and references to

other relevant websites

B. Webinars

Online seminars using Webex platform has served asquite an effective medium to reach out to multipleinstitutions in an optimized manner [5]. The recordingsof the sessions are made available to the participants bydirecting them to the right resources for later referenceand reuse.

C. Learning Management Systems

Freely available LMS software such as Moodle[http://www.moodle.org] is used for conducting theassessments.

D. Distance Conferencing

Connecting to institutions via teleconferences, videoconferences allow good interaction and are usedextensively.

V. IMPLEMENTATION PROCESSES ANDSYSTEMS

A. Learning Need Analysis

An analysis of the current capabilities of the studentsfrom a given engineering college is conducted. Based onthis, a gap analysis is done jointly by involving variousstakeholders between their current capabilities and industryrequirements. The results of this exercise lead to thederivation of their learning needs which is then customizedand run.

Regular online assessments are conducted followingcertain guidelines where the questions are graded basedon a simplified version of the Bloom’s Taxonomy [6]. Infact the assessments also act as OER, since it is open forusage to all the students and it provides pointers to thecorresponding online learning material as well.

B. Processes in practice

OER deployment is facilitated by providing acomprehensive Deployment Guide. The contentsof this guide include a collection of industry bestpractices for managing an OER driven educationand training program where a strong emphasishas been given on proper planning, measurementand periodic reviews that are critical for success.The guide has brought standardization in termsof the implementation of the OER processes andusage of the artifacts across the institutions andprovided check points to ensure successfulcompletion of various stages of the program.

Enablement of faculty through workshops to givethem an industry perspective, and share the useof case-studies and tools for the education andtraining program.

Publication of courseware at the portal whichadds value to the existing college courseware andhighlights the integrated and systems way oflooking at hitherto discrete topics.

Inviting college professors on sabbaticals to theorganization campus to pursue mutual researchareas of interest. The purpose is to plough backthe experience into the education programs.

Technical knowledge sharing sessions areconducted at regular intervals through usage ofInternet and multimedia. It provides an opportunity tomultiple institutions for participating in these sessionsand keeping in touch with the latest happenings in thetechnology.

C. Feedback and Improvement Mechanism

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The participants can give feedback through the portal ononline forms made available to them. It can becommunicated via the faculty members of the respectivecolleges. The feedback is consolidated at regular intervalsand used as an input for further modification andenhancement of the OER and programs.

VI. BEST PRACTICES

A. Open

The complete learning material in various forms ofpresentations, projects, assessments, recordings on portal isopen to all the learners for usage, and participation in itsfurther development and maintenance. More than 5,30,000technical course downloads, 1,30,000 project downloadsand 20,000 soft skills course downloads have happened inlast 5 years that speaks volumes about the credibility of thelearning material available at the portal.

B. Up to date content

Contents are revised and modified based on the feedbackof all stakeholders at regular intervals and again madeavailable at the portal for free download. For instance,there have been three versions of revisions in thelearning content at portal where new sections on ‘EffectiveEnglish’, ‘Soft skills’, ‘Self assessment’ etc. have beenintroduced to keep up to date with the learning needs ofthe users.

C. Joint Ownership

Multiple stakeholders including institution’s Board ofStudies, faculty members, students, organization’sproduction people, educators and third party consultantsplay a role during the process of content creation, updationand maintenance.

D. Broad Spectrum of Offerings

The OER framework is supported by differenttypes of activities and events that not only provide anopen learning environment in various domains but alsoact as a catalyst in promoting the usage of existingOER. An instance of such a program held in FY 2008-09 is given below that saw an active and hugeparticipation of more than 20,000 students fromdifferent states across the country.

1) Problem Solving Abilities through Aspirations2020

In order to encourage the spir i t o f compe-titiveness and accelerate learning through openeducational resources, Aspirations 2020, a contestseries, was launched as an online contest series forstudents of Engineering & MCA Colleges all overIndia. It offered a platform for students to preparethemselves to become Global Professionals andenhance their problem solving abilities by application ofIT concepts and Technology. It also provided anopportunity for students to network with students fromother institutions and professionals while exposing themto the State-of-the-art tools used by IT Industry. Conductingan online educational contest for thousands of studentsposed a huge challenge not only in terms of coordinatingwith the participating institutions but also in terms ofinfrastructure as well.

Figure 1. Technology Environment used in Aspirations 2020

E. Development of Program Ambassadors

While the web based content in different forms is madeavailable online for consumption of faculty and students,in addition, in order to raise the aspirations and motivationof the learners and also to enhance the human touch points,certain additional initiatives are undertaken, be it inside theorganization or in the institutions.

1) Inspiring students by Campus Visits through SparkSpark is a program to raise the aspirations of young

talents. This offering is also available as an OER tostudents of not only the engineering colleges but otherdegree colleges and schools as well.

Spark visits allow the students to get an exposure to ITservices delivery environment, the corporate work culture,services offered to global customers and also learn aboutleading edge technologies through short lectures and groupactivities.

More than 42,000 students have been benefitted tilldate through this program.2) Motivational events at Institutions: Road show

A Road show is a half day program conducted tocommunicate the value and benefits of the OER to thecollege faculty, college Management and the students.

More than 450 roadshows have been held in collegesacross India through this initiative till date.

F. Enablement of institutions via Deep Dive FacultyEnablement Programs

Faculty Enablement Programs are conducted at regularintervals for the faculty members of the engineeringcolleges. During this week long program, while the facultygets an in depth exposure to a technology focused areabrainstorming sessions, laboratory sessions, integratedprojects, case studies, they are also exposed to variousOER like course presentation materials, case studies andopen source tools etc.

Around 3100 faculty members of engineering collegeshave taken part in 35 faculty enablement programs held sofar.

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VII. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

A. Achievements

Leveraging OER for technology assisted education hasbrought success to the initiative in different ways.

1) Learning OutcomeEnhanced capability of learners to demonstrate an

ability to identify, formulate and solve problems related toIT Applications in Business and design and conductexperiments with case-studies centered around concepts andprocesses in commercial software development.

2) Enhanced EmployabilityThe statistics compiled over a period of last four years

depict that on the recruitment side as well, IT organizationshave been getting better yield from the group of studentsassociated with the OER under discussion.

3) ScalabilityThe program has touched the lives of more than 450

institutions, 3100 faculty members, and who in turn trained45,000 students in last 5 years by leveraging the specificOpen Educational Resources. Scaling up to this extentsimply would not have been possible without a proper andan efficient use of OER.

4) Crossing geographical boundariesNot only the institutions located near the organization

have been benefited from this program but the rural onesand those located at farther places have also beenconnected via digital media.

B. Challenges

1) Customized Packaging

In contrast to the traditional mode of educationdelivery where both educator and the students play acrucial role in deciding the content and the methods ofcourse delivery, here the offerings are more or lessavailable as an independent and common product foreveryone. There is a need for incorporating a suitable androbust framework that allows the flexibility to cater to theneeds of varied type of learners, say in form of customizedofferings for specific groups.

This factor carries even more significance in viewof the scale of operations being worked with in thiscontext.

2) Improving Feedback MechanismThe current feedback mechanism is quite limited in

terms of its scope and reach.At present, it is primarily a Level -1 feedback

mechanism that needs to be upgraded to higher levels sothat quality improvement takes place with regards togeneration and usage of OER

3) Lack of Human TouchIn contrast to the classroom teaching methodology, the

acceptance of this alternate education methodology

becomes a challenge at times due to lack of human touchand personal attention to students.4) Bandwidth Constraints

OER implementation carries a dependency onavailability of network services that has also been observedto act as a bottleneck in certain rural areas.

VIII. CONCLUSION

Significant time and effort on learning need analysis,generation, and distribution of Industry content byleveraging the OER framework in last 5 years, it is felt thatOER growth, in general, has had great impact oneducation by way of making technology assistededucation available to a much larger section of societyspread across different geographical boundaries and timezones in a cost effective manner.

As far as the primary objective of the Campus ConnectProgram in leveraging the OER framework is concerned,we have seen substantial success in terms of enhancedemployability, reach, scalability and cost effectiveness asevident from the statistics shared in the article.

However, there lies a great scope of analysis andimprovement with regards to formulating practicalmeasurement criteria and establishing a pertinent trackingand feedback mechanism with respect to each college.

The efforts are already on to take CampusConnect OER framework to greater heights by way ofbringing in changes to the existing programs, meeting newteaching/learning needs which are outcome-based, andestablishing an efficient and practical score-card.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to extend our sincere thanks toDr. Ramesh Babu S, Education & Research, Infosys Tech.Ltd. for his valuable guidance, suggestions and feedbackprovided during the work.

REFERENCES

[1] UNESCO (2002), “UNESCO Promotes New Initiative for FreeEducational Resources on the Internet”,http://www.unesco.org/education/news en/080702 free eduress.shtml

[2] Carson, S. (2006), “Evaluation”,http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/evaluation.htm

[3] http://campusconnect.infosys.com

[4] Bissell A. & Boyle J. (2007, Nov 6) ,Towards a Global LearningCommons: ccLearn. Educational Technology, Volume XLVIINumber 6, 5-9Wiley, D. (2006), “The Current State of OpenEducational Resources”, http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/247

[5] http://www.webex.co.in

[6] Donald R. Clark (June 5, 1999), “Bloom's Taxonomy of LearningDomains The Three Types of Learning”,http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

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