Mapping OER via semantic wikis

Paul Bacsich, Sero Consulting

Open Education GlobalBanff, Canada23April 2015

Outline of presentation

• The POERUP project

• Mapping ‘initiatives’

• Mapping tools

– Custom software

– Mapping from MediaWiki

– Mapping from Semantic MediaWiki

• Next steps

2

Context and rationale for POERUP (4 yrs ago)

• Over ten years of the OER movement

• OER repositories in many countries, yet…

• Lack of uptake by teachers and learners

• Foreseen lack of funding (in EU)

• Shift from development to community building and articulation of OER practice

3

POERUP outputs

• Inventory and map of 501 OER & MOOC initiatives worldwide

• 33 country reports – most updated in 2014

• 7 case studies including Wikiwijs, ALISON (Ireland), OER U (global) and FutureLearn (UK mostly)

• 3 EU-level policy documents for universities, VET and schools

• 8 policy documents for UK (England, Scotland, Wales), Ireland, France, Netherlands, Poland and Canada

• At least 300 more initiatives tabulated but not mapped

4

Mapping ‘initiatives’

• What is an ‘initiative’ in the OER world?

• Institution?

• Programme? Course/module?? MOOC????

• Programme/project?

• Is POERUP an ‘initiative’? Is SharedOER??

5

What is an initiative’s ‘location’?

• What is its ‘location’?

• Owning institution’s location?

• Or department/building?

• Privacy/security issues for small institutions or individuals

6

Larger-scale geography

• Country (or autonomous entity)

• Continent

• Georegion?

• Region (subregion) – not what you think?

• City?

• Political regions e.g. EU…

7

What else to collect? (35+ fields)

• ‘Only what aids understanding’

• And is ‘easy to collect’

• THUS

– Language(s)

– Educational level

– Start and ‘end’ year

• NOT contact name/email, and…?

8

Custom Map Tool

• ‘noSQL’ software: MongoDB

• Loaded from an Excel spreadsheet (as used for Google Maps)

• Custom App

• Developed by Dick Moore

• Demo at www.poerup.org.uk

9

Static maps from wiki

• MediaWiki extension for Google Maps

• Driven from a MediaWiki page

• Actually some searchability, quite useful

• Demo of static map at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Mega_Map_Searchable

10

Semantic Maps extension of Semantic Wiki

• Semantic Wiki explained

– Embeds Predicate Calculus into wikis

– Triple ‘university’ ‘has country’ ‘Wales’ maps to

– Property [[Has country::Wales]] in page University

• Extension allows [[Has geocode::51.2,-115.6]]

– And then maps it!!

11

So have we avoided custom code?

Cue for demonstrations at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Search

Weaknesses

• Semantic MediaWiki not very efficient

• Some lowish numerical limits, undocumented, on size and complexity of search

• In reality still need to maintain a database to load the wiki pages

– And bulk loading of wiki pages not without problems and Excel 2007 ‘bugs’ (8-bit text)

13

On the other hand

• Very useful for simple searches

• Compound ‘AND’ searches can be done

• ‘OR’ searches can also be hand-crafted

• But still quite a lot of hand-crafting (not coding)

14

Next steps• Software:

– Hewlett-funded OER Map service now becoming available from HBZ

• Content:– A lot of unmapped Initiatives in POERUP (‘only’ 501 done)

– SharedOER has developed a new table of OER-related exam/syllabus initiatives

– ADOERUP has updated the list of Adult Education OER initiatives with 8 new EU Member State reports

– SEQUENT has a table of Quality Agencies (and ENQA has a map)

– OpenDOAR has 3000+ Open Access initiatives…

– And distance learning? (not much progress since Re.ViCa)

15

Conclusions on how to map

• Semantic Maps in Semantic MediaWiki takes one a long way

– And it could be longer if SMW were improved

• But custom software will win out

– IF you have the funds to develop and maintain it

• OER mapping is just one of the mapping challenges in open and distance learning

16

Conclusions on whether to map

• Not clear yet it gives new insights

• Yet like all infographics it can enliven data

• BUT THE REAL CHALLENGE STILL IS

– Not how to do it, but

– Who will collect and update the data?

– And why will they do that?

– And who again will quality assure that process?

17

Thank you for listening

Paul Bacsich, paul.bacsich@sero.co.uk

Sero Consulting, for the POERUP team

http://www.poerup.info

http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/File:POERUP_D2.1_edition_2.pdf