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Challenges and Opportunities With Open Educational Resources
Challenges and Opportunities With Open Educational Resources
MIT OCW
Utah State
Connexions
TESSA
OpenLearn
• The UK Open University has been developing
high quality distance learning materials for 40
years,
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A T O R S
REMIXING AND EDU C
SHARING
OpenLearn facilities
• Online forums,
• Unit reviews,
• Unit rating,
• Video conferencing,
• Synchronous messaging,
• Mind mapping tools,
• Print facility,
• A variety of download formats,
• New features:
• RSS feeds
• My OpenLearn
Academic Transformation
1. Review material used in course
2. Transform materials
• Audience
• Design of OER for reuse
Some key elements in design of
OER
Essential key element options Desirable key element options
Justification/rationale for OER Assessment opportunities
Deliverable over the web Third party resources
Appropriate description of Discussion prospects
finished product
Cohesive learning experience Feedback loop
Development time for: Software
Planning Open source
Evaluation Freeware, shareware,
educational
Collaborative working practices Wildcards
Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew, (2009). Evaluating how five Higher
Education Institutions worldwide plan to use and adapt Open Educational
Resources. International Technology, Education and Development Conference.
Valencia (Spain) 2009.
Potential of OER summary
• All participants were very keen to use the OERs
– particularly the Study Skills, Mathematics and
Statistics and Business and Management units
• OERs would be used primarily for supplementary
support
• Integration, targeted support and professional
development were also strong possibilities.
Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew, (2009). Evaluating how five Higher Education
Institutions worldwide plan to use and adapt Open Educational Resources.
International Technology, Education and Development Conference. Valencia (Spain)
2009.
Potential of OER summary
• The value of the OER units would be assessed in
different ways.
• Fairly equal numbers would either use the materials
as presented or adapt them.
• However although academics were keen to adapt
material and OpenLearn attracted many visitors,
activity in the LabSpace was less than expected (a
lack of downloading and repurposing of the available
materials).
•
• Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew, (2009). Evaluating how five Higher Education
Institutions worldwide plan to use and adapt Open Educational Resources.
International Technology, Education and Development Conference. Valencia (Spain)
2009.
Introducing POCKET
• POCKET (Project on Open Content for Knowledge
Exposition and Teaching)
OU LOGO
POCKET objectives
• Capitalise on the investment in OpenLearn to build a
wider pool of quality assured HE level Open Content
Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew, (2009). Successfully Exchanging Methods and
Processes between institutions to Create Open Educational Resources. International
Technology, Education and Development Conference. Valencia (Spain) 2009
Convergence of approaches
• In each approach it was difficult to use the OU XML package to
upload new content
• The need to download an OpenLearn unit, strip out the content,
and replace it with content from POCKET material and add
additional XML tags if unavailable was not an efficient or reusable
process.
• A minimal course template was suggested by the academic at
Bolton.
• An ideal template was suggested by the LT and OpenLearn
academic.
Tina Wilson and Patrick McAndrew, (2009). Successfully Exchanging Methods and Processes
between institutions to Create Open Educational Resources. International Technology,
Education and Development Conference. Valencia (Spain) 2009
.
Convergence of approaches
• The ‘minimal course template’ would include the essential XML tags
of:
- the course code and title,
- the preface and introduction,
- learning outcomes,
- a main section and paragraph,
- the back matter, for instance acknowledgements,
• It is time to evaluate:
- what has worked,
- why it has worked and
- how we can maximise on the design and
redesign of OER for the benefit of learners and
teachers.
Ongoing work
• The need to gather evidence of use and reuse of
OER is identified as a major project: Open
Learning network (OLnet), which started in March
2009. www.olnet.org