Presentation given to University of Michigan School of Information Social Justice Series on February 5, 2013.
CC BY Regents of the University of Michigan.
SISJS - Open Education as an Enabler for Collaboration, Flexibility, and Global Visibility
1. Open Education as an Enabler for
Collaboration, Flexibility, and
Global Visibility
Kathleen Ludewig Omollo
University of Michigan - Open.Michigan Initiative
University of Michigan, School of Information, Social Justice
Series
Download slides: http://openmi.ch/sisjs14
Except where otherwise noted, this work is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Copyright 2013-4 The Regents of the University of Michigan.
1
3. Context: Disparities
Context: Health
3
Lack of relevant materials
When you look in
textbooks it’s
difficult to find
African cases.
[S]ometimes it can be
confusing when you
see something that
you see on white skin
so nicely and very easy
to pick up, but on the
dark skin it has a
different manifestation
that may be difficult to
see.
3
Professor at Partner
Institution in Ghana
Image CC:BY-NC-SA Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology 3
4. Context for Global Activities:
Context: Health Disparities
Disparities
Source: World Health Organization. Working Together for Health: The World Health Report 2006.
WHO Publications: Geneva. 2006.
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5. Context for Global Activities:
Context: Health Disparities
5
Limited space and instructors available
5
5
Image CC:BY-NC University of Ghana
6. Open Educational Resources (OER)
Any educational resources that are:
1.Free to access
1.Publicly available
2.Shared under some licenses to use, adapt,
redistribute
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7. Vision of open education
7
circulate new ideas
develop new skills
foster collaboration and innovation
Image CC:BY Sherrie Thai (Flickr
12. “Some rights reserved” is an alternative.
Option: Creative Commons
(two C’s instead of 1 C)
(www.creativecommons.org/licen
ses/)
12
13. What is a license?
Licenses let
people know how
they may use a
copyrighted
work.
Image CC:BY-SA lumaxart (Flickr)
13
14. With open licenses, you can build, legally.
14
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Image CC:BY Paul Albertella (Flickr)
15. 15
It can be difficult to find relevant materials.
When you look in
textbooks it’s
difficult to
find African
cases.
[S]ometimes it can be
confusing when you
see something that
you see on white skin
so nicely and very
easy to pick up, but on
the dark skin it has a
different manifestation
that may be difficult to
Image CC:BY-NC-SA Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology
16. 16
Flexibility of Content
Image CC:BY NC University of Ghana and Cary Englebe
Caesarean Section OER Module, CC BY-NC University of Ghana and Dr. N. Cary Engleberg.
16
17. Flexibility of Content
17
(placeholder to Lia)
Image CC:BY NC St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medial College (Ethiopia
Caesarean Section OER Module, CC BY-NC University of Ghana and Dr. N. Cary Engleberg.
17
University of Ghana, Cary Engleberg
20. Distribute Content
•
•
•
•
•
•
20
provide a local wireless network …
provide content via web browser …
provide content via file or app server …
do this with or without the Internet …
do it with or without an electrical outlet …
do all of this for <=$200 …
Raspberry Pi Model B
20
28. Active learner engagement
Illustration is All Rights Reserved Susan E. Haviland, 2008. From the article: Minds on Fire, by John Seely Brown
and Richard P. Adler, 2008, at http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/minds-fire-open-education-long-tail-andlearning-20. The text of this article is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
28
28
29. Active learner engagement
Illustration is All Rights Reserved Susan E. Haviland, 2008. From the article: Minds on Fire, by John Seely Brown
and Richard P. Adler, 2008, at http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/minds-fire-open-education-long-tail-andlearning-20. The text of this article is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.
29
29
30. 30
Exchange of knowledge
mage Public Domain by kuba (OpenClipArt)
“We have limited
resources but because
of the Internet, we can
share. The South has
diseases [the Global
North] knows nothing
about. Our materials
are relevant to us
and in the North.”
Professor at Partner
Institution in South
Africa
Learn more:
http://openmi.ch/blog-ahon-
35. 35
Takeaway: Many resources available to you
Millions of open
resources available
Adaptation, translation,
curation for new
contexts and delivery
methods
Image CC:BY-SA opensourceway (Flickr)
36. Key: What you create is relevant to others
36
Use open licenses to
use, exchange, remix
educational
materials legally and
globally.
Amplify the visibility
and impact of your
work – while keeping
copyright and
attribution.
Image CC:BY Alan Cleaver (Flickr
37. Engage
For more info:
kludewig@umich.edu
open.umich.edu
Download slides:
http://openmi.ch/sisjs14
Presentation by Kathleen Ludewig Omollo. Copyright 2013-4
The Regents of the University of Michigan. Except where
otherwise noted, this work is available under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0
37
The end goal is not just to circulate and revise content and learning materials, but to circulate new ideas, develop new skills, and foster collaboration and innovation.
Some of the benefits of this model include:
1. Saving time – for authors by building on one others’ effort, and for formal and informal learners by having ubiquitous access to educational resources that they can use “Anytime, any place, any pace” (to use an expression from a presentation on Wednesday by Stephanie from KU Leuven in Belgium)
2. Saving money for accessing materials (free to access)
3. Improving quality and relevance of learning content (more eyes to review)
(Next)
Signal intent.
Did you know that by default, the things you create are automatically copyrighted at the time of creation and others who want to copy, adapt, or build on your work need your permission, each time?
Signal intent.
Copyright holders have the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
Reproduce the work in whole or in part
Prepare derivative works, such as translations, dramatizations, and musical arrangements
Distribute copies of the work by sale, gift, rental, or loan
Publicly display the work
Publicly perform the work Image
If you want people to use and build on your work, open licenses are a way to let others know, in simple language, how they can use it. For example, the M1 Anatomy Course has a comprehensive website, much of it is free to access, but All Rights Reserved. We’ve received requests from several partner institutions abroad who want to build on it, including multiple medical schools and the ministry of the health in Ethiopia. Since it’s All Rights Reserved, we need to negotiate a copy for each new institution.
When using an open license, you retain the copyright to your original work but give permission to others to copy and distribute your materials, provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify. There are multiple open licenses that you can choose.
We’re in the process of adding a license to the anatomy website now, which will remove the need to ask for permission each time while still acknowledging the authors and using it how in a way that they approve.
Two C’s, as opposed to one C
Copyright holders may keep their rights, and license some or all of those 5 rights to individuals or groups. They may also sign over all of their rights completely.
Enable others to make marginal improvements or enhancements, to build on your work.
Sometimes existing material does not exist. This was especially true when we started the African Health OER Network in 2008. There was lack of contextually appropriate learning materials, not only in health OER but generally for health for sub-Saharan Africa – not just open but proprietary as well. Many medical textbooks and publications originate in Western countries, and therefore use photographs and examples that are not always suitable for the African context. In an OER from the health sciences, for example, there may be differences in curriculum, clinical practices, cultural sensitivity in patient interactions, and the manifestations of certain diseases, particularly dermatological diseases, on light versus dark skin tones.
(Next.)
In 2009, the University of Ghana and the University of Michigan developed a set of Caesarean section learning modules which included a video of the surgical procedure being conducted on a local patient in Ghana.
(Next.)
St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia was interested in the learning modules for their ob/gyn training program. When watching the video, Dr. Lia from Ethiopia realized that the procedure is done slightly different in Ghana than how they teach it locally. In order to address these differences, the professor in Ethiopia, Dr. Lia, chose change only a few key elements:
- she added a new video introduction where she introduced the module to her students
- she narrated over the existing audio commentary on the surgical videos to provide more context for her students.
- she added some additional questions to the self-assessment to confirm that students had listened to her audio commentary about specific procedures followed at St. Paul’s
With minimal new recording and only a few new multiple choice questions added, Dr. Lia was able to provide nearly immediate access to high quality learning materials to meet a high priority learning need. The original co-author from Michigan was able to guide Dr. Lia through the adaptation.
(Next.)
Due to bandwidth limitations, materials are distributed multiple standard and creative ways, online, offline, and sometimes a hybrid.
The open educational resources created will be posted on the institutional websites, Saide/OER Africa server in South Africa, and a server in the U.S., the University of Michigan open educational resources website, Open.Michigan (http://open.umich.edu).
In order to, to enhance discoverability, we promote the resulting learning materials to directories and repositories around the world using metadata and syndication (such RDFa, RSS feeds, and other data export relationships).
In areas with limited Internet connectivity, the resources may also be made shared with participating partner institutions through offline, removable media (e.g., USB drive, DVD). We have even experimented with adapting a learning module originally designed for access on a computer for offline HTML distribution on mobile phones using a micro SD card or by bluetooth.
We’re looking at other easily customizable offline distribution models, such as Pirate Box or Library Box, or RaspberryPi (which Marshall Smith mentioned during his keynote yesterday), which can be used to setup a low-cost flexible server that can be accessed by those in range, even without Internet access.
Even with the various search engines, there is no complete directory of OER, which means sometimes people don’t know where to start. To address this we, created a human-centric OER Search service, which is similar to a reference service offered by libraries. The request is submitted through an online form at http://openmi.ch/request-health-OER, which includes context about the request. To date, we have received and responded to 22 requests.
(Next.)
(Learn more at https://open.umich.edu/wiki/Distribution_Flow_and_Model_for_OER)
At Michigan, our OER efforts have always included a global component. Part of this is due to the central role of the medical school in OER. The University of Michigan Medical School has a strong history of global health research and education partnerships. Approximately 1/3 of our medical students do part of their clinical training abroad.
Both our institutional initiative called Open.Michigan, which is our umbrella initiative for OER and all things open – and one of our flagship projects – the African Health Open Educational Resources Network - were envisioned in 2007 and launched in 2008.
These complementary initiatives were intentional by our leadership, who knew that learning resources developed at one institution cannot simply be taken and used by others at another institution, especially not one in another country, without any alteration. Customization and communication is necessary to make materials contextually relevant and meaningful to a new group of educators and learners.
(Next)
In addition to the creation of new materials, we’ve also seen uses and adaptation of materials from other institutions.
There is South to South exchange between African Institution:
There have been multiple exchanges of content between the institutions that are part of the Network community
Among other examples, Medical residents in Nigeria discovered gynecology surgery videos developed by the University of Ghana, which they integrated into their training. Through student networks in Ghana, medical students at University of Ghana and University of Cape Coast learned of and studied an obstetrics examination module developed by KNUST.
There is also South to/from North exchange, that is African to as well as from U.S. and European institutions
At Michigan: A U-M professor has used the Buruli ulcer module and clinical microbiology videos from Ghana in his infectious diseases class for first year medical students. Additional, obstetrics and gynecology video-based modules developed by Ghanaian physicians have also been added as supplemental materials for U-M medical students.
Open textbooks authored by health professionals in South Africa are available to the U-M community through our library’s print-on-demand service with Espresso Book Machine. These are also in a centralized catalog available to all libraries and organizations that have an Espresso Book Machine.
An open access Spanish journal translated and published a lecture from an occupational health module from University of Cape Town.
A patient in Croatia discovered an Automated Blood Counts module KNUST online
(Next.)
Learn more at http://openmi.ch/blog-ahon-remixes
The African Health OER Network project emerged out of the belief that OER could be leveraged to address the health care worker shortage faced by many sub-Saharan African countries. Begin by focusing of the higher education institutions that train health professionals. The founding members included:
South African Institute for Distance Education, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Ghana, University of Cape Town, University of the Western Cape.
The Network has since expanded to include other institutions in Africa. When new institutions join, we are able to bring them into the existing communication channels, so that they can learn from their peers. Some new partners that we have been able to bring in this way:
UNIMA
UDS
UCC
AITI-KACE
SPHMMC
HEALTH Alliance (existing hub to 7 schools of public health)
Ethio FMOH (existing hub to 13 other medical schools)
Although the Network has Africa in the title, and sub-Saharan Africa remains our regional focus, we welcome participants from around the world. We’ve occasionally had institutions from US, UK, Brazil, Haiti, and elsewhere participate in our in-person or virtual events.
Our final Hewlett grant officially ended six months ago, but we have designed the network in a way that have been able to sustain the network. For example, Michigan and OER Africa continue has coordinated quarterly audio conferences for the technology interest groups and has maintained the quarterly newsletter. Each issue of the newsletter consists predominantly of guest articles from individuals and institutions that are part of the Network. Some institutions incorporate open licenses into other grants for content development.
It may be worth mentioning that many members participate in other networks - both open content related networks (OCWC, Creative Commons Affiliates) as well as health professional societies.
What can you do?
Millions of resources from universities, journals, government
Open policy movement
Brazil
South Africa
Poland
USA (Department of Education, Department of Labor, National Institutes of Health; also by default documents created by the federal government are in the public domain with no copyright reserved) Example state or province-level policies • Within USA, California, Utah, and Florida have open-friendly policies.
Gov. open data
Kenya
Ghana www.ghanaopengov.org/
World Bank
Opportunities for entrepreneurs – Project Blue Sky from Pearson
Adaption – opportunities for mobile phones
Translation – we’re currently transcribing videos. Once they are transcribed, they can be more easily translated to other languages
Local Materials + Open Licenses =
Greater Access, Visibility, and Use of Knowledge Worldwide
Throughout our experience with OER – whether on campus in Michigan or our international collaborations, we have shared our resources, lessons, and results – all under open licenses.
We’ve found OER and open licenses to be an effective tool to support collaboration, active participation, and transparency in education efforts on campus and with our international partners.
Thank you for your attention.
We have also established ourselves as a national model for OER production and alongside our local community engagement efforts, we've participated in conferences and other activities that support the development of open educational practices.
We're a sustaining member of the OpenCourseWare Consortium and former Open.Michigan team members have gone on to work for Creative Commons, manage ISKME's OER Commons, Wikipedia, and work for Microsoft Research.
The Network has since expanded to include other institutions in Africa. When new institutions join, we are able to bring them into the existing communication channels, so that they can learn from their peers. Some new partners that we have been able to bring in this way:
UNIMA
UDS
UCC
AITI-KACE
SPHMMC
HEALTH Alliance (existing hub to 7 schools of public health)
Ethio FMOH (existing hub to 13 other medical schools)
Although the Network has Africa in the title, and sub-Saharan Africa remains our regional focus, we welcome participants from around the world. We’ve occasionally had institutions from US, UK, Brazil, Haiti, and elsewhere participate in our in-person or virtual events.
Our final Hewlett grant officially ended six months ago, but we have designed the network in a way that have been able to sustain the network. For example, Michigan and OER Africa continue has coordinated quarterly audio conferences for the technology interest groups and has maintained the quarterly newsletter, which goes out to over 1000 subscribers. Each issue of the newsletter consists predominantly of guest articles from individuals and institutions that are part of the Network. Some institutions incorporate open licenses into other grants for content development.
It may be worth mentioning that many members participate in other networks - both open content related networks (OCWC, Creative Commons Affiliates) as well as health professional societies. One reason why the Network has continued to grow.
(Next.)